BATON ROUGE – The MOVEBR project is promising big changes to the busiest roads in the capital area, including Lee Drive.
“We’re just growing at such a fast pace that the roads can’t keep up but it’ll be nice to get there,” said Madelyn Schmidt, who owns a business along Lee Drive.
Schmidt just opened up her bakery, Eloise, in November. In that short time span, she says traffic has been a nightmare that deters customers from turning into the parking lot.
“It’s really difficult to take a left into the parking lot or take a left out of the parking lot most of the times of the day. It really gets backed up to the point where sometimes you can’t turn left at all,” said Schmidt.
Fred Raiford with EBR Transportation and Drainage says the top complaint they receive about Lee Drive is the lack of turning lanes, which they plan to address with the MOVEBR improvements.
“When somebody wants to turn and traffic’s going both directions, it backs up traffic for many blocks,” said Raiford.
The current plan for Lee Drive is to build a center turning lane, making the entire stretch of the road from Perkins to Highland three lanes total.
“It’s gonna be looked at as a 3-lane roadway. The three lanes is… you have one lane going each direction and then a center turning lane where you’ll be able to turn into a driveway or an intersection itself,” said Raiford.
Bicycle lanes and sidewalks are also on the list of changes to expect. To improve safety for…
