The planned construction of the northern transport corridor over the Daugava River in Riga could cost €1.5 billion, according to Riga Deputy Mayor Ainars Slesers at a meeting of the Investment and Business Promotion Council’s meeting on 23 September. The northern transport corridor will be a public-private partnership, which also means that using the bridge will not be free of charge, LETA reported. Slesers said work on the designs could continue for about a year, and implementation of the project could commence in 2011: The project will continue five to seven years, and it would greatly benefit the national economy. It will also create 20,000 to 40,000 new jobs. Slesers added that a foreign bank consortium would have to be involved in financing the project, and stressed that the Freeport of Riga would like the new crossing to be a bridge at least 60 metres in hight. Riga Northern Transport Corridor (Northern Corridor) is the largest transportation infrastructure project in Riga over the last decades. The goal of the project is to create new transit highway through the city in an east-west direction, bypassing the city’s historical centre.