Traffic flow changes debated

• By WILL SENTELL
• Advocate Capitol News Bureau
• Published: Feb 26, 2008 - Page: 1B

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State officials are looking at whether alternating the direction of certain traffic lanes during morning and evening rush hours would ease congestion in Baton Rouge and elsewhere.

Transportation insiders call it reversible lanes.

“This is something the department has not studied before and is just in the preliminary stages of looking at,” William Ankner, the new secretary of the state Department of Transportation and Development, said Monday.

“I have asked the staff to see whether that could be a solution to some of the congestion needs,” Ankner said.

Reversible lanes generally involve those used for different directions at different times of the day.

For instance, the middle lane of a five-lane highway could be westbound in the morning and eastbound in the late afternoon.

A four-lane highway could use three lanes for one direction in the morning and reverse that flow during afternoon rush.

Barriers and traffic signals are separate issues.

Ankner, who is in his third week on the job, said he does not have any specific spots in mind.

However, he said reversible lanes are relatively common on the East Coast, where Ankner has spent much of his professional career.

State highway officials say the state has a $14 billion backlog of road and bridge needs, and no clear answers on how to address it.

Plans to expand Interstate 10 from the Mississippi River Bridge to the I-10-12 split, and on I-12 from the split to Walker, are among dozens of projects languishing because of lack of funds.

Ankner also told the Joint Highway Priority Construction Committee that the state needs to consider options other than merely adding lanes to interstates.