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# Perkins keeps waiting
- URL: https://www.redeyebr.com/perkins-keeps-waiting/
- Published: 2026-07-17T00:31:45.000Z
- Updated: 2026-07-17T00:31:45.000Z
- Description: One crosswalk got funded in months. The reason it's still not built is stalling every street safety fix in the parish.
- Author: JR Ball
- Tags: News

A Halloween porch conversation turned into a funded crosswalk on Perkins Road in 16 months. Building it won't happen until at least 2028.

**Why it matters:** [Perk Up Perkins](https://www.redeyebr.com/perkins-perks-up/) proves Baton Rouge's bottleneck on street safety isn't money or hustle—it's the pipeline itself.

**One pipeline:** A five-figure crosswalk and a nine-figure highway rebuild move through the same review process at the same speed.

- That stretch of Perkins Road is still a state route, owned and maintained by Louisiana DOTD, so even a Metro Council-funded crosswalk clears the same review as a full corridor rebuild.
- MOVEBR's half-cent sales tax pours concrete and paint alike but funds no dedicated staff to push small fixes through faster.
- East Baton Rouge has logged 16% of Louisiana's pedestrian deaths since 2020, more than any other parish in the state.

**What works elsewhere:** [Somerville](https://www.governing.com/infrastructure/this-new-england-city-hasnt-had-a-traffic-death-in-three-years?ref=redeyebr.com), Massachusetts, and [Hoboken](https://www.governing.com/transportation/how-hoboken-has-gone-years-without-a-traffic-death?ref=redeyebr.com), New Jersey, went three and seven years without a traffic death using tools that cost paint, not bond money.

- Hoboken daylighted 78 intersections in 2023 alone, clearing sightlines at corners with posts and planters instead of parked cars so drivers see pedestrians before reaching the crosswalk.
- The city also dropped its citywide speed limit to 20 mph, painted 61 high-visibility crosswalks, built 9 curb extensions and folded safety work into every routine repaving job instead of treating it as a separate project.
- Somerville installed more than 70 traffic-calming features in a single year and tracked results street by street—one corridor went from 80% of drivers speeding to 2%.
- Both cities have one government deciding. Baton Rouge routes even a crosswalk through two.

**The bottom line:** Somerville and Hoboken treat crosswalks as routine maintenance. Baton Rouge still treats them as infrastructure projects, and infrastructure projects wait in line behind bulldozers.

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