Baton Rouge News | Baton Rouge Loop - Adding a Lane to I-12 Towards Walker

Ironically, the first I heard of this story was while I was sitting on I-12 eastbound between Sherwood Forest Blvd and Millerville rd Monday afternoon. Did I mention I was going 5 mph? No I wasn't doing my part in fuel conservation; I was going with the flow of traffic! Why were we moving that slow, you ask? Simple. Right in the middle of the largest city in the state, we have a grand design to our main interstate roadway that drops 3 lanes down to 2 lanes. Yeah, I don't see how anyone didn't see this teeny little design flaw when they constructed it a few years back. I mean, really, for this stretch of highway it was actually an upgrade at the time. See, Baton Rouge once had the world record for the only actual portion of an interstate roadway that was one (1, uno, single, less than 2) lane. Yes, one lane. You know the spot all too well if you ever came from West Baton Rouge over the I-10 bridge and merged eastbound at the 10/110 split. I guess 3 lanes into 2 surely trumps 2 lanes into 1 so why the hell not!

This preplanned bottleneck has caused more accidents than you can shake a stick at, several of which resulted in fatalities. Sure the speed limit is only 60mph and, hey, we spent like 99 bucks last year putting LED flashing lights on the speed limit signs just in case motorists didn’t catch the 6 foot square white reflective sign that said 60mph. I'm sure with the LED lights, more people are slowing down, yeah. Anyway, finally, it appears as if the state would like to correct this slight error and extend the 3 lane portion of the interstate out past Denham, possibly as far as Walker. The location of the next 3/2 lane drop is still undecided. That decision will be based purely on cost and a contractor for the job still hasn't been selected. Once that happens, we should know how far we can afford to go. One thing is for sure, the extension will cross the Amite River and make it past Denham Springs. The new section of bridge being built over the Amite will raise the height of the bridge another 6 feet and, of course, add one lane in both directions.

To keep costs low, the new lanes will be added on the inside of the existing roadway. That eliminates the need to have to complete any land acquisitions. It also means less grass to maintain, which should mean somewhat of a neater appearance and a slight cost in maintenance. I would assume that the roadway will be built exactly like the current setup between Sherwood Forest and Millerville, with the center concrete divider separating the east and westbound lanes. If so, that adds an extra safety factor into the project. I can't recall how many accidents I’ve seen between O'Neal and Walker which were caused by vehicles crossing the median and striking oncoming traffic.

According to sources, the project should be underway by the spring of 2009 and completed at the end of 2011. Let’s just cross our fingers that this extra lane makes it all the way to the Walker exit. It’s no secret that there are mass amounts of traffic flow to and from that exit and I would hate to see our O'Neal lane bottleneck get shifted out past Juban Rd. I think that if the right lane ended as an exit to Walker going east and began as a full entrance lane from Walker going west, this project would be a complete success and slow downs would be extremely minimal at peak times in these areas.