The glacier pace for converting US 90 between Lafayette and Morgan City to I-49 South "rolls" on.
LADOTD just announced at their site that they are taking bids for consultants to construct the long awaited interchange between US 90 south of Lafayette and the recently constructed southern extension of the Ambassador Caffery Parkway. Currently, there is a conventional intersection between the two major roadways, which also serves as an entry for the private Acadiana Zoo and Corne Road.
It will be a staged construction, with only the off/on ramps and the grade seperation between the US 90 mainline and Ambass. Caffery built, but enough ROW will be taken to complete the full "build out" sometime in the future, which will include direct connector ramps and one-way Texas-style frontage roads.
The link to the pdf file advertising for the project is here (http://webmail.dotd.louisiana.gov/Agrestat.nsf/9ff2e3e9315e2f5c8625717e005516e5/361ccb88eaa013648625795a004e2b71/$FILE/H.002868.5.pdf) at the LADOTD page.
Anthony
Seems like this is a document to solicit design firms' experience in order to design the project, not to construct it. Since this appears to be a design-bid-build project, the construction will happen later under a separate contract.
I agree with codyg1985--this is a consultant solicitation. All work under this design contract is to be finished within 360 calendar days after issuance of NTP, so depending on the time lag between consultant solicitation and NTP, finished plans should be in LaDOTD's hands in about 15 months. Given the funding situation I think the finished plans will spend a fair amount of time on the shelf (months at least, years possibly) before the construction contract is actually advertised.
The construction bids were let and opened
http://wwwapps.dotd.la.gov/administration/announcements/Announcement.aspx?key=30239
The projects and their apparent low bids are as follows:
Congestion Mitigation and Safety:
New interchange at Ambassador Caffery Pkwy. and U.S. 90/future I-49 in Lafayette Parish: $136,521,559.76