re: I-10 Corridor Improvement Study - survey to voice your opinion

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Except that you will need at least one new river crossing which will be near or over a billion dollars on its own. Without alternative funding sources (P3, tolls, etc), it will continue to be a pipe dream. That kind of cost would eat up the program or budget for several years, meaning there would be no other project built in the state. No way any group of politicians would ever agree to it.

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Everyone knows that another bridge isn't a matter of "if" but of "when". The state has even begun work on approving a bridge somewhere along Hwy 30 (what Nicholson becomes south of the city limits). So what we should be focusing on is "where" (St. Gabe gets my vote) and using it as a foundation to push for a loop.

I actually took the survey seriously. I probably wasted my time, but on the off chance I didn't....who knows.

Yeah, finch is totally gonna burn you bro.

My biggest suggestion was frontage roads from Highland to downtown and alternative connections to major arterials. The second one might not be very feasible, but I think some bypass routes could do the trick too.

Speaking of crappy BR traffic. What's the exit one could take when coming from Lafayette on 10 EB to bypass most of the traffic in BR. Brings you to Port Allen-I think Rosedale exit?

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My biggest suggestion was frontage roads from Highland to downtown

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How are frontage roads feasible past Essen?

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go for the placebo and worry about the pipe dream later.


Which is why we are where we are now. This is something that should have been done 20-30 years ago.

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They shouldhave done something years ago true, but they really messed up in the last decade. Some combo of a loop, I-49, widening of all of I-10 should have been passed between '06-'10. The state could have sold it as a way to help improve evacuation of NOLA (mainly I-49) and widening of I-10 it could have been a landmark program for Obama's infastrucure agenda, but our political leaders missed a golden opportunity there.

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it could have been a landmark program for Obama's infastrucure agenda, but our political leaders missed a golden opportunity there.

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I thought Mary was on top of this. The best interest of her Louisiana peoples.

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no shite, but it wasn't. get over it.

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I don't buy into the "it's too difficult so let's not even try it" mindset. If everyone thought like that we wouldn't even have an interstate system, much less be needing a loop.

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you have neither the money

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Government projects of this scope start with the project first, then they worry about outlay.

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or consensus to build one-

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Since when?? Anytime the subject of BR traffic comes up one of the first things mentioned is how a loop is needed.

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see if you can get another bridge crossing the MR south of the MRB and still within proximity of Asc/LP.

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We agree on that. But having a bridge just to have a bridge is... well... what they built to connect the St Francisville area to New Roads. You need two things for the bridge to be worthwhile: proper location and adequate access.

We agree (roughly) on the location. Putting a bridge too far north or south of St Gabe either just makes LSU a complete clusterfrick (by putting it in Brusly/Addis) or makes it as useful for BR traffic as the Sunshine bridge.

So now you have a bridge, but then what? Who is using it and why? How is traffic getting to it? Who makes up a lot of the traffic?

The point is that eventually that bridge will have to be linked up with *at least* LA 1 and I10 to be viable.

But then what? What good is it to link up to LA 1 if you have to go through the twists and turns of Plaquemine then fight the nightmare that is LA 1 up to I10? You haven't really "solved" anything nearly so much as just moved it around a bit.

No, continuing to half-arse it simply isn't going to work.

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What's the exit one could take when coming from Lafayette on 10 EB to bypass most of the traffic in BR. Brings you to Port Allen-I think Rosedale exit?

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Lobdell.

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What would be ideal but too damn expensive would be to have a private loop built utilizing the a renovated and expanded old bridge (like what they did in JP) and a new bridge in the St. Gabriel area. Then lobby the state to finsih I-49 and expand the I-10 to 3 lanes all the way from the Texas border to the Mississippi border. Build another bridge next to the new bridge so that you can have atleast 2 cross through lanes, 2 exit lanes and full shoulder on the right and left side of both bridges. Then exapnd the basin bridge to 3 lanes and an oversized shoulder (10-12 feet) so that it can be used for rerouting traffic in an accident or for emegerncy vehicles to use.


And that would cost eleventy billion dollars.

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Well the loop would cost about $5-7 billion and be a toll road and not cost the state much of anything. I-49 would be a 90-10 or maybe a 80/20 federal/state and cost about $2 billion. A new bridge next to the New Bridge would probably cost about $1billion and then add on another $250million to redo the current new bridge. Widening I-10 and I-12 would probably cost around $1million/mile and there are 274.2 milesof I-10 in Louisiana and 86 miles of I-12. Since some of it has already been expanded and some might not need to be expanded like I-10 from Gonzales to the I-55 merger since I-49 would alleviate the traffic coming from the west. $15 billion could do the whole project.

If the state and feds would go ahead and plan for the next 30 years that could be very doable. They should try to alleviate the current log jams by closing the Washingtonstreet exit and installing or utilizing more ramp meters. Then try to get a loop or atleast a northern bypass and I-49 completed in the next 10 years. Then try to expand I-10.