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That does make sense, and you are right. But you are talking about the volume of cars on the highways. the level of service rating for the roadway is computed by Volume/ Capacity. You want to increase capasity by widening lanes. The loop proposes to reduce volume by diverting the through traffic (trucks and drivers using the highway system without a need to drive trough the city) onto the loop. This drives the volume down, while still allowing us to increase the capasity of the current roadway in the future by still having the option to widen if we want.
Another problem we would have in the future is that if we focus just on widening the current roads is right of way (ROW) aquisition. If we widen now, then we look 20 years in the future and want to widen again and we can't, we will look to a loop. By then, several parcels of land that we need to aquire for the ROW for the loop will be developed by then and it will be prohibativly expensive to get. A loop now will still allow us to widen in the future.
People will use the loop from Denham and Walker to get to town when it is built. Not everyone in those towns live on the interstate. The drive time using the current interstate from home to work might take x minutes, but taking the new loop might take x-15 minutes, and cost $2.50 to take. This may be a better option for them. But by him taking the loop also removes one car from I-12/US 190 also, so that traffic is reduced by that much.
The loop will help the people living away from the interstate that take it to work in the city. For example, the person above might live in Denham, but by Magnolia Bridge and work at Exxon. If the loop goes near Magnolia Bridge, that is a much closer route for him to take than driving down Range to the interstate, for the loop will be at least 65mph and allow him to drive fast into town, and keep him in the northern part of the parish to the plant. Same goes if he works in the plants in the south part of the parish, taking the other half of the loop. It works from a shortcut point of view and from a bypass of the city point of view.
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