The Metro Council has cleared the way for construction to begin on a crucial segment of the walking and bike path atop the River Road levee that, when completed late next year, will create a 12.5-mile contiguous, paved path between downtown Baton Rouge and L’Auberge Casino & Hotel.
At its Dec. 13 meeting, the council approved a $1.65 million contract for construction of a 6.8-mile segment of the path that will run between BREC’s Farr Park and Ben Hur Road. Currently, that portion of the levee top is gravel.
Construction on the segment will be the third phase of a long-running project and will tie in the first two phases of the project—four miles of pathway between Florida Street at River Road downtown and Farr Park—with a 1.3-mile section between Ben Hur and L’Auberge, which was completed in 2014.
“It will be fantastic,” says Metro Councilman Buddy Amoroso, who is an avid cyclist. “This means you’ll be able to park your car at the casino and ride atop the levee all the way to downtown and back, which is nearly 25 miles.”
The project has been a long time in the making and the money approved by the council earlier this month for construction of phase three was appropriated more than two years ago. Some $1 million for the project came from federal funds. The other $650,000 or so came from the city-parish road improvements dedicated half-cent tax.
But engineering and design delays slowed the process of getting phase three under way. Phase four was completed sooner because it was funded from a different pot of money—a state grant that was in danger of expiring in 2014. The first two phases were completed in the mid-2000s.
A final phase of the path—to connect a three-mile stretch from L’Auberge to the parish line—is still on the drawing board but no money is available to pave that portion of the levee. Amoroso says city leaders are committed to making it happen.
“We’re just not sure when that will be,” he says. “That is probably still several years away.”
—Stephanie Riegel
