Mississippi River Bridge Greater Baton Rouge:
LA 1 to LA 30 Connector Project

The project’s scope is to create new access across the Mississippi River by constructing a new connector roadway between LA 1 and LA 30, which will include the construction of a new Mississippi River bridge.

The limits of the project were established to address specific needs in the study area, which include providing increased capacity and improved connectivity across the Mississippi River and providing an alternate route for emergency evacuations or in response to incident-related closures.

The current effort will be completed in two parts. Part 1 was the Enhanced Planning portion scheduled for 2020-2022, which gathered relevant project information to identify and compare feasible alternative corridors. Part 2 is the Environmental Evaluation, slated for 2022-2024, which will produce an environmental document for federal review and approval. The Environmental Evaluation will identify a preferred alternative for the bridge’s location.

Environmental Evaluation must be completed before moving into design, real estate acquisition, and construction stages. Timing for construction is heavily dependent upon funding availability and construction delivery model, but the soonest a new bridge could be open to traffic is estimated to be 2031.

A multitude of funding sources will be needed to deliver a project of this magnitude. Funding sources include state and federal program funds, special state and federal investments (such as surplus funds or discretionary grants), local government funds, and private equity. To take advantage of private equity investment, the State anticipates using a public-private partnership (P3) construction delivery model for the bridge. In this model, a private developer funds a sizable portion of the upfront project cost and recoups their investment on the back end through toll collections.

The traffic modeling and analysis performed with this project accounts for movements to and from each of the potential bridge locations. The models are built using the highway network included in the Capital Region Planning Commission’s long-range plan (MOVE 2042). The evaluation considers impacts to the overall travel time in the network, which includes the routes used to access the bridge.

The project as proposed does not include the study of a connection to I-10; however, the need to facilitate movement of traffic to and from the bridge is an obvious consequence of its construction. In preparation for future connectivity, area-wide traffic modeling being performed with this effort incorporates projected travel origin and destination data and will identify the most likely routes used to accomplish those trips. In turn, this information can be used to further justify existing capacity projects in the region and identify other projects necessary to maximize the benefit realized from the construction of this project. The LA DOTD is committed to improving connectivity throughout the region and continues to strive toward that goal through multiple projects.

Individuals with questions or comments can submit these on the “Contact Us” page of the project website at mrbsouth.com throughout the life of the project. Initial public input opportunities for the general public were offered in Spring 2022, when the multiple alternative corridors under review were made available for commenting online and in public meetings across the impacted parishes. As the project moves into the next phase, additional public input opportunities will be offered as three alternatives are reviewed in order to select one preferred alternative. To receive updates about these efforts, please be sure you are signed up for email updates on the mrbsouth.com website.