Louisiana

[jbnv]

Got photos? If my gut is right, they're Clearview shields... something I've only seen in Baton Rouge. North Louisiana has FHWA Series inside of the shields, while BR has Clearview.

NO has a mixture of both. Installation appears to be hit or miss.

There are Clearview shields on the new BGSs in Lake Charles. Overhead signs in Lafayette and Sulphur have FHWA shields.

[codyg1985]

Got photos? If my gut is right, they're Clearview shields... something I've only seen in Baton Rouge. North Louisiana has FHWA Series inside of the shields, while BR has Clearview.

NO has a mixture of both. Installation appears to be hit or miss.

There are Clearview shields on the new BGSs in Lake Charles. Overhead signs in Lafayette and Sulphur have FHWA shields.

Here are some Clearview shields in Lake Charles:

[jbnv]

Looks like LaDOTD has made public the documentation and maps for the state highway turnback program:
http://www.dotd.la.gov/programs/RoadTransfer/

I just looked at the map for Lafayette Parish. (Grew up there and lived there most of my life.) Wow, DOTD's plan goes even further than I would.

So far this program is voluntary with regards to participation by parishes and municipalities. At that rate, any desired progress may take a while. I have a feeling that any substantial progress could only occur in the unlikely event that the Legislature were to pull an "Iowa 2003" and transfer routes en masse by legislation. Since the local governments would never allow it without substantial financial compensation, I doubt such a thing will ever happen unless some sort of "grand agreement" were in place to provide a financial cushion for localities.

If I were in a position to write such legislation, I would create a transition program to serve as such an agreement. In some parishes, the affected routes could form a hypothetical secondary route system. In other parishes, the affected routes may just fade into the background.

DOTD really does need to focus on the high-priority routes and plan for future growth, not just babysit the legacy of Huey Long.

[NE2]

Bleh. They're planning to turn back US 90 from Louisa Street (Gentilly) west to the Huey Long Bridge (and US 61 southeast of I-10 in NO).

[mcdonaat]

Lake Charles clearview? Gross. That's an abomination of our tax dollars!

Like I said, come on upstate to see how we do it right!

[Urban Prairie Schooner]

Bleh. They're planning to turn back US 90 from Louisa Street (Gentilly) west to the Huey Long Bridge (and US 61 southeast of I-10 in NO).

In urban areas, DOTD's proposed turnbacks are far greater than I would have anticipated, though understandable in a sense. In rural areas, their cuts are not deep enough IMO. DOTD set a maximum number of route miles per parish population, plus some density criteria to determine an optimal balance of routes in each parish.

These were the criteria used:
Maximum miles in any parish = 300
Maximum miles in parishes with popl. > 100,000 = 275
Maximum miles in parishes with popl. > 150,000 = 250
Maximum miles in parishes with popl. > 200,000 = 225
Maximum miles in parishes with popl. > 250,000 = 200
Maximum miles in parishes with popl. > 300,000 = 175

No more than 5 miles of state highway per 10 sq. mi. of parish area
No less than 1 mile of state highway per 10 sq. mi. of parish area

The sliding scale favors rural parishes since presumably they are less able to assume responsibility for decommissioned state routes.

I am guessing the state would petition AASHTO to reroute US 90 via US 90B, I-10, and Louisa Street should the above proposed turnback come to pass.

[jbnv]

Lake Charles clearview? Gross. That's an abomination of our tax dollars!
Like I said, come on upstate to see how we do it right!

You should see the four Clearview digits crammed into the state shield at Lakeshore Drive.  If there's any benefit to the Lake Charles signs, they show why you don't use Clearview in the shields.

Took another look at the Lafayette plan. They're keeping LA 182 from I-10 to Johnston, and turning back almost everything else. What does that accomplish, and how the heck would they number that? (I fear they'll keep US 90 BUS or create 182-x. I wouldn't mind them making it Business I-10.)

[mcdonaat]

Lake Charles clearview? Gross. That's an abomination of our tax dollars!
Like I said, come on upstate to see how we do it right!

You should see the four Clearview digits crammed into the state shield at Lakeshore Drive.  If there's any benefit to the Lake Charles signs, they show why you don't use Clearview in the shields.

Took another look at the Lafayette plan. They're keeping LA 182 from I-10 to Johnston, and turning back almost everything else. What does that accomplish, and how the heck would they number that? (I fear they'll keep US 90 BUS or create 182-x. I wouldn't mind them making it Business I-10.)

Texas, my friend - that's the only reason! Texas uses Clearview, so Louisiana is populating I-10 with it. I'm beginning to think it's for the districts to design the signs, because District 08 and 05 are VERY different. All Interstate signs in District 08 (Alexandria, I-49 and US 167/71) use wide and regular black-and-white shields, with Series C numbering. District 05 (Monroe, I-20) uses black and white shields, all wide, with a white border, and Series D. Very messy!

