Posted on 01/03/2006 1:19:57 PM PST by CajunConservative
The two westbound lanes of the I-10 Twin Spans Bridge will reopen Friday morning, January 6, eight days ahead of schedule, the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development announced Tuesday.
Spokesperson Cleo Joffrion Allen said a ribbon-cutting ceremony will be held at 10 a.m. Thursday. Scheduled to appear are Governor Kathleen Blanco, acting Federal Highway Administrator J. Richard Capka, DOTD Secretary Johnny B. Bradberry and Boh Bros. President Robert S. Boh, the contractor for the work.
The westbound lanes will open officially at around 6 a.m. on Friday, Allen said; and the eastbound left lane will be closed during off-peak hours for the first three days thereafter to allow for re-striping of the bridge back to one-way configuration.
Allen said repairs began on a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week schedule two weeks after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans and storm surge knocked 435 segments—weighing 309 tons—out of alignment. Sixty-four segments were damaged so badly they had to be discarded.
The Twin Spans Bridge was reconstructed in three phases, totaling approximately $35 million. That’s up $4.1 million after a change order to have two westbound lanes instead of one in the repair contract.
According to the DOTD, an average of nearly 55,000 vehicles a day traveled the 5.4 miles across Lake Pontchartrain on the twin spans prior to the storm.
"Do you really want them back? I know your mayor does."
Nagin is in office because he won 70% of the white vote, which, if you read his margin of victory, shows that he and Pennington split the black vote pretty evenly, with blacks more inclined towards the Dutch side of life (thats a reference to a former Mayor) going for Morial's chief.
The image of Nagin that the national media portrayed is not a realistic one, he's not an ardent Democrat, he's not some sort of radical black power guy, and to be honest, prior to Katrina, he represented the best hope New Orleans had of pulling itself out of the muck. Even now, Nagin is working more closely with the feds then he is with Blanco, this should tell you just about where he lies in the scheme of things.
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