Prospect Street Bridge construction to begin after Jan. 1, 2010

Construction of the new Prospect Street Bridge crossing Bayou Terrebonne will begin after Jan. 1, said Dustin Annison, Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development public information officer.

The current two-lane bridge cannot handle the approximately 32,000 vehicles using it daily, Annison said.

The new drawbridge, which will cost $26.7 million, will have six lanes. New turning lanes will be added, Annison said. Louisiana Highway 24 and Prospect Street at the bridge site will be widened.

“It’s a major intersection and a bottleneck,” he said. “The new bridge will solve the traffic flow problem, especially because of the turn lanes.”

James Construction in Baton Rouge is the contractor. The company will have 650 days to complete the project. Failure to meet the deadline will result in a $5,000 daily fine, but Annison said James Construction is confident the work will be complete on time.

“For larger traffic projects like this, we allow (companies) to bid on the amount of time and the price,” Annison said.

The department is recommending the use of the Howard Avenue (Louisiana Highway 661) crossing of Bayou Terrebonne during construction work on the Prospect Street Bridge, but Annison said plenty of other crossings exist.

Traffic lights at Prospect Street on both sides of the bridge will be replaced with lights attached to mast arms, not hanging from wires. Annison said a signal video detector will turn the traffic lights green when cars are present.

Terrebonne Parish President Michel Claudet said he is meeting with state officials later this week to discuss converting E. Main Street and E. Park Avenue temporarily into one-way roads to Howard Avenue to ease traffic congestion during the bridge’s construction.

Claudet also said construction of the Prospect Street Bridge was delayed in part because the U.S. Coast Guard required the new structure to be a lift bridge, not a fixed span.

Many Department of Transportation and Development projects take six to 10 years to develop, he said.