The Louisiana Department of Transportation has been given Legislative approval to seek out private partners to finance and build a new Interstate 10 toll-bridge over the Calcasieu River.
DOTD Secretary Shawn Wilson says the current bridge isn’t structurally deficient but it wasn’t built to accommodate this much traffic.
“It does not have shoulders, it is at the end of its useful life, and it is not meeting today’s standards,” said Wilson. “It is time to make a difference, if we chose to wait the citizens and the economy will continue to be strangled.”
The current Calcasieu River I-10 Bridge, which predates the Interstate, sees 66 percent more crashes on it than the state average according to DOTD.
Wilson says he knows a toll bridge won’t be popular but the only other way to fund the 700 to 800 million dollar project would be a gas tax increase, which lawmakers have rejected.
“This is the only alternative that we have short of assuming this 60 plus-year-old bridge will always be there,” said Wilson.
Last December lawmakers approved the first state-level public-private partnership infrastructure project, a 165 million dollar bridge and tunnel replacement in Belle Chase.
DOTD will begin soliciting offers from various financiers and present the best offer to the Legislature for approval. Wilson says this type of investment is becoming common.
“This began in Australia, there are companies from Spain, Germany, Canada, and China, all of the countries that have huge infrastructure needs and projects being delivered have leveraged this private investment,” said Wilson.
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