I-49 expansion still underway and progressing

Bill Oliver with the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development provided rotarians a window of examination Tuesday into the DOTD expansion of Interstate 49, from Lafayette to New Orleans.
Oliver explained that the I-49 project has been sorted into four sections, each section pertaining to a specific aspect of the expansion.
“We’ve got a lot of work done,” said Oliver of the I-49 expansion, “We’ve done all our work in Iberia Parish, and we’ve completed our interchanges in that section.”
The first of the four sections is considered by the DOTD to be “the connector,” and it consists of a stretch from the I-10 to the airport in Lafayette and is estimated to cost $750 million to construct.
The second section runs from the Lafayette airport, down La. 88, into Iberia Parish.
“We have some work left to do there,” said Oliver. “We’ve done most of the work there, but we have another section left to do around Ricohoc and into St. Mary Parish;” which, is considered the third section.
The fourth and final section is in Jefferson and St. Charles Parishes, from Raceland to the expressway.
“We have quite a few projects going on with that,” said Oliver.
According to Oliver, the DOTD has supplemental environmental impact statements that consist of the terms by which the contracts are drawn up, for the work to be done through local and state governments.
“We are currently redoing those statements, and we’ve gotten a lot of pushback from the original proposals from the early 2000s, and they have some changes of what they wanted, what the city wanted. So, a lot of stuff has changed.”
The Section One reevaluation includes structure types and routes of interchange, which is no small feat when one considers the already regularly snarled traffic situation in Lafayette.
However, Oliver assured that the project in Section One should be finished in 18 months, or so, with agreements having already been made on interchange arrangements and overhead structures to be erected in the downtown area.
Instead of interchanges, Oliver said the city decided to use the Eveangeline Thruway as a “connector” between ramp pairs, doubling its utility as a boulevard to increase foot traffic and commerce, as well. For this reason, the speed limit in that area will be lowered accordingly.
Oliver said that there is a $70 million part of the I-49 project, in the Broussard area, which is expected to be completed next summer, though it has been ongoing since 2014. Oliver said the reason for the project’s lengthy timespan has been the addition of the design of new bridges and a frontage road.
In reference to seemingly protracted portions of the 1-49 expansion’s timespan to completion, Oliver pointed to the lack of funding and hang-ups in the funding process, saying, “It’s a matter of funding. We are waiting on funding.”
Headed toward St. Mary Parish from New Iberia, the project’s engineers worked with land and business owners to afford the route its arrangement.
“Our next project coming up is the railroad overpass at the Patout Sugarmill, that railroad crossing just south of La. 85,” said Oliver. “We were approached by your own Representative Sam Jones, and we are partnering with the mill, instead of building overpasses, to provide them access through a pipeline, for their molasses, and a rail spur, to move the rail spur to the north side.”
Oliver says this kind of transaction is called “right-of-way mitigation,” by which the DOTD transacts with local and business landowners, in order to come to mutually beneficial terms for the construction of a route or structure through private property. Either the property is purchased outright, or circumstances are agreed on which mitigate any negative affect the construction may have on the property’s inhabitants or business.
The Patout Mill project is in the final stages of legalizing its funding, according to Oliver, and should begin construction soon.
Oliver went on to say of the project toward St. Mary Parish, “The La. 318, we’re working on the final stages now. We’re going to finish that project in early spring. The bridges are there. We have some final right-of-way utility issues, so that’s why that project’s seemed to go a little slower.
“Our next project is the section all the way from here to Bayou Beouf.”
Oliver says that safety concerns and engineering difficulties have made that section of the project particularly difficult, but says that the DOTD has begun traffic data collection at the area of concern, and assured that is a sign of progress.
With construction measures being taken to reduce the overall project costs, Oliver says that the projects underway and those planned for the future, benefit their timespans by costing less, so beginning faster.