Pitre pushes for tolls on La. 1

The LA Highway 1 is the only means of land access to 16 to 18 percent of the nation’s domestic and imported oil and gas.

And that’s just one of the reasons State Rep. Loulan Pitre Jr., R-Cut Off, is determined to see the highway built up, even if it means tolls will have to be imposed on motorists to help fund the massive project, which will turn La. 1 into a bridge rivaling the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway.

Pitre is the sponsor of House Bill 778, which would implement a modern tolling system on the highway.

“No one prefers to pay for a toll, but it’s a reliable way of financing it. And we don’t have too many projects like this going up around the state, so it was a way of getting the thing moving,” said Pitre. “I think they [the tolls] are necessary to get the project built as quickly as we’re building it.”

The modern toll booths would be placed south of Golden Meadow when the new section of the highway opens in 2009. And the toll will be $2.50 with an additional $1.25 per extra axel to help pay for the roughly $300 million project, which is just part of one of four phases of the entire La. 1 improvement project.

The more than $300 million will go to the construction of a new four-lane, access controlled, elevated highway between Golden Meadow and Fourchon, including interchanges.

This new section will be elevated above the 500-year base flood elevation and be built as two separate 43-foot wide spans.

“It’s [the LA1 project] vital to Louisiana. It’s vital to the nation. It’s the only link to the main oil and gas port that’s servicing a very substantial portion of the nation’s oil and gas supply,” said Pitre.

The toll booths would employ video and photo monitoring to enforce toll payments, but also allow the use of electronic toll tags and advanced payments.

The bill is awaiting a hearing in the senate committee.

The LA 1 Coalition indicated truck traffic, which will likely be the main source of toll revenue, has increased by as much as 24 percent over the years, while the national average increase is around two to five percent.

The coalition is a non-profit corporation with a long list of private industry contributors ranging from Abdon Callais Offshore, LLC to Welch Sales and Service.

LA 1 is also the only means of land access to the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP), which handles 14 percent of the nation’s imported crude oil and services the OCS. LOOP’s pipelines are connected to half of the nation’s refinery capacity.