Baton Rouge leaders have spent years revitalizing downtown and have since turned their eyes on infrastructure projects that will radiate from the urban core to the south and east.
With the summer construction season approaching, the government is laying out plans for millions of dollars of road work to implement the Government Street "road diet" and to fix up streets in the Nicholson Drive corridor.
The long-discussed "road diet" had called for slimming most of Government Street to one lane in each direction and adding a center turn lane and bicycle lanes. For years, officials have said they want to make the thoroughfare feel more like New Orleans's Magazine Street. There are plans to make a transportation hub, including a stop for a future commuter train to the Crescent City, at the old Entergy building on the corner of 15th Street.
The road diet is also expected to reduce crashes caused when drivers try to make left turns off or onto Government either because they cross in front of traffic or people behind them try to pull into the right travel lane. Those crashes are so common that the changes are being partially bankrolled through a federal public safety grant.
However, portions of Government have more traffic than is recommended for a road diet, so the plan has changed from three lanes back to four lanes two eastbound, one westbound and one turning, with no bicycle lanes between North Foster and Jefferson Highway, said Eric Kalivoda, deputy secretary of the Department of Transportation and Development.
And there still isn't any dedicated space for buses. Capital Area Transit System CEO Bill Deville said Friday that CATS is ready to be flexible and accommodating, but he has not yet heard of any spots where buses will be able to pull out of the remaining travel lanes to pick up riders.
Bidding for construction of the road diet, sidewalks and a roundabout at Lobdell Avenue will open in July, Kalivoda said. DOTD estimates the project will cost about $9.3 million and take approximately 18 months to complete, after which maintenance of Government Street will be turned over to the city-parish.
The state and East Baton Rouge Parish last year agreed to a $71.5 million deal in which DOTD will repave several state-owned roads roads, then pay the city-parish to take care of them.
A massive infrastructure deal is in the works that will send tens of millions of dollars of
Last week, the state gave the city-parish a check for $5 million to repair streets off the Nicholson Drive corridor near the Water Campus research facility another area local leaders have targeted for investment. In addition to fixing the side streets, the city-parish has proposed using road transfer money to widen Nicholson and help pay for a proposed downtown-LSU tram to run along the corridor.
Bidding on the street repair project will begin sometime in the coming weeks, Kalivoda said.
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City-parish leaders have signed off on a $71.5 million road deal with the state, and commute
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