I-14 in Louisiana

[Grzrd]

This December 11 TV video includes a comment from a Fort Polk spokesperson regarding the potential benefit of I-14 being extended into SW Louisiana

(above quote form Hwy 190 from Copperas Cove to Belton to be renamed I-14 thread)

This article reports that LaDOTD is planning a route and that Senator Bill Cassidy is working on legislation to designate I-14 in Louisiana:

Texas took the first step towards establishing I-14 when its portion of the project was included in the federal transportation bill passed in December ....
It's the same action stakeholders in Central Louisiana are pushing the state to take.
Though they are not asking for money at this time, having a route designated through Louisiana will put the state in position to lobby for funds when they do become available.
The Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development has begun work to map a possible route, while Louisiana's delegation in Congress, led by Sen. Bill Cassidy's office, is working towards getting the future state corridor federally recognized ....
The most likely route through Louisiana would start at Highway 8 at a new bridge over the Sabine River (the bridge is currently closed and needs to be replaced, anyway). The Highway 8 route would take the interstate into Leesville, where it would connect with Fort Polk.
From there, I-14 would follow the route of Highway 28 West to the Alexandria area, then Highway 28 East towards Jonesville. U.S. Highway 84 and U.S. Highway 425 could provide a natural route to the Mississippi border from there ....
One of the big issues will be how the future interstate connects through Alexandria/Pineville.
"It's not too big an issue until you get to the urbanized areas, where the town has built up," said Matt Johns, executive director of the Rapides Area Planning Commission. "That's where it can get real expensive. You end up paying so much for right of way that the cost to go around the urban area might be cheaper."
Fortunately, there's already a plan for that.
The Central Louisiana Regional Beltway was conceived as a transportation and utility corridor around the Alexandria/Pineville area, linking major corridors going in and out of the area and spurring residential, commercial and industrial growth. Though it's in the early planning stages, the southern loop of the beltway, connecting Highway 28 East and West, has received high priority in the state's transportation planning.
"I think we have to look at the possibility that three of our projects – I-14, the Beltway and Sugarhouse Road – could be the same project," Johns said ....
However beneficial its supporters think I-14 could be, don't look for it to happen quickly. Stakeholders are looking at the interstate at being at least a 20-to-30-year project.
"Unless something unforeseen occurs, this will be an incremental deal," Morris said. "You'll see stretches where two-lanes become four-lanes and four-lanes are improved, until hopefully one day we have an interstate."

Here is a snip of the map accompanying the article:

Here is a snip from a map of the five alternatives presented in the Expert Working Group's Report to Congress on the 14th Amendment Highway Corridor:

Prior discussion in this thread.
Alternative 1 is the "all interstate" option (I suppose it could also be called the "I-14 option") and has (in 2013 dollars) an estimated cost of $6.6 billion to $7.6 billion

(above quote from Hwy 190 from Copperas Cove to Belton to be renamed I-14 thread)

Texas already has its route chosen and Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia already have the above interstate option.

[US 41]

Alternative 3 seems to make the most sense to me.

[The Ghostbuster]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't expect much of Interstate 14 to actually be constructed.

[Bobby5280]

There's too many other routes in greater need of development in Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas. I think it's a long shot much of I-69 will be built between East Texas and the Mississippi River. And that weighs as a higher priority than this "I-14" concept.

Louisiana has to do all it can to get I-49 finished without getting side-tracked by I-14, or even I-69. Arkansas has the same priority issues with I-49 and I-69.

Texas has its priorities with I-69. There's a hell of a lot of it still left to build. Add to that the numerous freeway/tollway projects it has on the table in metro Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio, Austin, El Paso, Amarillo, Brownsville-McAllen. Add to that other corridors that are increasingly in need of super highway upgrades, like US-290, TX-71 and TX-6 in Central Texas. Texas doesn't have enough money to fund all those projects. I don't see how "I-14" can be piled into the mix unless that I-14 label gets applied to a more legit corridor like US-290 between Houston and Austin.

