Routing I49 through Lafayette isn't the answer.
We have had close to 70 years of American freeway/highway/expressway history to know that urban elevated freeway contribute to blight, destroy neighborhoods, reduce property values and harm the areas around them.
Routing the interstate around the city is the only real answer as tunneling is too cost prohibitive / doesn't make sense for a city like Lafayette. If the Sierra club has a beef with that, then let them fight it. The environmental protections in this country have been widdled down enough for the project to be approved. Environmental legal opposition is much cheaper to fight IMHO than personal / property opposition. This is Louisiana, not California.
Ummm, no. Not really. Actually, not even close.
It's not as simple as merely just drawing lines on a map or on Google Maps and pontificating about all the sins of elevated highways.
The Evangeline Thruway isn't just a local arterial. It is the MAIN north-south corridor through Lafayette that carries traffic to and from significant designations (such as ULL, downtown, and Lafayette Regional Airport). It also is the northern terminus of the only main 4-lane hurricane evacuation route for most of South and Southeast Louisiana. That in and of itself makes it quite divisive on its own, and actual evidence and traffic data back up the fundamental fact that 90% of the traffic on the Thruway is destined within the core of Lafayette, not bypass traffic.
Sure, you could build a bypass to make the hurricane evac traffic miss Lafayette...but what would that do otherwise? You're not going to ban truck or heavy vehicle traffic on the Thruway, since it is on the National Highway System, and it carries both US 167 and US 90. Are you going to move those highways over to the bypass?
The idea of "spur" routes to connect downtown along with bypasses is essentially a non-starter anyway, since the state and the Feds are fully committed to funding I-49 South through Lafayette, and with the interchanges already either under construction or planned to begin along US 90 south of Lafayette, it's a moot point whether a bypass could defer traffic away from the main US 90/Evangeline Thruway corridor.
As for this "elevated highways suck because blight and neighborhoods destroyed" meme? Yeah, there's plenty of examples of freeways (elevated, at grade, and depressed) carelessly rammed through neighborhoods without even the mildest concern for asthetics or for the neighborhoods devastated. But guess what? As bad as those highways are, and as costly they were to those neighborhoods, they still serve their main purpose of getting people where they need to go with the least impact. Sorry, but boulevards just won't cut it for moving 40,000+ vph. Sometimes you go with the best choice of bad choices, not necessarily the most desired choice.
And I can clearly say that none of those highways have the intensive study that the Connector is getting; nor are any getting the kind of treatment with CSS design and corridor development that the Connector is getting. TIGER Grants don't just fall from the nearest tree; they are precious stipends that are only given to proposed projects that have the potential for changing the game regarding elevated highways and development. The city of Lafayette just got a $500K bet handed to them that they can handle the Connector freeway and make it work. I don't think that they will just waste that money.
The Sierra Club and the opponents of the Connector had their day in court to make their challenges, and they lost. If they want to try again this time, I can't stop them; but I can sure as all hell make the facts plain to all that this proposal is the best for Lafayette, for Louisiana, and for the country. St. Martinville and Breaux Bridge does NOT need a N-S freeway. Lafayette DOES.