The Capital Area Transit System announced this week it will seek to discontinue two low-performing routes, the same week a CATS spokeswoman told Daily Report that two long-proposed routes are still not close to implementation.
CATS will hold two public meetings in the next two weeks to discuss shutting down one route that connects downtown Baton Rouge to the Mall of Louisiana and another that connects downtown to O’Neal Lane. If approved by the CATS board, the changes would become official Dec. 6.
That move comes as two other proposed routes that would connect downtown Baton Rouge to other parts of the city, LSU and along Nicholson Drive, are no closer to fruition than when they were announced last October. The lack of a downtown hub is a major roadblock.
CATS also announced this week that it will not extend the contract with the agency’s program director, Dallas-based MV Transportation, and will handle those duties internally.
Also this week, a report released by watchdog group Louisiana Lawsuit Abuse Watch showed trial lawyers in the state spent $8.5 million between 2008 and 2014 on lobbying and campaign expenditures.
“A small cadre of trial lawyers, who, enriched by massive court settlements, have unleashed a coordinated flood of campaign contributions on elected officials,” reads the report, titled “The Trial Lawyer Money Trail.” “The most significant efforts to bring fairness to the state’s courts remain stalled in Baton Rouge … and after decades of effort, Louisiana still ranks among the worst legal climates in the country.”
One law firm cited in the group, Talbot, Carmouche and Marcello, has made news recently for spending about $1 million on ads against U.S. Sen. David Vitter, a Louisiana Gubernatorial candidate.
In science news, Baton Rouge-based Pennington Biomedical Research Center defended itself after The New York Times reported it received $7.5 million from Coca-Cola for research.
Here’s a rundown of some of the other top local stories making headlines in Daily Report this week:
- The four major gubernatorial candidates in Louisiana have spent more than $762,000 in television advertising on WBRZ-TV and WAFB-TV since the beginning of the year.
- Trinity Marine Products in West Baton Rouge Parish staved off shuttering its doors after receiving a contract to keep the workers on the job. That comes after the company sent the Louisiana Workforce Commission a notice in August that the plant would be closing.
- Kean’s Fine Dry Cleaning owner Rock Rockenbaugh says the decision to close eight stores is part of a larger plan to downsize and streamline the company.
- Representatives from multiple city-parish agencies will meet with Webb Park residents Monday afternoon to discuss the bike lanes on Glenmore and Hundred Oaks avenues that have become a source of controversy in the neighborhood.
- The decision by The Times-Picayune/NOLA.com to lay-off 28 full- and nine part-time staffers will impact the company’s coverage of Baton Rouge.
- The president of Our Lady of the Lake College says in five years Louisiana will have 7,000 fewer nurse practitioners than is needed to care for an aging population.
- Home sales in the Capital Region jumped 5.7% in August compared to the same month last year, buoyed by increases of 11.4% and 9.2% in East Baton Rouge and Ascension parishes, respectively.
- LSU President F. King Alexander told the Press Club of Baton Rouge on Monday that this year’s governor’s race is especially critical for higher education.
