The Southern Bridge () is an

extradosed bridge An extradosed bridge employs a structure that combines the main elements of both a prestressed box girder bridge and a cable-stayed bridge. The name comes from the word ''wikt:extrados, extrados'', the exterior or upper curve of an arch, and refe ...

built across the

Daugava River The Daugava ( ), also known as the Western Dvina or the Väina River, is a large river rising in the Valdai Hills of Russia that flows through Belarus and Latvia into the Gulf of Riga of the Baltic Sea. The Daugava rises close to the source of ...

Riga Riga ( ) is the capital, Primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Latvia, largest city of Latvia. Home to 591,882 inhabitants (as of 2025), the city accounts for a third of Latvia's total population. The population of Riga Planni ...

, the capital of

Latvia Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to t ...

. The bridge was constructed between 2004 and 2008, and was opened on November 17, 2008. Construction of the access roads lasted until 2013. Because of the bridge's huge cost it also become colloquially known as The Golden Bridge (''Zelta tilts'').

Construction costs

The government control commission in a report for January 2002 to September 2008 showed that, during that period, costs increased fivefold – from a planned 108.84 million lats (154.87 million

€ The euro sign () is the currency sign used for the euro, the official currency of the eurozone. The design was presented to the public by the European Commission on 12 December 1996. It consists of a stylized letter E (or epsilon), crossed by t ...

) to 570.14 million lats (811.24 million €). In 2011

Riga City Council Riga City Council () is the government of the city of Riga, the capital of Latvia. Its meeting place is in the Riga Town Hall (''Rīgas rātsnams)'' at the Town Hall Square (''Rātslaukums'') in the very heart of Riga. The Riga City Council con ...

terminated the agreement with Southern Bridge third round builders due to lack of funds. In early 2012 Riga City Council signed agreement with the new constructors to carry out final works of third stage of the Southern bridge and borrowed an additional seven million euros for funding. In 2009 The Economy Police launched a criminal case on suspected violations in construction of the bridge. State Audit Office concluded that the

had squandered 27 million lats in the construction. In 2013 the students of Stockholm School of Economics in Riga calculated that the same bridge could've been built for a budget two times smaller.

References

Extradosed bridges in Latvia Bridges in Riga Crossings of the Daugava River Cable-stayed bridges in Latvia {{Latvia-bridge-struct-stub