Shutting Down a Lane on Airline During Rush Hour?

Rush hour in BR is from about 7A to 7P between shift changes, road work, and accidents in the sticks.

I was in BR the other day thinking about how retarded it is that Airline Highway from the old bridge to Ascension Parish and Florida Blvd from 110 to Denham were never converted into freeways.

They already have the ROW and frontage roads to shift traffic to while you work on Florida Blvd from Airline to the Amite River.

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Florida Blvd from 110 to Denham were never converted into freeways.

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NASCAR Superduper Expressway is the name I'd give it.

Remove ALL traffic lights, and have on/off ramps from the service roads.

I mean, they aren't even working on that lane. They are working on the side of the road. They did this same kind of work a while back on Airline in P'ville for the new church building. But, they didn't shutdown traffic during the day.

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I was in BR the other day thinking about how retarded it is that Airline Highway from the old bridge to Ascension Parish and Florida Blvd from 110 to Denham were never converted into freeways.

They already have the ROW and frontage roads to shift traffic to while you work on Florida Blvd from Airline to the Amite River.

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I think that’s a much bigger project than it might seem at first glance.

If you wanted to make Airline and/or Florida controlled-access, the obvious solution would be to use the frontage roads for access to cross streets. But there are significant stretches of Airline without frontage roads at all, and the frontage roads that do exist (for both Airline and Florida) would largely need to be completely reworked.

Then theres the issue of overpasses. You have a few major cloverleaf interchanges but there are a lot of high-traffic roads that just have traffic lights. On Airline you’d likely have to build overpasses at Goodwood, Old Hammond, Bluebonnet/Coursey, Siegen/Sherwood, Pecue/Stumberg, Highland, and Perkins.. at minimum. That’s assuming you don’t need more crossings for access between the two frontage roads. On Florida you’d need overpasses at Acadian, possibly Foster, Lobdell, Sherwood, probably Flannery, and O’Neal. Again.. assuming you don’t need more for access between frontage roads. That’s at least ~13 overpasses they’d have to build, and each one would have its own engineering/ROW challenges.

Then there’s the cost (and time) to actually re-pave/upgrade the main highways.

While I agree that it would make a lot of sense, I think you’re talking about a very expensive and long-term project when it’s all said and done.

I sat in it for a few minutes yesterday then U-turned and took the Woman's Hospital road to Jefferson. Probably took the same amount of time but can't stand sitting in traffic.

It wasn't bad at all. Had to do it yesterday and today around lunch time.

Just pulled over and told them about your post. They agreed to open it back up at 3:00.

Your subject line confused me. I didn’t know if you meant Airline Hwy or Airline Dr. in Bossier. I live in both towns right now.