I would say that they would become city roads. You can't create an XXX-X route unless all routes are hyphenated. You would need a 182-1 and 182-2. Spurs and Business routes would happily be an answer for hyphenated routes!

Now here's something I've noticed - there are no hyphenated routes on the BGS signs anywhere in Louisiana. They all say the name of the street, but no numbers. Imagine LA 1208-3, you have a six-digit sign.

[jbnv]

Took another look at the Lafayette plan. They're keeping LA 182 from I-10 to Johnston, and turning back almost everything else. What does that accomplish, and how the heck would they number that? (I fear they'll keep US 90 BUS or create 182-x. I wouldn't mind them making it Business I-10.)

I would say that they would become city roads. You can't create an XXX-X route unless all routes are hyphenated. You would need a 182-1 and 182-2. Spurs and Business routes would happily be an answer for hyphenated routes!

Are you sure? Parts of LA 89 and LA 92 have been renumbered to 89-1 and 92-1, but apparently the rest of the routes are not hyphenated. The District 3 turnback plan shows parts of both highways turning back in Lafayette Parish but staying elsewhere.

Now here's something I've noticed - there are no hyphenated routes on the BGS signs anywhere in Louisiana. They all say the name of the street, but no numbers. Imagine LA 1208-3, you have a six-digit sign.

I think there is one in Lake Charles on I-210. The exit where L'Auberge Casino is. And it's a four-digit hyphenated number.

[Urban Prairie Schooner]

Parts of LA 89 and LA 92 have been renumbered to 89-1 and 92-1, but apparently the rest of the routes are not hyphenated.

Which segments of these routes are you referring to?

[mcdonaat]

Took another look at the Lafayette plan. They're keeping LA 182 from I-10 to Johnston, and turning back almost everything else. What does that accomplish, and how the heck would they number that? (I fear they'll keep US 90 BUS or create 182-x. I wouldn't mind them making it Business I-10.)

I would say that they would become city roads. You can't create an XXX-X route unless all routes are hyphenated. You would need a 182-1 and 182-2. Spurs and Business routes would happily be an answer for hyphenated routes!

Are you sure? Parts of LA 89 and LA 92 have been renumbered to 89-1 and 92-1, but apparently the rest of the routes are not hyphenated. The District 3 turnback plan shows parts of both highways turning back in Lafayette Parish but staying elsewhere.

Now here's something I've noticed - there are no hyphenated routes on the BGS signs anywhere in Louisiana. They all say the name of the street, but no numbers. Imagine LA 1208-3, you have a six-digit sign.

I think there is one in Lake Charles on I-210. The exit where L'Auberge Casino is. And it's a four-digit hyphenated number.

Really? I didn't know about 89-1 and 92-1... I'll have to look that up!

Also, if you can send photos of I-210 at L'Auberge, I would love to see it! The most for Lake Charles that I see is on the US 165 exit from US 71 in Alexandria.

[jbnv]

Unfortunately, I live and work in Tangipahoa Parish now and don't get to Lafayette or Lake Charles very often.

My attempts to find information about 89-1 and 92-1 (as opposed to 89 and 92) have thus failed, but here they are on a map from the DOTD Road Transfer District 3 proposal:



See also this StreetView.

[jbnv]

Found it on Streetview. BGS for LA 1138-1/1138-2.

[mcdonaat]

What the... where's LA 92-2? If you can find it, that would make MUCH more sense to me! All I'm seeing is a LA 92-1, and no 92-2.

On other Louisiana-related topics, LaDOTD has resigned US 167 in Pineville, resurfaced the northern three miles of open freeway, installed new reflectors, and the speed limit is STILL 65! To give anyone out there an idea of why this is ridiculous, US 165 north of Ball is 65 MPH, with driveways, cross streets, and a smaller median than the northern end of the Pineville Expressway. At the same time, if you try and go 50 MPH between Alexandria and the LA 3100 overpass, you WILL get runover. Does anyone know if the Pineville Expressway is going to have the speed increased, like on I-49?

[jbnv]

What the... where's LA 92-2? If you can find it, that would make MUCH more sense to me! All I'm seeing is a LA 92-1, and no 92-2.

There is no 92-2. Just 92 and 92-1. All they did was took part of 92 and made it 92-1. Same thing with 89; there's no 89-2, just 89 and 89-1 that used to be 89. The only logical reason I can find for them doing this is anticipation of the Road Transfer Program. But the Road Transfer Program suggests transferring all of 89, not just 89-1. Maybe they just don't like Broussard and Youngsville.

