BATON ROUGE, La. – The Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (DOTD) will hold a public meeting for the O’Neal Lane Widening Project on Tuesday, Oct. 20, from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at Riverdale Christian Academy, located at 2791 O’Neal Lane.

The meeting is being held to allow the public to learn more about the project and to sign-up to receive periodic e-mail updates on the project’s progression. Representatives from DOTD and James Construction Group LLC will be in attendance to provide information on the project and answer any questions.

Work on the $11 million project involves widening O’Neal Lane from two to five lanes between I-12 and Florida Boulevard. The new road will have two 12-foot lanes in each direction and a continuous center turn lane. There will also be a 6-foot wide sidewalk and subsurface drainage on each side of the roadway. This section of O’Neal Lane serves more than 27,000 vehicles per day. In addition, all existing signal equipment will be upgraded with the latest signal technology. This new technology will include mast arm signal supports, light emitting diode (LED) signals for low energy consumption and longer life and video traffic detection cameras. Work on the project began Oct. 6 and will be complete by Nov. 2010.

To get to Riverdale Christian Academy, take I-12 to the La. 3245/O’Neal Lane exit (exit 7). Travel south on O’Neal Lane for approximately 1 mile. Riverdale Christian Academy will be on the left side of the road. The meeting will be held in the main sanctuary. Please enter through the double glass doors.

For questions or to sign up to receive periodic e-mail updates about the project, contact DOTD’s Customer Service Center at 1-877-4LA-DOTD (1-877-452-3683) or by e-mail at customerservice@dotd.la.gov. The center is open 7 a.m. – 6 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Learn more about the project by visiting the project’s Web page at www.dotd.la.gov. Click on "Projects" from the "Programs & Projects" section of the main menu on the left-hand side of the page and select the "O’Neal Widening Project" link.

You can also follow the O’Neal Lane Widening Project on Facebook. Once you open a Facebook account, project information can be accessed by entering "Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development" or "O’Neal Lane Widening Project" into the search field.