Engineer Pushes Highway Project, Anticipating New Bridge

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — An engineer is making a pitch these days to officials in suburban Baton Rouge parishes: He's seeking to jump-start a highway project in anticipation of the state someday building a new Mississippi River bridge between Baton Rouge and Donaldsonville.

The Advocate reports (http://bit.ly/1Rcx9n9 ) that the project Wilfred Barry is talking about involves widening Louisiana Highway 30 from two to four lanes at an estimated cost of $225 million.

Barry, president of Baton Rouge engineering firm SJB Group, says modeling shows Highway 30's role as a commuter corridor will only intensify with further congestion on Interstate 10 -- and with the strong likelihood that a new Mississippi River bridge eventually will tie into it.

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Information from: The Advocate, http://theadvocate.com

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