re: Concepts that Baton Rouge Lacks

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Biloxi is a very large tourist draw.

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Really?

Dewster:

The bridge you want and that BR needs has already been built

It is, unfortunately, in the wrong place, connecting the sprawling metropolises of St Francisville and New Roads!

ORIGINALLY PLANNED AND BID FOR $40M as part of the TIMED infrastructure to be built with the gasoline tax enacted in 1987

On completion cost was over $450M!

On a busy day there now might be 2-300 cars crossing via that bridge !

To paraphrase the great Cmdr Spock:
" The greed of the few outweighs the needs of the many!

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More neighborhood parks and small shopping/restaurant areas within neighborhoods

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That's actually trending in BR. It's private development which explains why its happening.

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More neighborhood parks

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I think BREC actually already does a pretty good job of this. There are 192 parks across the Parish. You're near parks all the time when you're driving around the parish.

Step 1: Continue to increase the population density at/near downtown. Fill in Nicholson corridor and plug that gap along Government street between downtown and mid-city. This has the effect of pulling more disposable income closer into BTR and away from NOLA. As it stands, much of the disposable income in Baton Rouge is on the Southeast side of the Parish, where there isn't much of a convenience gap between heading into Baton Rouge or just saying "screw it" and heading into Nola.

Step 2: Use that re-vitalized core and create bus routes that cater to people with disposable income. Previous attempts at this have focused on Monday-Friday 8AM-5PM type routes, which means most "riders of choice" that they were targeting were at work. A line running up and down Government that operates on weekend nights, for instance, would be useful (just make permanent the "White Light Night" provisions), as would a weekend night route between LSU and downtown.

Step 3: Hopefully, by focusing growth inward instead of outward and actually getting riders of choice to use public transportation, we can focus our money on a new bridge across the Mississippi river, and not on say, making I-10 3 lanes out past Gonzales.

Step 4: With new bridge in place, Port Allen experiences some growth, and serves again to pull the core of disposable income further west and closer to downtown Baton Rouge, allowing for further development downtown.

Step 5: The closer people are to downtown instead of the Southeast corner of the Parish, the more convenient BTR becomes in relation to MSY, allowing BTR to increase their flight options.

Step 6: With a defined urban core and development, BR becomes a common getaway for Nola residents who want to escape Nola during their most touristy weekends, effectively spreading the tourist dollars between the whole region, increasing SELA's tourist capacity. BR of course, will never beat NOLA for out of state tourists outright.

There are several concepts Baton Rouge lacks.

- A central location. There isn't really one area you can go to and there are things you can find, to do.

The zoo and airport are pretty much on an island. Just kind of sitting there in Baker with nothing else around it. There is blue bayou, which is more of a local type place. I doubt anyone from out of state has ever said "Are we going to Baton Rouge next week? Cool! We can go to Blue Bayou. I can't wait".

You have downtown, which is more lively than it has in the past, and although there are two casino boats down there, they are not worth going to. Downtown is a few miles north of LSU's campus, L'auberge is located several miles south of LSU's campus, which has nothing else around it.

You have the Mall of Louisiana, which we all know where the state of malls are headed. Down the road is perkins rowe and then there is Towne Center on Corporate. Public transportation kind of sucks so that doesn't really help a city that is already spread out all over the place.

The traffic problem isn't getting better anytime soon. The traffic in Baton Rouge today is much worse than it was 15 years ago. You have many people, who live in surrounding parishes, coming into Baton Rouge every day for work. There are a lot of people who live in Baton Rouge who work at surrounding plants. For people who live in West Baton Rouge, Iberville, Pointe Coupee parishes can't even think about going into Baton Rouge after 3:30PM. If there is a wreck on the Mississippi River bridge or on the interstate, it's even worse. Not to mention, there are traffic problems for the people in Ascension and livingston parish, coming into BR. A loop, a new bridge.. Something is needed.

And then there is the Mayor. She doesn't really make the city attractive by having a "Malcolm X Day" or siding with the family of a criminal asking for a police officer, who was doing his job, to be fired.

BRILLINI 07

Your plan shows a lot of thought unfortunately it will never happen

The good people of BR will never move back towards downtown or even mid city.

That is why downtown will continue to deteriorate
Would/do you live there?

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Your plan shows a lot of thought unfortunately it will never happen

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Downtown revitalizations in hollowed-out industrial cities are becoming pretty common: Houston, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, and Birmingham are good examples. I don't see why Baton Rouge couldn't take a similar trajectory.

That said, the momentum is clearly toward the southeast of the parish. As Brillini said, it has more or less become the true city center in one sort of way -- all the disposable income is down there.

Ever since the loss of the Bombay Bicycle Club, a good Key West / Carribean / Polynesian restaurant like a Bahama Breeze.

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The good people of BR will never move back towards downtown or even mid city.

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Mid-City and Capital Heights are two of the most desirable neighborhoods in Baton Rouge. Homes in those areas usually sell in a matter of a few days. There was a recent push under Holden to clean up the blight along the Government Street corridor. Unless Broome takes a break from race baiting, I imagine this effort will go by the wayside unless it's pushed by private developers.