If you frequent the Mall of Louisiana, have ever visited Our Lady of the Lake Hospital or the Baton Rouge General, surely you’re familiar with Picardy Ave. It started out as just a small stretch of road west of Essen that was filled with various medical offices. If you traveled Picardy across Essen to the east, you came to a dead end about a half a mile down. With the addition of the new Baton Rouge General Hospital and the Mall of Louisiana on Bluebonnet, Picardy underwent a growth spurt, connecting the hospital with Bluebonnet and wrapping around the mall. If you took Picardy to the west from Bluebonnet, you would hit its dead end just past the mall parking lot. Picardy to the east of Bluebonnet takes you around the mall and now, with the latest mall expansion, Picardy takes you all the way to Interstate 10.

The Baton Rouge Green Light Plan’s latest completed project is connecting the 2 Picardy Avenue dead ends. This makes it possible to turn onto Picardy off of Essen headed east and make it all the way to Bluebonnet. This route used to only be possible by taking Summa ave, which runs off Essen across from OLOL hospital, or taking Perkins Rd, which just recently was upgraded to 4 lanes between Essen and Bluebonnet. With the completion of Perkins and now the Picardy connection, travel east/west between Bluebonnet and Essen has received a little relief.