re: Can the Baton Rouge region become more economically competitive with St. George?

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JBE increased taxes to save us from Jindal's stupidity

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Jindal didn't "cut taxes". the "Jindal Tax Cuts" were the "repeal of the Stelly Plan", which JBE fricking co-sponsored (and Jindal didn't support)

Bringing up JBE’s time as Minority Leader is apparently against the rules.

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4. Traffic - Need a metro wide cooperative effort to finally create a loop and improve traffic in the city.

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I see some signs of cooperation to tackle drainage issues.

But the loop challenge has proven that there's still not enough cooperation and too much parochialism in the area. Ibberville parish is not on the same page as everyone else on the placement of the bridge.

At some point, some entities need to accept that having a bridge that may not be exactly where you wanted it is better than having no new bridge at all.

Member when Jindal was the beau of the ball and picked by the GOP to deliver the SotU response? I ‘member

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St Louis has a great street grid, and is typically rated the best traffic city among top 20 metro areas.

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Makes total sense considering the time St. Louis was developed and the changes the city has seen.

The population of the city of St. Louis is about 500,000 less than it's peak from the 1950s. Only about 320,000 people live in St. Louis now.

That has an impact on traffic and infrastructure. St. Louis actually has "big city" infrastructure that it's had to figure out how to maintain even as it declines from its peak of 860,000 people.

By contrast - Baton Rouge (city) has seen steady growth over the years. It actually saw a particularly high growth rate until the 1980s. The lack of development -appropriate land in the city limits and the declining quality of the public schools have since kept the growth rate much lower. The city today is at or near it's peak population although it's not expected to grow any more. It may have shrunk slightly since the flooding, but it hasn't lost anywhere near the % of residents that St. Louis has.

In a nutshell - Baton Rouge proper still doesn't have the infrastructure to support the population it has. St. Louis proper doesn't have the same problem.

Like education, traffic and drainage infrastructure are major issues in both the city of Baton Rouge and in the surrounding areas. Unfortunately, Ascension and Livingston don't appear to have learned from East Baton Rouge Parish's challenges in managing growth. The traffic/transit infrastructure shortcomings and the laissez faire zoning strategy are particularly pronounced in the St. George area but Baton Rouge has its share of issues too.

Just to point out a great example: The Baton Rouge metropolitan area was about 1/5th of the population it is today when I-10 was constructed through the city. Since then, the elevated section of I-10 has never been widened or improved beyond new stripes. The regional population has grown by 500%, and the number of lanes on I-10 has grown 0%. It hasn't been improved or widened since it was constructed.

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I don't want to continue to sidetrack this thread by only discussing the road diet. I only brought it up because I remember Government being kind of a dividing line that could help spur development northward. Essentially allowing some reclamation of that part of the city. And having seen how that has worked around me, I was interested in seeing if it was having the same effect there.

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The project is still slowly being worked on.
It’s not complete.