Project Info
The project has now progressed from study to implementation, with final design documents being completed during 2022. As a result of efficiencies identified through the Construction Manager At Risk process, DOTD has expanded Segment 1 of the I-10 Improvements Project in Baton Rouge to include the Acadian Thruway interchange. This expansion is estimated to save $50 million for the project and shave off four years from the overall timeline. Once completed, there will be four travel lanes in each direction from the I-10/I-110 split to Acadian. Construction is now underway in 2023 – beginning with utility relocation work. Lane restrictions are anticipated to begin in 2025.
The work on this first segment of the widening project will include reducing I-10 to two travel lanes in each direction beginning in 2025 for an estimated 12 to 14 months during Stage 2 of the planned overall five-year construction of Segment 1, which extends from the I-10/I-110 interchange downtown eastward to Acadian Thruway . DOTD is working to mitigate the traffic issues resulting from the two-lane phasing of Segment 1 in several ways. First, DOTD has proposed to widen the westbound I-10 curve (“flyover”) at I-110 to accommodate three travel lanes plus shoulders. This allows for passage of oversized loads, as well as maintaining two westbound lanes on I-10. Also, DOTD is implementing projects on key surface streets, such as restriping and signal modifications and is coordinating with East Baton Rouge City-Parish to implement active traffic signal management on key corridors. DOTD has begun working with area industry, state agencies and other businesses to determine a plan that will assist in alleviating high traffic volumes during peak hours such as flexible work schedules, rerouting traffic and expanding Motorist Assistance Patrol coverage within the project corridor.
Community Connections
The U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration has developed and adopted a series of guiding principles and toolbox of techniques for identifying and deploying transportation innovations, partnerships and technologies to bring communities together, and to connect people to services and opportunities. During the feasibility and Environmental Assessment stages of the project, a number of Context Sensitive Solutions were identified in dialogue with project stakeholders and community groups. These proposed physical improvements, documented in the reports and specifically in the FONSI linked below, are commitments by DOTD to the community as the I-10 widening project moves forward. The extended Segment 1 corridor contains four of these CSS improvements:
- The I-10 greenway will be a pedestrian and bicycle path which will link the existing downtown greenway network to the soon to be improved (through a separate project) bicycle and pedestrian pathways around the University Lakes.
- Noise Walls will line the widened interstate through the corridor. Preference polling of options for noise wall panel materials and designs are being offered.
- The new I-10 bridge spanning City Park Lake will feature aesthetic treatments to improve its appearance from local surface streets and monument towers to signal to interstate motorists they have “arrived” in Baton Rouge.
- Perkins Road Corridor Improvements will include better public parking for businesses, more and better safety lighting, multi-modal transportation improvements such as a better connected local street grid, pedestrian walkways and bicycle accommodations. Note public open house on May 19, 2022!
Public engagement activities began in late 2021 focused on the I-10 greenway corridor with adjoining neighborhoods of Old South Baton Rouge. Progress has been made to prioritize desired greenway amenities, determine their location(s), and DOTD has been initiating partnerships with local government and nonprofit agencies to secure maintenance agreements for all enhancements provided through the project. Additional community and stakeholder meetings will occur in 2022 to further refine proposed greenway designs.
Similarly, community and stakeholder meetings will be scheduled to focus on CSS improvements to the Perkins Road corridor in the vicinity of I-10. Techniques borrowed from FHWA’s Community Connections handbook and toolbox may include design charrettes or experiential public engagement, visualizations, virtual design and online preference polling to quantify feedback.
Watch the Events list on this website or subscribe to project e-newsletters to receive notification of the timing of these upcoming events. Both of these areas are on the homepage i10br.com.
Project Schedule
The Construction Phase Timeline provided below applies to the extended Segment 1 area and includes the widening of the I-10 westbound curve at I-110. The timeline was updated in February 2023 to adjust the start date of Stage 2. Within an overall 5-year construction duration, addition of temporary westbound lanes will begin during 2023, and Stage 2 – the restriction to 2 lanes in each direction on the I-10 main line – will begin in early 2025.
