Letter to Councilman Roberts Concerning Huey P. Long Bridge Painting
Friday, December 02, 2016 at 10:35:50 AM
December 1, 2016
Councilman Christopher Roberts
200 Derbigny, Suite 6200
Gretna, Louisiana 70053
Dear Councilman Roberts:
This is in response to your letter dated November 29, 2016 regarding the Huey P. Long Bridge painting project. The scope of the project is to clean and paint the Huey P. Long Bridge. Work includes blasting and removing the lead-based paint from the railroad trusses of the structure, which was not included in the previous widening project completed in 2013 under the TIMED project program due to the lack of funding and ownership agreements with the New Orleans Public Belt Railroad (NOPBR). After the widening project, a new agreement with NOPBR was reached in which DOTD took on the responsibility for painting the center truss system over the railroad. This transfer of responsibility allowed for the use of Federal Funds in place of State Funds for the maintenance and painting of the center truss. The cleaning and painting effort must be done to extend the life and maintain the integrity of the bridge to meet Federal Highway and Railroad Bridge standards.
While we recognize that peak period travel times have increased as a result of this project, we often see drivers adjust their routes and/or travel times during major road projects on heavily traveled roads. The Department has been actively monitoring peak traffic conditions for this project since the number of lanes were reduced from 3 to 2 during the week of October 30th. The lane reduction was needed to allow for the installation of concrete barriers to protect the personnel and equipment that will be in place during the cleaning and painting of the truss. This is similar to what was done on the CCC Bridge several years ago in that concrete barriers were installed to allow for equipment to be placed on the shoulder of the bridge. DOTD has deployed a tow truck designated for motorist assistance at the Huey P. Long Bridge. It is operating during peak hours, 6:00 to 10:00 a.m. and 3:00 to 7:00 p.m. Also, we have been working with the Causeway Police who are positioned to respond to incidents and remove them as soon as possible.
Motorists have begun to adapt to the new lane configurations. On a typical day during the morning peak hours in the eastbound direction, motorists are experiencing travel times to cross the bridge of between 15 and 25 minutes between 6:45 a.m. and 8:15 a.m. At the beginning of the project, the delays were significantly longer. The delays to motorists in the westbound direction are occurring between 4:15 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. With the current configuration, there is very little delay for motorists on the Clearview approach to the bridge. The majority of the delay is being experienced by motorists approaching from the Jefferson Highway ramp to the bridge. Observations revealed that in the westbound direction, the travel times can range from 20 to 40 minutes which are longer than we would like to see. Therefore, we are also investigating the feasibility of implementing additional traffic control measures on the U.S. 90 westbound approach to the bridge that would allow traffic on the ramp from Jefferson Highway to have its own lane when entering the bridge, instead of having the ramp merge into the two through lanes from the Clearview Parkway approach. The adjustment will require a periodic lane closure on the Clearview approach to the bridge during the evening peak hours. This closure will be monitored to ensure traffic does not queue back to the traffic signals on Clearview Parkway and affect the retail centers during this holiday season. Outside the approximately four hours mentioned above and on weekends, there are no traffic delays as a result of this project.
The lane closure on the CCC HOV lanes for the painting project will be removed since this project is nearing completion. The lane closure on the HOV lanes has minimal impact to the Huey P. Long Bridge traffic. DOTD will continue to monitor the Huey P. Long Bridge traffic and take appropriate actions to reduce the delay motorists may experience.
DOTD is committed to delivering projects that promote safety, efficiency, and provide multimodal capability.
If you have any questions or need any additional information, please do not hesitate to contact me or Chris Morvant, District 02 District Administrator at 504-437-3101. Joshua Hollins will be attending the Jefferson Parish Council Meeting to address any additional concerns you may have.
Sincerely,
Shawn D. Wilson, Ph.D.
Secretary
SDW:CM:rmv
c: Chris Morvant
Joshua Hollins