[Anthony_JK]

What I want to know is how in the hell some of these I-14 Louisiana advocates think they will get this freeway through Alexandria via the Beltway that will be initially built only as a 4-lane divided highway. You really think they will be able to get away with upgrading Sugar House Road to a freeway and connect it properly with existing I-49 and MacArthurDrive?? Where will the new crossing of the Red River be? How will you get this new freeway through Leesville or Archie? Or, through Ferriday?

A 4-lane LA 28/US 84 is more than suitable enough. As Bobby5280 said, there's more than enough in Louisiana's docket with finishing I-49 South, the Shreveport I-49 ICC, and fixing BTR's mess. I'd even put a US 165 freeway upgrade from Lake Charles/Iowa to Monroe/Bastrop/Monticello ahead of this "I-14" boondoggle.

[silverback1065]

What I want to know is how in the hell some of these I-14 Louisiana advocates think they will get this freeway through Alexandria via the Beltway that will be initially built only as a 4-lane divided highway. You really think they will be able to get away with upgrading Sugar House Road to a freeway and connect it properly with existing I-49 and MacArthurDrive?? Where will the new crossing of the Red River be? How will you get this new freeway through Leesville or Archie? Or, through Ferriday?

A 4-lane LA 28/US 84 is more than suitable enough. As Bobby5280 said, there's more than enough in Louisiana's docket with finishing I-49 South, the Shreveport I-49 ICC, and fixing BTR's mess. I'd even put a US 165 freeway upgrade from Lake Charles/Iowa to Monroe/Bastrop/Monticello ahead of this "I-14" boondoggle.

i agree, I-14 doesn't seem to be necessary at all.

[Bobby5280]

Didn't the feds deny the "I-14" designation to that short stretch of US-190 freeway in Texas just recently? This during the time when North Carolina was getting awarded I-42 and I-87 designations for future freeways. I suppose there's still a chance some meddling congressmen will pull a Bud Shuster style stunt and get I-14 written into law for that small segment of road, rather than place the designation in a more legit place.

[sparker]

Didn't the feds deny the "I-14" designation to that short stretch of US-190 freeway in Texas just recently? This during the time when North Carolina was getting awarded I-42 and I-87 designations for future freeways. I suppose there's still a chance some meddling congressmen will pull a Bud Shuster style stunt and get I-14 written into law for that small segment of road, rather than place the designation in a more legit place.

Actually -- it was legislatively designated, number and all, back in 2015, as an addition to the high-priority corridor compendium.  The short freeway section west of Belton was denied signage because of lack of connectivity to much of anything at its western end; serving the south side of Fort Hood wasn't considered sufficient as a rationale.  It's very much a "future" corridor concept; I, for one, don't see much I-14 development in my own lifetime -- right now, it's a number attached to a vague line on a regional map, and will probably remain so for some time to come.

[Bobby5280]

The really funny thing is that in Central Texas, inside the I-35/I-45/I-10 Texas Triangle, that I-14 concept is way down the list of corridors likely to be fleshed out as fully limited access freeways or toll roads in the next 20 or so years.

I can certain see Austin effectively getting two East-West super-highway corridors to Houston, US-290 being the primary one, but also TX-71 from Austin to Columbus, TX where it meets I-10. Both corridors already have significant freeway development. If Austin's population growth keeps going at its current trends the city limits population will surpass the 1 million mark within the next few years, making it the 4th city in Texas with over million people. Metro population is much more staggering, around 6 million for metro Houston and around 2 million for Austin. That's more than big enough to demand direct freeway links.

Waco to Houston via College Station is another corridor that seems likely for a superhighway upgrade. College Station is at least going to be connected to Houston's super highway system via the TX-249 toll road expansion once it reaches Navasota. Upgrading TX-6 to a super highway between College Station and Waco would be more difficult to justify. But it could serve as an alternative super-highway link between Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston.

