Same bridge, same problems

A new Mississippi River bridge south of Baton Rouge could have a location within the next year, state Rep. Dixon McMakin said in late June—the closest thing to a deadline in four years of searching.

Why it matters: A second bridge is the rare Baton Rouge project almost everyone agrees on, but the version taking shape won't fix the region's traffic problem, and nobody's figured out how to pay for it.

The need: State data from 2022 found roughly 80% of the 126,000 vehicles crossing the Horace Wilkinson Bridge daily are locals, not through traffic—Baton Rouge uses I-10 like a surface street because it doesn't have enough real ones.

• Big rigs make up just 15% of that traffic, undercutting the theory that cross-country trucking is the real culprit.

Modest relief: All three sites still in play sit well south, in Iberville Parish, linking La. 1 near Plaquemine to La. 30 near St. Gabriel.

• DOTD's own projections show the new span pulling about 24,000 vehicles off the current bridge, roughly 19% of daily traffic.
• More than 100,000 vehicles would still cross the Horace Wilkinson Bridge every day.

Location matters: Just south of Brightside Drive—on land between the LSU campus and University Club—is the only site that would actually ease I-10 and I-12 commuter gridlock, a traffic infrastructure expert who has run the numbers but isn't involved in the project tells RedEye.

• "Anything past Addis (in southern West Baton Rouge Parish) and you get diminishing returns. And if you toll it, then it won't pay for itself," said the expert, who spoke on condition of anonymity because his firm does business with both state and city-parish governments.
• Such sites were never seriously considered—the regulatory, environmental and financial hurdles along that corridor are well documented.

Shrinking money: Gov. John Bel Edwards proposed a $500 million "down payment" in 2022; skeptical lawmakers cut it to $300 million, earmarked mainly to help the state qualify for federal matching funds.

• DOTD now says roughly $400 million has been spent, yet there's still no chosen site, no construction contract and no finished funding plan.
• Stuck in planning and environmental review, that money has gone almost entirely to consultants and studies, not concrete.
• Fresh estimates for the three remaining alignments run $1.78 billion to $2.04 billion, before engineering, design or utility work is added.

Toll math fails: Officials are weighing tolls, a regional sales tax and a private-partner deal modeled on the Calcasieu River Bridge.

• $40 million a year in toll revenue, bonded over 50 years, raises $700 million to $750 million—well short of a $2 billion bridge.
• A vanity play in the Legislature to name the bridge after President Trump—hoping a flattered president would respond with a river of federal dollars—died in the Senate as the session closed.

The bottom line: A preferred site is supposed to arrive by year's end, but DOTD's own best-case timeline doesn't put a bridge over the river until 2033—so treat this "next year" the way we've treated the last four.