A new Mississippi River bridge upriver from Baton Rouge. An improved Earhardt Boulevard in New Orleans. Wider highways in rural Louisiana. Billions of dollars over budget, big highway construction projects remain on schedule for completion statewide this year and in 2010. But projected spending of $1.4 billion has nearly quadrupled to $5.2 billion.
The original projections were so far off that William Ankner, state transportation secretary since last year, has openly scoffed at gross underestimation of inflation and the rising prices of steel, labor and construction materials. The most glaring example: Widening the Huey P. Long Bridge in Jefferson Parish was initially estimated at $50 million—but is now projected to cost $1.1 billion, more than 20 times the original estimate. “I think they were apocryphal estimates,” Ankner told a panel of lawmakers recently. “Well, they were basically reached out of thin air in some cases.”
Wrong to start with, the forecasts became less realistic after the 2005 hurricanes. “The biggie was when hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit,” says Troy Gros, spokesman for the consortium of engineering firms handling the projects. “That really put a demand on construction materials. They basically skyrocketed the cost of steel, the worldwide demand for construction material. That’s what inflated the costs.”
