re: The city of BR needs us to weigh in about Government Street.

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No, cities are moving towards providing alternate forms of transportation.

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So you’ve been using the CATS light rail to get to work?

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onestly I'd have avoided the medians entirely and just made a two lane minor artery with street parking on both side of the road except in areas that already have a lot of parking, where I'd go with a 3 lane format with a center turn lane. I wouldn't allow left turns except in turn lanes. And no useless bike lanes that are never used.

If they did it my way, the pedestrians they are trying to attract would have a line of parked cars between them and traffic. And retail spaces without parking lots wouldn't be totally useless. If they were hell bent on expensive landscaping, they could sacrifice a few street parking spot for tree islands where the business owners were okay with them.

Their idea was good, but the execution was stupid. Now they have a center median with landscaping that has to be maintained, and traffic still buzzes pretty close by the sidewalk and the front doors of a lot of businesses.

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This is good creativity. Our government is loaded with slow thinkers who use cookie cutter solutions.

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So you’ve been using the CATS light rail to get to work?

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About 8 years ago, Baton Rouge was in line for a federal grant for a street car line between LSU and downtown. Developers were committing to building a lot of housing and retail along the route (Nicholson) because of the proposed street car line.

Then Broom took office and killed it because it didn’t help North Baton Rouge. The grant was given to another city and the area between downtown and Nicholson remains mostly empty. Some of it was foreclosed on.

Broom then tried to push for a locally funded rapid bus line on Plank Road but that never got off the ground. She made a lot of horrific hires who were not accustomed to developing a plan and executing on them. Broom often opting for hiring political friends and in some cases outside hires that lied on their resume. She doomed her legacy to just being a terrible executive who hired bad people. Public works and BRPD didn’t just stagnate - they declined. She’s tried to right the ship in the last year, but it’s too late to repair her legacy.

Politicians usually can’t actually get things done. The difference between people like Holden and people like Broom is that Holden was smart enough to find people that can actually do things, hired them, and shielded them from the political bullshite.

A street car line between downtown and LSU might have been a good catalyst for redevelopment in that area, and the feds were ready to pony up for most of it. And maybe once it got established they could have done another route down Government or North Blvd.

Wow that didn’t take long. Louisiana folks sure know how to ruin everything.

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What, was was the $15 mill they spent for use studies incorrect ?

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Brother in law had to get paid

Honestly the most comprehensive study possible could provide a step by step guide on how to build this, how to manage it, and how to define success, and how to mitigate traffic during construction……


….and LADOTD would cock it up if they took action on it at all.

also jefferson hwy project, should have been done before interstate expansion

The streets are awful here. I just moved to town.

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The streets are awful here. I just moved to town.

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Bless you son

She and her henchwoman on the Metro Council killed a $600,000 grant from the CDC to buy a tire shredder that Matt Watson lined up because they didn’t want him getting any positive press while running against her. And because, well, he’s a whitey.

So instead, all the little shops and garages up and down Plank Road and Florida Blvd collect the fee from the state meant to pay for recycling, then dump the tires in the ditches and abandoned properties in the 70805