Plans for a new Mississippi River bridge in Iberville Parish are moving forward into the environmental evaluation phase, although officials say that the project is running about a year behind, The Center Square reports.
The bridge—with three possible locations—is expected to cost at least $2 billion to construct and is intended to alleviate local traffic conditions.
Phase one of the project, which included an enhanced planning study, concluded in the summer of 2022. The project has since moved into phase two—environmental evaluation.
Paul Vaught, the lead project manager for the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development, emphasizes the need to be vigilant and cautious in the design and implementation.
“It’s a lot more than lines on the map and what we’re impacting,” Vaught says. “Where can we go if we find the best crossing location and everything looks great, but then you get into the engineering and find out it wasn’t a feasible place to put a bridge from a scour perspective, geotechnical perspective, or bridge design perspective?”
