Perkins perks up
Two neighbors wanted to safely cross a street. What followed was a master class in getting things done.
It started on a front porch on Halloween.
Julie Gerdes Becnel was trick-or-treating in October 2024 when she stopped at neighbor Mysti Byrnes' door with a question: Would she want to help get a crosswalk built on Perkins Road? Byrnes said yes.
Sixteen months later, the Baton Rouge Metro Council has approved and funded the Perk Up Perkins Road Enhancements Project.
Why it matters: The Perkins Road Overpass area is one of the city's most active commercial corridors—restaurants, bars, retail built organically over decades. Crossing it on foot has never matched that energy.
- No reliable safe passage exists for pedestrians navigating fast-moving traffic on Perkins.
- Residents in surrounding neighborhoods have largely driven to a place they could walk to.
What's being built: A push-button hybrid beacon crosswalk at Ferndale and Perkins anchors the project, with additional improvements along the corridor between Hollydale and Cedardale avenues.
- Continuous sidewalks on both sides of Perkins.
- Refreshed crosswalks at Hollydale and Cedardale.
- ADA-compliant ramps throughout.
How it moved: The two mothers—neither with a background in city planning—started meeting weekly at Magpie Cafe in January 2025. The effort grew out of a book club in the 'dales that had been reading Jonathan Haidt's The Anxious Generation and looking for concrete ways to improve kids' safety and independence. The petition they launched on Change.org now carries 732 signatures.
- Presentations to the Complete Streets Advisory Committee connected them to AARP Louisiana and CPEX.
- A July neighborhood meeting—renderings on the walls, 40 people, power out—ended with Council Member Jen Racca and the mayor's office confirming crosswalk funding.
- Demo Day on August 16, 2025, temporarily transformed the corridor with painted crosswalks, walk audits and full business participation—and generated the documentation that anchored the MovEBR grant application.
- That morning, a woman was struck by a car just outside the event perimeter. That night, a car drove into Magpie's patio. The case for a safer street made itself.
The big picture: Perk Up Perkins follows a pattern becoming more familiar in Baton Rouge—a specific problem, a small group unwilling to wait and a solution that moved from neighborhood conversation to funded infrastructure without a master plan, endless studies or a government catalyst.
- It is the kind of bottom-up civic action that cities increasingly depend on residents to supply.
- Not every neighborhood has the capacity to pull it off.
The partners: Their passion and persistence were infectious—attracting broad support from community organizations, civic groups and corridor businesses that saw their vision and wanted in.
- AARP Louisiana provided a $15,000 community grant and the fiscal structure the effort needed to move; CPEX provided planning support and credibility; Tipton Associates produced renderings; Baton Rouge Green and Strong Towns rounded out the coalition.
What's next: The project moves through MovEBR and the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development implementation. No confirmed construction timeline exists—Byrnes and Gerdes Becnel said they've been told to expect 2028. They're watching it closely.
The bottom line: Could they have gotten a crosswalk without the petition, the demo, the coalition, the hundreds of hours? Probably. "Could we have done less?" Byrnes said. "Absolutely. That's not us."
