USD/BTC = $116,133 Block 914,629 TL:DR

Johnathan S. Hill, public information manager for Franklin and Associates — a consulting firm overseeing the Interstate 10 Calcasieu River Bridge Project— gave an update to the Calcasieu Parish Police Jury at Thursday night’s meeting.

The project is currently in Phase Two. Hill also presented a video simulating how the project will look once finished. The new bridge will have enhanced lighting. The bridge will also have a reduction in height going from 152-plus feet to 75-95 feet. The project is a 5.5 mile segment of I-10 connecting Westlake and Lake Charles. The project will replace the bridge that was built in 1952. At that time the bridge had an average daily traffic of 37,000 vehicles. Today the bridge currently has an average daily traffic of about 90,000.

The new bridge will include six travel lanes and two auxiliary lanes. The Design-Build Contract Price is $2.3 billion dollars. An elevated overpass at Sampson Street will prevent residents from having to wait on the train to cross.

New decorative pistols will be on the new bridge to pay homage to the ones on the old bridge, according to Hill. The current pistols, that are salvagable, will be in possession of the state once the demolition of the old bridge begins.

“Once we have reached partial acceptance of the new bridge then demolition of the current bridge will begin,” he said.

Sampson Street is expected to be closed from August 2028 to February 2030.

“I’m sure it’s going to have a negative impact on businesses on Sampson Street – but there’s no other way to do it,” Police Juror Randy Burleigh said.

Following the presentation Police Juror Brian Abshire spoke on the difficulty the citizens had last week when one of the westbound lanes was shut off on I-10 and 210 was also down to one lane going westbound as well.

“Traffic as you can imagine was a nightmare and I got a call about a critical care patient in Sulphur that had to have some test results completed before a surgery and it took the carrier that does the laboratory for the test an hour and a half to get to Sulphur and then turn around and get back before the test could be performed before surgery – I’m hoping that both bridges will not be under repair at the same time again in the near future, but why was a decision made to do that and is there a way to avoid this in the future,” Abshire said.

Seth Woods, District Administrator for DOTD, spoke in regards to Abshire’s concerns.

“It is a last resort for DOTD because we know the impact it has on our area but the 210 closure was up and in place and couldn’t be removed quickly – the I-10 bridge is an aged structure and whenever we do see items that need maintenance we address those,” Woods said.

Woods also assured that the 210 lighting project will be complete this week and all lanes will be open for traffic.

“We’re going to ensure the safety of all traveling public at all times and that’s priority one,” Woods said.

Police Juror Mary Kaye Eason, Police Juror Tony Guillory and Police Juror Chris E. Landry were absent from the forum.

For more information, or to watch the project video shown during the meeting visit www.I10CalcasieuBridge.com.

The Calcasieu Parish Police Jury will meet again on Thursday, Sept. 18 at 5:30 p.m.

Almost 20k BTC for a run of the mill transportation highway bridge. It appears they are adding some flair with the pistols but overall not much to see here. But I doubt the project will get done on time and on budget plus the traffic will absolutely be a nightmare. Good luck to the project team on this one!