New road project to help traffic flow
Published 12:00 am Thursday, October 16, 2003
By LEONARD GRAY-Staff Reporter
LAPLACE – The gridlock along Airline Highway through mid-town LaPlace might become a thing of the past, or at least temporarily relieved, with a project on the drawing board.
The proposal is to extend Woodland Drive, which now runs from Louisiana Highway 51 to the Vicknair Canal, behind Cambridge Subdivision, all the way to Belle Terre Boulevard.
The new road would match the quality of the present road, a 60-foot wide roadway with median and 100-foot right of way.
The project, according to the permit application before the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources Coastal Management Division, is being proposed for commercial development and to open a much-needed east-west roadway.
St. John Parish Chief Admistrative Officer Chris Guidry said, “It’s an artery function for us. We’re gridlocked.”
The present Woodland Drive section is zoned primarily commercial, and Guidry said there is nothing yet in the plans to link residential areas in the Belle Terre Country Club to the new road.
Approximately 16,280 cubic yards of material would be hauled in for the road’s construction, the permit application stated. No dredging or excavation would be required for the project. Two and a half acres of bottomland hardwood would be affected by the roadway.
The two-and-a-half mile section could possibly start construction next summer, Guidry said.
“We need another east-west road,” Guidry said.