Stimulus Wishlist

Times-Picayune - Louisiana's share of stimulus pegged at $3.8 billion

Of that, $455 million is slated to go to bridge and road work and repairs. Here's some of the things I'd do with that if I was in charge of DoTD and wasn't hampered by pre-work things like environmental impact studies. (They're important, but not for hypothetical thinking.)

* Widening of Interstate 12 between Juban Road and I-10/I-59 to six lanes
* Putting gates and lights at all non-private rail crossings in the state
* Reconfiguration of the I-10/I-110 split in Baton Rouge
* Construction of an interchange between LA 1088 (Future LA 3241) and I-12 northeast of Mandeville
* Build a relief route for I-59 (designated as US 11) in eastern St. Tammany Parish (looking forward to hurricane season), utilizing the old US 11 routing if possible (it was good enough before) - US 11 can still cross the West Pearl co-signed with I-59 to save money

Now, obviously that kind of money might not be enough, especially with that I-10/110 split reconfiguration in there, but those are projects that I believe would drastically help traffic flow, especially in the Florida Parishes. That includes the relief route. I blogged last year about how hellish I-59 was, and I believe a relief route could at least make it a little easier to get the first important thing out of the way - getting the hell out of Louisiana when there's a hurricane coming. Designating it as US 11 just makes sense - it'd make that highway important here again.

As for the gates and lights suggestion, that's just my little pet crusade.