New Orleans: Takes a cop's death to fix a broken drawbridge...

WWL-AM/FM (New Orleans, LA): Malfunctioning safety barrier to be replaced at Claiborne Bridge

This is the same bridge where, last month, a NOPD officer drove off into the water when a barrier failed to lower into place. Apparently the project was in the works already, but the death of one of NOLA's Finest caused things to get fast-tracked. It's just another example of Business As Usual as far as any sort of improvements or repairs go on the roads of Southern Louisiana... somebody has to die before they'll fix a drawbridge, put up a stop sign/traffic light, or build an alternate to a shoddy primary route. And if it's someone important like a cop or some yuppie, they'll go out of their way to do it yesterday.

It's always the same when it comes to public works around here, no matter the parish. I'll spare you the stories of the four-way intersection where my aunt totaled several luxury cars, or the "T" intersection of two highways, governed only by a stop sine for the terminating highway, that was one of my drug-addict cousin's favorite launching pads. Today the four-way is a four-way stop (with table-sized stop sines in all directions) and the "T" intersection has a stoplight. It took someone important dying at both of those intersections for something to be done at either one. Seems like LaDOTD can't be proactive even to save someone's life around here.

The Claiborne Bridge is just another case of this. It's been in disrepair for over a decade, and the only thing that was done was limiting the amount the state could be sued for over a broken safety device on a road, such as a drawbridge barrier. Go figure. Yeah, that really helps matters. What they should have done in the first place was fix it instead of legislatively saving their asses. Maybe then they wouldn't get sued!