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When voters approved the Central Thruway in 1997, it was potentially the biggest public works project in the history of East Baton Rouge Parish.

But it wasn’t until April 16 of this year that ground was finally, officially broken on the project, which is expected to cost about $60 million. When completed, the four-lane highway will give motorists a direct connection from the Central area to Florida Boulevard and Interstate 12 and ultimately form part of an inner loop connecting Nicholson Drive and Burbank Drive in the southwest part of the parish to Sullivan and Hooper roads in the northeast part of EBR.

“I’ve dreamed of this day,” said Metro Councilman Joe Greco of Central, one of several speakers at the brief ceremony held at the end of a gravel access road off Frenchtown Road, to mark the start of the project’s first phase.

In 2005, Central Thruway became the “cornerstone” of Mayor Kip Holden’s Green Light Plan, which promises more than $500 million in new roads and traffic improvements across the parish. In approving the plan, parish voters extended a half-cent sales tax through 2030 and permitted the issuance of bonds backed by that tax revenue.

Instead of waiting for tax money to pile up under the old pay-as-you-go system, work can begin on several projects at once, including some that have been talked about for years.

“Central Thruway was not moving at all,” Holden said several days after the groundbreaking. “I made a commitment to Councilman Greco and the residents of Central that that was going to be my No. 1 priority.” By Holden’s estimation, the ability to bond out revenue from what was once just a pothole tax will allow a number of significant projects to be finished within 10 years, instead of 20 years or more, and says within six years, motorists will notice a significant improvement in their daily commutes.

The mayor also says he’s “very confident” all the projects can be built with the current revenue stream. The program’s director was considerably less emphatic, however.

“I’m going to say it’s too early to tell,” says Michael Songy, a principal with CSRS, the private-sector firm hired by the city-parish to manage the plan. Construction costs increased between 50% and 100% in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and Songy says prices remain inflated compared to before the storm. Of course, the city-parish also saw a big spike in sales tax receipts post-Katrina, and CSRS is assuming 3% to 5% increases annually over the life of the tax.

“The question is, are the increased sales taxes going to offset the increase in construction dollars?” Songy says. “We don’t know the answer to that question yet.”

The first bond sale of $125 million went through in April 2006. The next sale, about $166 million or so, will occur late this year or early next. That will at least cover the six pre-Green Light projects approved in 1997 or 2002 and most of the new high-priority projects. There might be smaller bond sales of $20 million to $30 million down the line.

There are legal limits to how much can be bonded at one time, Songy says. If you bonded out all of the money a tax was expected to raise, you wouldn’t be able to pay off the bonds if tax receipts dropped. Seventy percent of the tax proceeds are dedicated to new projects, and roughly half of that, in the neighborhood of $300 million or so, is bondable. CSRS says they’re bonding out as much as reasonably possible, allowing them to get rolling on several projects at once and outpace inflation over the first eight to 10 years of the program. Some of the low-priority projects not covered by the bond revenues will have to wait their turn.

“Our focus is to get the biggest bang for the buck” with the bond sales, Songy says. “Once that runs out, it’s going to be pay as you go, and it’s going to be basically building whatever we have the money to build. … It’s not that they won’t happen, it’s just going to be over a longer period of time with the pay-as-you-go program.”

“At the end of the day, you’re probably going to be a little short,” says Brad Ponder, the Green Light Plan program manager with CSRS. But without a crystal ball, it’s hard to know for sure. Ponder says the cost of cement seems to have stabilized and project bidding is becoming more competitive. The price of fuel, however, continues to go up. Still, there are often ways to reduce expenses, like minimizing the amount of space used on either side of a road or using asphalt in certain cases rather than concrete, and those savings can be rolled into another project.

The oldest projects were given high priority. Every other project was run through a matrix and ranked. The most important factors were the number of accidents on the road in question, followed by average daily use by motorists. Other factors include right-of-way availability and project cost, on the theory that it’s better to do two or three smaller projects at once as opposed to one big one, Songy says. On Burbank Drive, where construction began in January, accidents are frequent, and DOTD already owned the right-of-way, he says.

Ponder says there should be 26 projects either under construction or completed by 2010. Along with Burbank, an extension of Veterans Memorial Boulevard is also under way, and a groundbreaking is scheduled on North Harrell’s Ferry Road on May 7. Improvement work should begin this year on Lobdell Avenue, the South Foster Drive/Government Street intersection and traffic signalization downtown.

Bidding is scheduled this year for the intersection of Coursey and South Sherwood Forest boulevards, improvements to Jones Creek and Highland roads and Staring Lane expansion.

Projects on Siegen Lane, Brightside Drive, Sullivan Road, the intersection of Perkins Road and Stanford Avenue/Acadian Thruway and the realignment of Pecue Lane at Perkins are expected to be let for bid in 2009, a plan spokesman says.

David Jacobs

BIRD’S EYE VIEW: Mayor Kip Holden stands on a crane during the groundbreaking ceremony for Central Thruway on April 16. In 2005, Holden called the four-lane highway, which would link Central with Florida Boulevard and Interstate 12, the ‘cornerstone’ of his Green Light Plan.

Unforeseen circumstances could change some of these plans. For example, acquiring the right of way for one project or another, which sometimes means buying up dozens of parcels, could take longer than expected. Veterans, North Harrell’s Ferry and a segment of Burbank should all be finished this year.

“The bonded money runs out with projects in the year 2015-ish, so then the rest of the projects that aren’t completed will be basically on the pay-as-you-go, and they will be worked on up until the last day of this current program, which would be 2030,” Ponder says. Starting in 2015 or so, we’ll see maybe one or two projects a year, rather than four or five, he says.

“From our standpoint, we think it’s moving well,” says Michael McDuff, executive director of the Baton Rouge Growth Coalition. “The transportation needs for the city of Baton Rouge are obvious. We have a great deal of needs to move forward on.”

“I think we’re right where we thought we would be,” Songy says. CSRS received its notice to proceed from the Department of Public Works in March 2006. Songy says designs were completed on 20 projects within a year, and says CSRS is working with about a dozen appraisal companies and about as many right-of-way acquisition firms. They probably couldn’t push any harder without risking mistakes, he believes. But most of the work so far has been behind the scenes, leading to grumbling from some corners that things aren’t moving fast enough.

“We understand that the public, they’re measuring results based upon what they see in the field,” Songy says, adding that within a couple of months there should be five projects under way simultaneously.

“And we understand that until we get under construction, we’re not going to prove anything to anybody.”