re: No money for passenger train to link BR and NO

Too many states involved.

We need the toll roads intrastate--one or the other routes I described I think would be best.

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I'll give you some hard facts.

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I really don't think we're in disagreement,

My arguement is that within EBR development has occured with substandard urban planning. Your arguement is that people are fleeing toward the suburbs.

I also argue that this substandard planning results in a population density that is not ideal for young professionals, who are now living as young professionals longer than in years past, instead of just marrying off straight out of college. I don't think it's a secret that people want to bail out of here often soon after college.

So, I don't really see where what you and I are thinking are incompatible?

Yes, schools are the reason many people fight traffic.

However, Baton Rouge proper is set up like a giant suburb, and lacks the feel of a "real" city. In part, this is due to poor planning and development. Since BR doesn't have the feel and advantages of a city to begin with, why not move to the suburbs? Every inner city has crappy schools, but not every city has a culture and vibe that ultimately suffers from it.

Fixing the schools is next to impossible. Foremost, there isn't anything the taxpayers can do to fix it. The dirty secret is that the teachers and the facilites have 10% influence on how good the school is. What determines a good school is 90% the students who attend that school, and thus (by proxy) their parents.

But, could you fix the fact that BR has the feel of a suburb (without its benefits) with smarter urban planning? Could that better support growth in tech and other industries in EBR? Could these help prevent brain drain and maybe even attract people to the area?

In conjuction, would that also relieve vehicle reliance (traffic) and increase the total population that the area can support, and even make public transit a better option?

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(2) The "Let's build student apartments over a mile away and across 2 major streets from LSU" phenomenon. Meanwhile, land on the LSU near-adjacent corner of Lee/Burbank remains on the market.

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There’s actually good reason for this one. See, the land around Burbank and Lee that had for so long been woodland, as seen from the street, wasn’t sitting idle. It was actually held multiple producing oil wells. It was relatively recently that the wells finally were tapped out and the site cleaned up so it could be developed, after a lot of those other developments had been built.