[NE2]

89-1: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=30.13507,-91.990843&spn=0.030249,0.056691&gl=us&t=m&z=15&layer=c&cbll=30.135077,-91.99076&panoid=g8m62h5FMEGmjH8bPimvWQ&cbp=12,89.41,,0,-2.42
92-1: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=30.088368,-91.905999&spn=0.030115,0.056691&gl=us&t=m&z=15&layer=c&cbll=30.088183,-91.905809&panoid=i09X-zV9e5QayUskpkXz1w&cbp=12,330.56,,1,4.05

PS: when the Goog went through in May 2013, there were no shields at the circle in Youngsville, but directions and arrows were in place.

All I can think of is possible reroutings onto Chemin Metairie.

[Alex]

Thanks for posting this!

Looks like LaDOTD has made public the documentation and maps for the state highway turnback program:
http://www.dotd.la.gov/programs/RoadTransfer/

Though I am sure this program is in line with the present administration's policy of streamlining and shrinking state government, I am pretty certain that DOTD has been looking to do something of this sort for much longer than the current administration has been around. Certainly I have been looking for this to happen for quite a while!

So far this program is voluntary with regards to participation by parishes and municipalities. At that rate, any desired progress may take a while. I have a feeling that any substantial progress could only occur in the unlikely event that the Legislature were to pull an "Iowa 2003" and transfer routes en masse by legislation. Since the local governments would never allow it without substantial financial compensation, I doubt such a thing will ever happen unless some sort of "grand agreement" were in place to provide a financial cushion for localities.

Ugh, talk about a gutting of the system, in addition to what NE2 mentioned in NOLA, East Baton Rouge Parish loses a good number of state highways and most of U.S. 61 Business / 190 Business with this proposal.

Slidell will lose U.S. 190 Business and portion of U.S. 11. (More useless US highway/Interstate overlaps hooray!)

U.S. 79 & 80 will leave their surface route through Bossier City and Shreveport, US 71 may leave its surface route through the city, as would the northern most stretch of U.S. 171.

U.S. 165 Business will disappear through Monroe.

Just about every remaining state highway in an urban area will be relegated to expressway or arterial. IMO, the fun of roadding in Louisiana will drop with the lack of numbered routes and odd side routes. 

[Urban Prairie Schooner]

What the... where's LA 92-2? If you can find it, that would make MUCH more sense to me! All I'm seeing is a LA 92-1, and no 92-2.

There is no 92-2. Just 92 and 92-1. All they did was took part of 92 and made it 92-1. Same thing with 89; there's no 89-2, just 89 and 89-1 that used to be 89. The only logical reason I can find for them doing this is anticipation of the Road Transfer Program. But the Road Transfer Program suggests transferring all of 89, not just 89-1. Maybe they just don't like Broussard and Youngsville.

I would love to know why DOTD did this. Maybe I am dense but I am not seeing an obvious reason.

It looks like those "-1"s were tacked on to their signs, and fairly crudely at that.

[Urban Prairie Schooner]

Thanks for posting this!

Looks like LaDOTD has made public the documentation and maps for the state highway turnback program:
http://www.dotd.la.gov/programs/RoadTransfer/

Though I am sure this program is in line with the present administration's policy of streamlining and shrinking state government, I am pretty certain that DOTD has been looking to do something of this sort for much longer than the current administration has been around. Certainly I have been looking for this to happen for quite a while!

So far this program is voluntary with regards to participation by parishes and municipalities. At that rate, any desired progress may take a while. I have a feeling that any substantial progress could only occur in the unlikely event that the Legislature were to pull an "Iowa 2003" and transfer routes en masse by legislation. Since the local governments would never allow it without substantial financial compensation, I doubt such a thing will ever happen unless some sort of "grand agreement" were in place to provide a financial cushion for localities.

Ugh, talk about a gutting of the system, in addition to what NE2 mentioned in NOLA, East Baton Rouge Parish loses a good number of state highways and most of U.S. 61 Business / 190 Business with this proposal.

Slidell will lose U.S. 190 Business and portion of U.S. 11. (More useless US highway/Interstate overlaps hooray!)

U.S. 79 & 80 will leave their surface route through Bossier City and Shreveport, US 71 may leave its surface route through the city, as would the northern most stretch of U.S. 171.

U.S. 165 Business will disappear through Monroe.

Just about every remaining state highway in an urban area will be relegated to expressway or arterial. IMO, the fun of roadding in Louisiana will drop with the lack of numbered routes and odd side routes. 

I don't agree with all the turnback choices and I agree that it makes the road hobby less interesting. Maybe if the numbers are retained in the parish system (similar to Florida) it won't have as deleterious an effect in that area. In any case, this decommissioning effort is an attempt to put Louisiana in line with other states as to how many roads the state highway authority maintains.

