Posted on 09/05/2019 12:56:05 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Even though it’s been about a year since the last public meeting on the Interstate 49 Connector in Lafayette, the project isn’t dead, or even dormant.
Louisiana Transportation Secretary Shawn Wilson told The Acadiana Advocate on Monday things are happening to move the 5-mile section of interstate toward the federal Record of Decision needed to secure funding and start construction.
The ideas and plans presented at public hearings over the past two years are being worked on, he said, and the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development is drawing up a contract extension for the consultants working on the project.
The extension is needed because the project was reset two years ago after residents objected to proceeding with plans that were finalized in 2003 and sat dormant for seven years.
It cost extra money and delayed the project two years, but Wilson said he’s happy with the changes.
“If we had just build what we agreed to 20 years ago, people would have been horribly unhappy,” he said.
The revised consultant contract should be signed in March or April, Wilson said, at which time the next steps can begin in the Supplemental Environmental Impact Study and Context Sensitive Solutions process.
A request by residents to turn a section of Evangeline Thruway into a grand boulevard is still being analyzed. The connector will roughly follow the existing path of Evangeline Thruway except between 14th Street and 2nd Street. Some residents and city officials want to convert part of that stretch of Thruway into a boulevard with tree-lined medians and amenities designed to encourage safe pedestrian traffic.
(Excerpt) Read more at theadvocate.com ...
Article is, as they say, an oldie but a goodie.
PING.
Anyone?? How do state taxes in Indiana compare with Illinois?
This is Lafayette, LOUISIANA, so comparing Illinois taxes with Louisiana taxes seems to be the thing to do.
Slower than making a 2 beer roux.
Sorry. I only know Lafayette Indiana. My bad. Only asked ‘cause as I move to leave the Northeast, Indiana (but not Louisiana) is one of my considerations.
I think Indiana is ideal, but a bunch of Illinois libs will follow you and muck things up in your new home. Count on it.
I am not in Illinois. I do have relatives there, and in Indiana too.
Thanks
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