With the completion of a 7.4-mile pathway loop for walking and biking in Baton Rouge, the city could take a step toward one of the visions laid out at the recent 2012 Smart Growth Summit and another step away from the fossilized, car-centric mindset it has clung to for decades.
This morning BREC unveiled the first 2.2-mile section of the loop—called the Capital Area Pathways Project—behind the Mall of Louisiana, which will break ground in January and could be completed as early as next summer. It begins at Siegen Lane, near St. George Catholic Church and School, and passes near Richard Carmouche’s urban mixed-use development, The Grove, as it ties in with Wards Creek and runs to Bluebonnet Boulevard.
“Exactly how it will grow, I don’t know,” says Ted Jack, an assistant superintendent at BREC.
It won’t be until 2014 that BREC will consider allocating some of its strategic funding for another leg—or legs—of the loop.
“We’ll keep partnering with people to get it done,” says Jack, noting the considerable donations to the first leg made by the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Foundation, Carmouche, the Mall of Louisiana and many others.
If the loop’s construction were to continue in the direction it’s headed now, it would follow Wards Creek to Essen Lane, where it will tunnel underneath the roadway north of Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center, and then circle behind The Bone and Joint Clinic of Baton Rouge before heading south to Perkins Road and Kenilworth Parkway.
The pathway will then circle beneath BREC’s Perkins Road Community Park and connect with the north bank of Dawson Creek to head east. It will cross Essen, Perkins and Bluebonnet—near Perkins Rowe—again along the way. There are a lot of unknowns, such as whether the path can tunnel underneath other roads and Essen again, or not.
“Sometimes we’re going to be able to do it,” Jack says.
