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All five Baton Rouge-area parish presidents expressed support Thursday for the latest routes proposed for a 90- to 100-mile toll-supported loop around the urbanized area.

Final corridors for the proposed $4 billion roadway aren’t likely to be finalized until the end of the year, after another round of public hearings aimed at determining the loop’s impact on the environment and development, according to consultant Mike Bruce of ABMB Engineers.
“There are still some alternative routes on this map, but very few of them,” Bruce said Thursday.
The latest plan for the loop was released last week to an advisory board, but drew mostly rave reviews at a meeting Thursday from the parish presidents overseeing the project.

Livingston Parish President Mike Grimmer applauded a decision by the loop engineering team to reinstate a northern route that would roughly follow the Comite River Diversion Canal, passing between Zachary and Baker.
Grimmer said the northernmost route will have much less impact on development in his parish than the only other northern alternative, which would follow Arnold Road and pass through the Watson area.
A third northern route, which would have followed Florida Boulevard through Denham Springs, then Airline Highway north to the Mississippi River, was eliminated due to its impact on development, Bruce said.
Grimmer said much of the proposed southern leg of the loop through Livingston Parish will be on undeveloped lumber land. Plans call for the southern loop to cross the Amite River just east of Port Vincent, he said.
Grimmer said he will continue to work with residents whose property could be impacted by the loop. But he said the loop is long overdue and desperately needed.

Grimmer noted that 100,000 vehicles per day already use Interstate 12 in Livingston Parish, and warned that truck traffic is projected to increase by 35 percent in the next two to three years.
“We can’t continue to hide our heads in the sand as we have for the past 30 years, and pretend we don’t have a traffic problem,” Grimmer said.
Mayor-President Kip Holden agreed, noting the loop is necessary even after I-10 and I-12 are widened.

“You can widen a road, but the problem isn’t going to go away,” Holden said.
Holden said rush-hour traffic in Baton Rouge used to clog only one side of the interstate in the mornings, and other side in the evenings.
“Now traffic is congested on both sides of the interstate, at most times of the day,” Holden said.
Ascension Parish President Tommy Martinez applauded the engineers’ decision to eliminate routes that would have cut through Spanish Lake and the Prairieville area.

The sole southern route under consideration through Ascension Parish would loop south of Gonzales and cross I-10 roughly where the abandoned rest stops were located just north of La. 22.
Martinez said he would like to see the southern loop brought down even more so it passes through St. Amant and Sorrento.
But Martinez acknowledged that a loop is needed, noting that it’s not unusual for Ascension residents to spend 45 to 60 minutes commuting each way into and out of Baton Rouge.
Iberville Parish President Mitch Ourso said his main interest in the loop is to provide a bridge that will link parts of his parish on both sides of the Mississippi River.

Ourso spoke strongly in support of the southernmost river crossing, which would span the river several miles downstream of Plaquemine.
The only other southern crossing under consideration is north of Addis in West Baton Rouge Parish, which already has two bridges, Ourso said.
The Addis crossing would run the loop along parts of Nicholson Drive in East Baton Rouge Parish.

West Baton Rouge Parish President Riley “Pee Wee” Berthelot said his parish has no problem with the Iberville crossing, since the northern loop will also require another bridge in West Baton Rouge.
Engineers are looking at building a new loop bridge either just south of the U.S. 190 Bridge, or north of Southern University.
In addition to conducing an environmental impact study, the proposed corridors for the loop will also be refined with input from a computer model that will project how much toll revenue each possible route will likely generate.

Source: The Advocate