La. DOTD hears feedback on Hwy. 311 widening

Floyd Hebert remembers what it was like living in Houma when seeing one car on the highway was a big deal, but now with population increasing, bumper-to-bumper traffic is often hardly avoidable on La. Highway 311.

“Before all these subdivisions, it was a pretty good event to see a car pass,” Hebert, long-time Houma resident said.

In order to alleviate the traffic in this rapidly growing community, the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (DOTD) has proposed transforming La. 311 from a two-lane highway into a four-lane highway. The road would be complete with bike lanes on each side in a 3.6-mile stretch between Savanne Road and St. Charles Street.

The project has been proposed in three different alternatives, differing slightly in regards to the grass median width and various turn lanes. The median will provide a U-turn and left-turn openings at certain intersections.

“Alternatives 1 and 2 predominantly seek to provide right of way on the southern side of the road, and as a result of the first public meeting held last year, a lot of people had concerns that all the right of ways were on the south side,” said Dax Douet, engineering director for Fenstermaker, the association overseeing the potential project.

“We seek to find more of a balance with alternative 3,” he said.

At the public hearing held at the Terrebonne-Houma Civic Center last Tuesday DOTD and engineering consultants fielded concerns from residents in an open-house format.

“You got to have turning lanes in all these subdivisions or there’s going to be a lot of accidents,” Hebert said, who thinks alternative 1 would be better due to its proposed 30-foot wide median.

“The problem right now is that it’s two lanes, and people are stopping to turn and there’s been a lot of rear end accidents on 311,” he said.

But he doesn’t think the widening of the road should end at Savanne.

“Four lanes will be okay, but if they stop it at Savanne Road, they have a bottleneck – and that’ll be a problem,” Hebert said.

With the prospect of a wider highway, comes the potential for the roads to encroach on homeowner’s property, which was brought up at a previous public hearing. According to Jerome Ryan of DOTD, residents would be notified of any potential encroachment in advance according to the Uniform Act.

“Some people think we can just say, ‘get out,’ but we can’t do that,” said Ryan.

Residents won’t have to worry about roads crossing their property lines any time soon, however. According to Douet, no money has been allocated for the project.

“There’s no funding for this project to be built,” said Douet, who explained the money to fund just the study of the project came from state surplus. “The project is going to sit and when money becomes available it will progress, but we don’t know when.”

Public comments on this issue are due by July 2, which will then be assessed and a final document will be drafted and given to the Federal Highway Administration.