U.S. 90 upgrade focuses on Lafayette's connector

LAFAYETTE — Sixty-five miles up U.S. 90, transportation planners are trying once more to make the Interstate 49 Connector work. The Tri-City area has a stake in the outcome.
The connector is the most expensive and most controversial piece of the I-49 South project, intended to raise U.S. 90 to interstate standards from I-49’s current terminus at I-10 through St. Mary Parish to New Orleans.
David Mann, chairman of the I-49 South Coalition, said in an interview Tuesday that economic benefits that will come to communities along what will one day be a New Orleans-to-Canada interstate.
And “hurricane evacuation is a top priority for everyone, including people from south of Lafayette all the way to New Orleans,” Mann said.
The connector design process has room for views from all along the corridor, said Jason El-Koubi, president of the One Acadiana regional planning organization. St. Mary is one of nine parishes in One Acadiana.
“There’s going to be an extensive public input period for anybody who wants to show up and let their opinion be heard,” El-Koubi said. “I’d encourage the people in Lafayette and all along the corridor to come out and say what they want to see.”
Tuesday was the launch day for a new approach for pushing the connector forward. Louisiana Transportation Secretary Sherri Lebas was among the dignitaries who introduced the idea at the Rosa Parks Transportation Center in Lafayette. They said that as design and engineering work continues, a process that could last five years or more, consultants will try to bring people affected by the project to work out worries about preserving existing neighborhoods, the environment, historic buildings and more. The technique that will be used is called “context sensitive solutions.”
Lafayette City-Parish President Joey Durel called the new approach “taking lemons and making champagne.”
“This is an opportunity to elevate — to elevate property values and elevate the quality of life,” Durel said.
His words were chosen carefully. Under plans developed over the course of two decades, the connector proposal means running along the existing Evangeline Thruway corridor, and most of the new interstate would be elevated.
Some residents and business owners in that area have complained that an elevated interstate would create blight underneath it and divide north Lafayette.
Others worry about the impact on nearby neighborhoods such as Sterling Grove, which has been the subject of historic preservation efforts for decades, and Freetown, which has only recently become the focus of organized improvement efforts.
Harold Schoeffler of Lafayette, a Sierra Club member who sued to stop the current connector project from moving forward, was unimpressed by the new approach.
“This is their fourth try at it,” Schoeffler said.
He said the environmental statements generated by the project show that the connector work would displace at least 1,200 households and cost about that many jobs.
But the enthusiasm among supporters is undiminished.
I-49 South is “not just a local project,” Lebas said. “It’s not just a regional project. It’s not just a state project. It’s a national project.”

This story was written by Bill Decker of The Daily Review staff. Reach him at bdecker@daily-review.com