re: What was louisiana like before the interstate?

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Here you go (takes a while to load)

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Thanks for sharing that.



To the original OP, in New Orleans, the Pontchartrain Expressway was designed separately from and predated I-10. It WAS, however, built in conjunction with the new Mississippi River Bridge and the (old, ground level) West Bank Expressway.

The Pontchartrain Expressway stretched from just south of Veterans (where I-10 now turns west into Metairie) all the way in town to that Mississippi River Bridge. As mentioned in an earlier post most of the footprint for the Pontchartrain Expressway was the filled-in New Basin Canal, which ended right around where the Superdome is today. Between Claiborne and the river, property was acquired and buildings demolished to build the elevated portion of the Pontchartrain Expressway.

Different portions of the interstate were built at different times and not always in a sequential order. For example, the I-10 twin spans across Lake Pontchartrain and portions of I-10 in Slidell were completed several years before the in-town elevated Claiborne section of I-10 was in place. Folks would take Highway 90/Chef Highway west to US 11, then take that to around the Irish Bayou exit and get on the twin spans to head north to Slidell.

The I-610 bypass was the last major interstate segment completed in the area (in mid/late 1970s). Before that, ALL interstate through traffic went through the heart of New Orleans.