By comparison, "I-14" doesn't really link to any major destinations. I could maybe see a Temple to College Station highway since there isn't a very direct link between the two small cities. But I still don't think that's good enough to use up a 2 digit Interstate designation, if it even carries an Interstate number at all.

[bassoon1986]

Ugh, I read a local article (Alexandria, LA) recently that proposed this in central Louisiana. I'm with the above views on our state. Finishing I-49 south as well as ICC through Shreveport and other projects are way more important on the list of road projects than this pipe dream. The article I read even said parts of LA 28 west of Alexandria were already up to interstate standards, which isn't true. It's 4 lane divided but not interstate. LA 28 is really the only east-west thoroughfare for this area, and now that it is 4 laned to the west and at 65 mph it serves us just fine. To the east it could be 4 laned further out from Pineville, but I doubt it will ever be expanded over the wildlife management area in Lasalle Parish.

[Bobby5280]

If they could ever get the corridor upgraded it would have to dodge South of the Sabine National Forest, Toledo Bend Reservoir, Lake Sam Rayburn, Angelina National Forest, etc. In Texas, that would force this "I-14" pipe dream near or through College Station, Huntsville and Jasper. In Louisiana the road would have to go near Leesville and follow the LA-28 corridor to Alexandria. I'm sure some right wing partisans would just love sticking it to "bunny hugger" environmentalists by forcing a super highway through the areas I mentioned, but doing so would be cost prohibitive along with hopelessly controversial. Forget about "I-14" going through Lufkin. If LA-8 and TX-63 are running through a wildlife management area near the border that would just add to the controversy and dim the chances of this "I-14" concept further. There's too many other roads elsewhere that in more legit need of upgrading. In the case of US-290 and TX-71 between Austin and Houston those upgrades wouldn't be very difficult to complete.

[jbnv]

I wonder why Texas would want a superhighway from Fort Hood to the Mississippi River, and perhaps on to the Atlantic Ocean...

[Bobby5280]

There's little, if any, strategic military significance for such a road through there. The Mississippi River and New Orleans area has no major US Naval ports. There was a Navy base in Belle Chasse, but that was a small Naval Air Station. My family lived on that base a couple years when I was a teenager. Now it's home to a Coast Guard facility and some other government related stuff.

If the US Army needs to move heavy equipment to port in large volumes from Fort Hood to ships in port they're going to move that gear by rail. Fort Hood has a lot of railroad built through it and its rail lines have fairly direct access to the port in Galveston. For a lot of the smaller volume runs typically seen with current types of modern warfare, they're flying the equipment in things like C-17 cargo jets.

I'll see MLRS rocket launcher trucks on I-44 here in Oklahoma from time to time, but any notion that the Interstate highways are a primary way of moving military gear is badly out of date. That's a World War II era idea. And even then rail transport was a far more dominant way of moving artillery pieces, tanks, etc. from military posts to ports.

[The Ghostbuster]

I think Interstate 14 has as much likelihood of being constructed as that Interstate 3 proposal out east.

[sparker]

Here's what I think will happen re any I-14 development:  TX, wanting to improve their mid-state network, will build it from Temple east to around College Station, where it will tie in to the under-development TX 249 toll facility, completing a Temple-to-Houston routing serving Texas A & M.  West of Temple, it's likely -- for political reasons -- that any routing will head via the most efficient path to San Angelo (the largest TX metro area w/o Interstate service).  Without delving too much into Fictional, there's a lot of possibilities -- depending upon who has influence at what time -- for a mid-state/I-14 corridor.  But extending east through the pines to & through LA?  That's probably not in the cards for the foreseeable future.  I don't see LA DOT prioritizing a cross-state facility that will have limited traffic potential unless all the other Gulf states make a concerted effort to follow suit -- and can identify and secure some sort of dedicated funding stream. 