[Anthony_JK]

A northern bypass would really take the truck traffic off the BR interstate system. We just had a frozen precipitation event (freezing rain/sleet/small amount of snow) which closed the interstates, and the number of trucks either parked on the shoulders of I-10 and I-12 or trying to wind their way through the city on surface streets was incredible. From my experience, most through truck traffic uses I-10 to I-12 through BR, so as to bypass New Orleans.

How would a northern bypass remove truck traffic from I-10, when I-10 remains the most direct route to I-12?? Not to mention that the majority of gridlock on I-10 is commuter traffic to and from downtown BTR?

One idea of mine is to construct a tolled trucks-only bypass in a northern arc around the city, with parts of US 190 and I-110 serving as links between segments. The tolls would vary based on the level of congestion on the interstate system.  Truckers will gladly pay the toll in order to avoid rush hour congestion.  Alternately, auto traffic could use certain segments of the proposed highway during rush hour (to take traffic off I-12 and the surface arterials with destinations of Watson or Walker).

Wouldn't work, because of everything Froggie said, plus, you'd still need to either upgrade the old US 190 bridge in the same form as the Huey P. Long Bridge in NOLA was upgraded, plus upgrade Airline Highway to freeway standards to I-12; or build a new crossing further north to reach the Baker/Zachary area. With the Audubon Bridge (LA 10) now complete, there's really no need for a crossing of the Mississippi north of US 190.

A southern bypass would be nice, too, but would require a new Miss. River bridge which greatly increases the costs, thus rendering it less feasible, so it can come later. Right now the worst local congestion is along the east-west corridor out to Livingston Parish and across the I-10 bridge to Port Allen. The I-10 widening has greatly improved the rush hour flow to the south.

Unless LA 1 is improved through Plaquemine and Addis to reach the Sunshine Bridge AND the I-10/I-110 Split bottleneck (the single lane TOTSO/Washington St exit) is resolved, a southern I-10 bypass with a new Miss. River bridge near Addis/Gardere would be most ideal. If you could find a way to extend this bypass from near Gonzales to connect with I-12 near Walker, then that would solve the issue of connecting with I-12.

[Anthony_JK]

What the... where's LA 92-2? If you can find it, that would make MUCH more sense to me! All I'm seeing is a LA 92-1, and no 92-2.

On other Louisiana-related topics, LaDOTD has resigned US 167 in Pineville, resurfaced the northern three miles of open freeway, installed new reflectors, and the speed limit is STILL 65! To give anyone out there an idea of why this is ridiculous, US 165 north of Ball is 65 MPH, with driveways, cross streets, and a smaller median than the northern end of the Pineville Expressway. At the same time, if you try and go 50 MPH between Alexandria and the LA 3100 overpass, you WILL get runover. Does anyone know if the Pineville Expressway is going to have the speed increased, like on I-49?

When LADOTD and FHWA grow some sac and make the Pineville Expressway I-349 like it should be.

[cjk374]

This is an opportunity for somebody (either DOTD or the local/parish governments) to have these soon-to-be former routes labeled as historic routes.  US 79/80 leaving their original routes through Bossier City & Shreveport??? BLASPHEMY!!!!   
I was looking at the Minden map & noticed that the DOTD seems to be abandoning US 79 from the US 80 junction to where the US 79 truck route turns off at Wal-Mart.  This would be a perfect example of a road that would need the historic label since it has always run through historic downtown.

All of the hyphenated and 4-digit routes...not so much.

[jbnv]

Just about every remaining state highway in an urban area will be relegated to expressway or arterial. IMO, the fun of roadding in Louisiana will drop with the lack of numbered routes and odd side routes. 

But they are keeping the useless two-lane segment of US 90 in Lafayette plus a short inner-city portion of LA 182. 

Maybe if the numbers are retained in the parish system (similar to Florida) it won't have as deleterious an effect in that area.

If I were DOTD, I would encourage parishes to sign the decommissioned routes, especially high-traffic ones, with shields bearing the old number. Pentagon shields would generally be appropriate, but could conflict in parishes that have their own road numbers. Maybe a new designation of "Parish Highway," and a new shape. Wisconsin's rounded rectangle would work well here:

[froggie]

IMO, the fun of roadding in Louisiana will drop with the lack of numbered routes and odd side routes.

Eye-of-the-beholder.  One does not need "numbered routes" in order to enjoy the "fun of roadding".

[Alex]

IMO, the fun of roadding in Louisiana will drop with the lack of numbered routes and odd side routes.

Eye-of-the-beholder.  One does not need "numbered routes" in order to enjoy the "fun of roadding".

Eh, my eyes needs them (I did write IMO). Numbers are far superior to road names or "former route xx's". You clinch routes, not arterials or secondary locally maintained roads. Absolutely no fun in those for me.