BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - East Baton Rouge Parish has agreed to take control of 11 miles of key state roads leading to downtown, which officials hope will speed up the progress of some major road projects.
The Advocate reports (https://bit.ly/1fyk7hT ) the Metro Council voted Wednesday to accept portions of Nicholson Drive, River Road and Government Street on behalf of the city-parish.
The state will award Baton Rouge about $13 million in construction credits, which is supposed to cover 40 years of maintenance costs for the roads.
Public Works Director David Guillory said the move is just the first phase of roughly 100 miles of roads and $100 million worth of road credits East Baton Rouge Parish expects to eventually take from the state.
Nicholson Drive, River Road and Government Street were chosen for the first phase because there are active plans for those areas.
Changing Government Street from four lanes to two lanes with a turning lane and sidewalks or bike paths has long been a topic of discussion for the city-parish.
Guillory said taking control of the road will help expedite the project, but he could not nail down a timeline for construction for the council members. Pressed for an answer, he said he thought construction could reasonably begin in 2015.
Councilman Ryan Heck took issue with the fact that the first phase of the state road program involved three roads leading to downtown Baton Rouge.
“I’m kind of shocked that it has a whole lot of focus downtown and not the rest of the parish,” Heck said. “There’s a lot of other places in the parish.”
Guillory said he expected to return to the council later this year to approve the remainder of the roads in the state transfer program.
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Information from: The Advocate, https://theadvocate.com
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