Park Timbers HOA

Bridge Projects—Going Nowhere Fast

May 08, 2002

In 1998, legislation was passed mandating another toll lane for cars entering from the Algiers area. All along that was supposed to be an additional lane providing access from Mardi Gras Boulevard. The legislation mandated that that project be completed prior to funding and prioritizing any other bridge projects. In my opinion, that mandate has not been followed. Other bridge projects have been prioritized and funded, but we still await our additional lane to help alleviate the traffic bottlenecks at the General de Gaulle entrance to the bridge.

Nearly two years ago, I was informed that we would have our new entrance ramp within approximately 6 months. That, of course, never came about. In fact, only in November 2001 did the CCC administration seek a legal opinion as to whether they actually had to follow the mandate of the law and actually build a new ramp. Actually, the CCC has tried to convince us that the recent change of lane 9 (inaccessible from General de Gaulle) to toll tag only benefits Algiers traffic. If you accept CCC ?“logic?” and believe that crossing over several solid lines blindly into a high speed West Bank Expressway lane and accepting the liability for any accidents you may cause while making those lane changes, then perhaps the lane 9 conversion ?“helps?” Algiers traffic.

Now, after nearly 4 years of no action, we have been informed that the CCC after about 40 years with the same engineers, has changed engineers. What that means is that all projects not already underway will go back to square one. All of the work done by the CCC?’s previous engineers is the intellectual property of that previous company. The same holds true for the project to improve General de Gaulle?—expand to 3 lanes from Garden Oaks to Holiday, install turn lanes at lights, and install 2 U-turn lanes, one of which would be near Park Timbers and Park Fontaine. Those projects were moving along, but still at a snail?’s pace because the State supposedly had mandated that some traffic study be conducted to determine whether alleviating the dangerous bottleneck on General de Gaulle would help traffic. Go figure.

The CCC and State DOTD has not understood that their inaction contributes to economic stagnation, citizen frustration, and movement of citizens and commerce to more business friendly, well-managed communities. In any private industry in the United States, if a Board of Directors and the Chief Executive Officer directed certain actions to be taken by a division in the corporation, I would suggest to you that virtually none of the leadership of that tasked division would survive if it ignored the mandate of upper management for any length of time, much less for over 3 years. Private industry would not accept such recalcitrance, and we as taxpayers should not have to accept it either.