Construction could begin as soon as next summer on the long-awaited expansion of the intersection of Nicholson and Brightside/West Lee drives, one of the most notorious bottlenecks in the parish.
The Metro Council will consider a measure at its meeting Wednesday to appropriate an additional $350,000 for the engineering firm, Forte & Tablada, that is preparing the bid for the clearing and grubbing of the intersection, which is the first step in the construction process. Tom Stephens, chief design and construction engineer with the city-parish Department of Transportation and Drainage, says the bid will be issued later this fall and that clearing and grubbing could begin before the end of the year.
Construction on the actual expansion project is slated for the second or third quarter of 2017.
For long-suffering residents of the Riverbend subdivision off Brightside Drive and the many multifamily complexes in the area, the $9.4 million expansion project is expected to bring much-needed relief to congestion that is particularly acute at rush hour. The project, which is part of the Green Light Plan, will add right turn lanes to both Nicholson and Brightside drives. It will also elevate the road three feet at its lowest point so that buses don’t get stuck on the railroad tracks.
“We’re building out the intersection the way it should have been built out in the first place,” says Ingolf Partenheimer, chief traffic engineer for the city-parish.
More than 38,000 vehicles traverse the intersection daily, including nearly 11,000 vehicles on Nicholson, nearly 8,300 on Brightside and more than 18,150 on West Lee.
—Stephanie Riegel
