re: Today's Advocate headline, "I-10 widening garners little enthusiasm"

Listen, the interstate should not be one lane in the middle of any midsized city in the United States. The Washington Street exit and the Perkins Overpass areas are sensitive areas, but in order for things to get better there needs to be changes to the interstate in those areas. Just like all other areas in the corridor. Those two specific areas hem and haw way too much and they are the very local minority.

You are right...but rubbernecking isn't confined to Baton Rouge.

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Everybody I know thinks it should happen.

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I am starting to believe that widening I-10 and building a loop are 1970s ideas. I definitely believe something should be done but I think a more modern technological idea should also be brought to the table.

My ideas would be to give incentives:

To businesses who start using different hours. Like 7am to 4pm or 6am to 3pm (just throwing things out there)

Also, give incentives to businesses who work four 10 hour days and either take Monday or Friday off. Or any day they want.

Another idea is to give incentives to businesses that allow employees to work from home. I know in my office in Baton Rouge many of our employees could definitely work from home. Maybe come to the office once per week and then they could use a cube or share and office or conference room.

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am starting to believe that widening I-10 and building a loop are 1970s ideas. I definitely believe something should be done but I think a more modern technological idea should also be brought to the table. My ideas would be to give incentives: To businesses who start using different hours. Like 7am to 4pm or 6am to 3pm (just throwing things out there) Also, give incentives to businesses who work four 10 hour days and either take Monday or Friday off. Or any day they want. Another idea is to give incentives to businesses that allow employees to work from home. I know in my office in Baton Rouge many of our employees could definitely work from home. Maybe come to the office once per week and then they could use a cube or share and office or conference room.

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Uh no

And I'd bet money some of this is already happening; yet we still have the problems we see every day of the week.

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Regardless of how many lanes are added, the bridge is still what it is. All adding extra lanes would do is move the bottlenecks.

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The frick? Adding lanes where the bottleneck is gets rid of the bottleneck.

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Uh no

And I'd bet money some of this is already happening; yet we still have the problems we see every day of the week.

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If we do not find a more modern approach then building more infrastructure alone will not work. It has been proven that the amount of time it takes to build anything meaningful the city has usually grown and needs further work. At this point, there is little you can do to outrun traffic with the population growth and better traffic means more people so it is a never-ending cycle.

Plus during the construction the traffic is at an all time worse. When the construction never ends which it cannot if that is your only answer the traffic is always at its worst.

We have to come up with a better plan besides putting more and more concrete down.

Study on building bigger roads

Linked is a great study but there are tons. If your only answer is MOAR Loops and Interstates then you can never improve your situation. We have to come up with something better than the archaic MOAR Interstate and Loops.

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So if 3 lanes merge into 2 at the bridge, how will making it 4 lanes merging into 2 better?

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I was under the impression we were discussing adding lanes where it drops to one through lane?

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The "bottleneck" is the bridge and widening the area before the bridge still leaves the "bottleneck" with a fatter "bottle" leading into it.

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I'm aware.

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How does this do anything other than make tax payers on the hook for a incentives that do nothing to solve the problem?

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j

Studies have proven that we are past the point of adding more interstate lanes and loops to even help. So why go that route?

It takes too long to build. Population grows plus anytime something is improved (supply) demand increases.

I am not saying I have all the answers but to say building loops and roads will save us is silly. We are too far behind at this point. Those things should have been done years ago when population was not growing so fast.

If we're talking just adding another lane where it is 1-lane wide, I'm ok with that as well I guess.

I just don't think it'll help nearly as much as people think and the construction will lead to worse traffic for years until they're done.

We need a more longterm solution IMO.

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True, but the bridge has three lanes in each direction but the down ramp heading East only has one.

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So instead of whining and bitching about a huge infrastructure frick-up, let's all be adults and get in the correct lane well before arriving to it since we all are aware of the situation.

Be problem-solvers, people. Be problem-solvers.