[Bobby5280]

I think San Angelo's best hope of getting connected into the Interstate highway system is via the Ports to Plains corridor and a possible Southerly extension of I-27. The I-27 corridor could become a Denver-San Antonio corridor rather than its current Lubbock to Amarillo arrangement. There is quite a bit of planning going on to extend I-27. For instance public meetings have been ongoing regarding a Dumas bypass. The trick is getting the funding to extend I-27. The big cities in the Texas triangle are leaving very little road funding for projects in West Texas.

[dfwmapper]

I don't see why anyone would give a shit about linking Temple to anywhere. If you're going to improve connections to College Station, then keep moving forward with SH 249, bypass Hearne (preferably to the west and also serving as a bypass for both US 79 and US 190) and Calvert on SH 6, 4 lane SH 14 from SH 6 to Richland, and bypass Caldwell on SH 21.

[sparker]

I don't see why anyone would give a shit about linking Temple to anywhere. If you're going to improve connections to College Station, then keep moving forward with SH 249, bypass Hearne (preferably to the west and also serving as a bypass for both US 79 and US 190) and Calvert on SH 6, 4 lane SH 14 from SH 6 to Richland, and bypass Caldwell on SH 21.

Temple is the nearest sizeable metro area along I-35; making the connection to a Bryan/College Station and on to Houston facility there minimizes the mileage of new construction -- assuming a facility loosely following US 190, US 79, and TX 6 bypassing both Cameron and Hearne.  While not the more direct route that a Richland or Waco server would provide for DFW to A&M traffic, it does tie into existing E-W plans -- which may in time indicate that such a corridor will actually be built -- and it's not horribly out of the way as a route to & from North Texas.   From what I've ascertained, TXDOT intends, over time, to build such a facility as part of its overall plans for the "Triangle" rather than perform spot improvements such as sporadic bypasses or twinning of existing routes.   

Nevertheless, as I mentioned in a previous post to this thread, IMO once a through connector from I-35 to Houston via College Station is effectively complete, it's likely that any eastern extension will be "back-burnered" unless a regional groundswell for development of such a corridor is experienced.  As has been demonstrated with other projects (the segment of I-69 extending into LA and to date largely ignored by TXDOT serves as an example), TX tends to its own needs -- here, the perceived internal need to enhance connectivity within a portion of the state far outweighs any interest in participating in a speculative multi-state project regardless of the fact that their own representatives cobbled up the I-14 cross-state plans to begin with!

[Grzrd]

This article reports that LaDOTD is planning a route and that Senator Bill Cassidy is working on legislation to designate I-14 in Louisiana

This article, although cautioning that actual construction is probably decades away, reports that LaDOTD is still planning a route and that state congressmen are still working to get the route federally designated:

►Interstate 14
The dreamed of east-west interstate that would run from Texas to Georgia, cutting right through Central Louisiana, is likely decades away. But stakeholders are pushing to lay the groundwork so that when funding does become available, Louisiana is ready.
The state Department of Transportation and Development is working on mapping a corridor that would almost certainly include Louisiana Highways 28 East and West, while local stakeholders are working with state congressmen to get a route federally designated.

[The Ghostbuster]

We'll probably find out in a few decades whether this is or isn't a pipe dream.

[Anthony_JK]

I still fail to see how they are going to get this through Alexandria-Pineville. The proposed Alexandria Beltway was originally conceived to be an arterial, not an Interstate freeway; if they attempt to freewayize the southern portion, then that would mean huge interchanges needed with both MacArthur Drive and I-49 in very close range to each other.

Wouldn't it be better to just upgrade MacArthur Drive and US 165 to freeway standards, get rid of that wack Masonic Circle and replace it with a real interchange, and upgrade Coliseum Boulevard up to MacArthur Drive?

Or...simply build a loop bypass of I-49 around Alexandria from where I-49 bends east to meet US 71, around to near England Air Park east of Boyce; then extend it across the Red River on a new bridge west of the Fort Buhlow Bridge they just completed, then turn east near Tioga and Colfax to cross US 165 before reconnecting with LA 28. Leave the Beltway as an arterial through route through downtown.

