[BR Today]

Widening I-12 by going to six lanes from Livingston to Baton Rouge, and widening Hwy. 190 to four/six lanes over the same stretch would obviously carry at least twice the commuter traffic load into and out of Baton Rouge every day. Our primary traffic problem occurs westbound in the mornings and eastbound in the evenings. This traffic comes from the Denham Springs and Walker areas. No one from these areas is going to use a loop north to Baker or south to Donaldsonville to go downtown and back. And no one has a legitimate gripe if an existing roadway truly needs to be widened. Hwy. 190, for instance, is a U. S. highway, and it is two lanes from Denham Springs to Covington. Does that make any sense?

Of course no one from Walker is going to use the North or South Loop to get to downtown Baton Rouge, but 80% or more of the traffic passing through BR would be inclined to use the loop, thereby eliminating the load on the actual interstate. That is the entire point of the loop, to put the through traffic on it and keep them off of the business route and detour them around the city.

Widening the interstate even more then the already 3 lanes we have, will only get people to the east/west bottlenecks faster. Eliminate the out of towners by building the loop and the locals should feel the easement in town.

[vikingsfan68]

Out-of-town/through traffic is not the problem. And the loop engineers are selling this loop to Livingston Parish as a solution to our traffic problems. There are no traffic problems here, except during commuter periods. And then, only in one direction. During non-commuter periods (the vast majority of the day), who would add those extra miles to their trip through the area when it is not necessary?

[mudbug]

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.

[BR Today]

Out-of-town/through traffic is not the problem. And the loop engineers are selling this loop to Livingston Parish as a solution to our traffic problems. There are no traffic problems here, except during commuter periods. And then, only in one direction. During non-commuter periods (the vast majority of the day), who would add those extra miles to their trip through the area when it is not necessary?

Correct, but you are still missing the point. They are offering the loop as a solution to the traffic problem because at drive time(s) we are burdened as local commuters with out of towners 'just passing through' having to use the same roadway. By building a loop, the out of towners will have the convenience of avoiding the normal interstate corridor, thereby tremendously relieving the amount of congestion on the interstate. This will 'lighten the load' of cars on the interstate and make local travel much much less congested. I see the traffic in the morning and the afternoon and how slow it moves. If you could wave a magic wand and eliminate the out of towners, I promise you there would be plenty of easement for locals.

[vikingsfan68]

I completely understand the point; it is just an incorrect one. How many hours of the day are the interstates clogged. Two or three? And then, only in one direction. And your draconian solution is to build a $4 billion dollar loop that will displace many people who do not want to leave their homes, and in return we get faster traffic (maybe) during a small window of time. No, thanks.

[mudbug]

Some draconian solutions in the past have become busy roads in the city. I remember when they 7 laned Siegen Lane. Jefferson used to be 2 lanes. It would have been easier to widen the parallel road, Florida to more lanes, but they widen Jefferson instead. There are lots of areas around town that they widened the feeder streets instead of the arterials, much to the dismay of the residents, while decades later people can't even think of what the road would be like now if they didnt widen it when they did.
Could we widen the interstate like you want instead of a loop? Sure. Could we just build two lanes in the median and have them flow one way and flip-flop them in the afternoon? Sure. Could we add some real infrastructure to the 5 parish area and do some smart planning to get ahead of the urban sprawl and relieve some of the traffic? We will.
Your ideas are good, vikingsfan68, but you only address the current problem and how to fix it now. Now what do we do in 10 years when your fix no longer works when the traffic increases?

[vikingsfan68]

So, your solution is to provide a "fix" that may not work at for present problems on the chance that it may fix problems later that do not now exist? Again, no thanks.

[mudbug]

What do you propose to fix this?
After your suggestion of widening I-12 and 190, adding changable lanes to allieviate the commuter traffic, what next?

10 years later those will be congested, and no room to widen. Magnolia Bridge will have the same problem from the inflow of new residents in that area. How do we plan for the future when you have used up all the right of way on the interstate and US 190 and now have no room to expand, and the necessary parcels of land we could have gotten now for a loop become neighborhoods?

It takes 16 months for a developer to build a neighboorhood, but almost 10 years to build the infrastucture to fix the traffic it causes. Do you propose to do a "quick fix" to save you 10 minutes of drive time that results in more delays as volume builds or do you want a fix that will remove most of the trucking traffic and a good bit of the other cars from the interstate with room in the future to still expand?

[BR Today]

So, your solution is to provide a "fix" that may not work at for present problems on the chance that it may fix problems later that do not now exist? Again, no thanks.

Lets face it, the population isn't going to stop growing, ever. If we don't plan now for 10, 20, 30 years from now, we'll be even more screwed by that time than we are now. Have you ever driven in Houston? Do you believe that at one time in the distant pass, Houston proposed a loop to curb its growing traffic problems? Have you seen a map of Houston lately? Its Loop City. Browse around and find some major cities that don't implement loops. Do you realize that Lake Charles and Shreveport both have loops? New Orleans has what could be described as a loop somewhat. Apparently this loop thing isn't just speculation.

How the hell does Lake Charles end up with a loop before the capital of the state?

[vikingsfan68]

I would much prefer to maintain private property ownership for those who do not wish to be displaced by development (a very real and present concern) than to force people off of their land so that developers can speculate on what they think is best for the future. If you notice, you seem to have admitted that present traffic problems are not the true aim of this loop, but that future development is. The Founding Fathers would be appalled that government is using eminent domain to take property for such "needs."