OK..I'll stop before this gets too much into Fictional territory.

[cjk374]

Louisiana really has no business trying to dream of any new highway (14 or 69) until they are 100% finished with I-49 & get some serious rehab projects funded (BR bypass, I-12 widening completed, interstate overpass replacements...most overpasses over I-20 are almost 60 years old and are crumbling).

[silverback1065]

isn't i-10 in either lake charles or baton rouge in desperate need for a new, wider bridge?

[silverback1065]

I still fail to see how they are going to get this through Alexandria-Pineville. The proposed Alexandria Beltway was originally conceived to be an arterial, not an Interstate freeway; if they attempt to freewayize the southern portion, then that would mean huge interchanges needed with both MacArthur Drive and I-49 in very close range to each other.

Wouldn't it be better to just upgrade MacArthur Drive and US 165 to freeway standards, get rid of that wack Masonic Circle and replace it with a real interchange, and upgrade Coliseum Boulevard up to MacArthur Drive?

Or...simply build a loop bypass of I-49 around Alexandria from where I-49 bends east to meet US 71, around to near England Air Park east of Boyce; then extend it across the Red River on a new bridge west of the Fort Buhlow Bridge they just completed, then turn east near Tioga and Colfax to cross US 165 before reconnecting with LA 28. Leave the Beltway as an arterial through route through downtown.

OK..I'll stop before this gets too much into Fictional territory.

what the hell is up with that masonic circle area? it isn't even a circle! it's clearly a square, and seemingly unnecessary altogether

[Bobby5280]

I still fail to see how they are going to get this through Alexandria-Pineville.

I think most of the path is pretty obvious for where LaDOTD would have to direct "I-14" if it was ever built. There isn't much problem with LA-28 coming into Alexandria from the West. It's 4-lane divided with frontage roads and/or property set backs far enough to fit new frontage roads.

Like you said, MacArthur Drive could be upgraded to Interstate standard fairly easily. It has frontage roads all the way from where it hits I-49 on South and North sides of town. That Masonic Circle thing is the only thing getting in the way of a freeway conversion. I would see no loss in getting rid of that thing. It's just a disorganized clump of trees in there. And the square is not exactly surrounded by A-list properties either.

Going East from I-49 is a tougher decision. US-71 has a new Red River bridge crossing and freeway upgrade to the Shreveport/Monroe Hwy split. But there would be a lot of property standing in the way of an East Exit out of Alexandria, plus another freeway to freeway interchange to build with US-167. It might be easier to multiplex "I-14" from the I-49/US-71 interchange down to the I-49/US-167 interchange downtown and then have "I-14" use the US-167 freeway to get over the Red River. At some point along US-167 a new terrain freeway would have to split from US-167 to point the road toward Natchez.

Louisiana really has no business trying to dream of any new highway (14 or 69) until they are 100% finished with I-49 & get some serious rehab projects funded (BR bypass, I-12 widening completed, interstate overpass replacements...most overpasses over I-20 are almost 60 years old and are crumbling).

I-49 related projects really do have to take a high priority. The Shreveport ICC has to be built. The I-49 upgrade through Lafayette and Broussard has to get done. An "I-14" distraction could help out opponents of the highway project in Lafayette. There's still a lot of I-49 work to do on the West Bank next to New Orleans.

isn't i-10 in either lake charles or baton rouge in desperate need for a new, wider bridge?

Both could stand to be wider. The I-10 bridge over the Mississippi in Baton Rouge is 6 lanes, but with no shoulders at all. The bridge in Lake Charles is only 4 lanes wide with no shoulders at all. Either one will unfortunately be very expensive to replace.

On a side note, I laughed when I saw the cost of the new "world's highest bridge" in China. The Beipanjiang Bridge soars 1,854 feet above a river gorge. They opened the bridge to traffic yesterday. The huge suspension bridge reportedly cost $144 million. If the same thing was built here in the US it would have easily cost 20 times as much.