Walker: Move BR loop

• By DEBRA LEMOINE
• Advocate Florida parishes bureau
• Published: Mar 11, 2008 - Page: 4B - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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WALKER — The Board of Aldermen unanimously passed a resolution Monday night asking planners of the proposed Baton Rouge Loop to not place the toll route through the town limits.

The resolution came as more than 70 residents attended a meeting where mostly town residents expressed concerns for an hour about the proposed route for the loop.

They handed the Board of Aldermen two separate petitions with at least 100 signatures per effort.

Many told the board the Feb. 27 loop meeting in Denham Springs — one of five meetings held recently in the affected parishes — failed to address any of their concerns and they wanted a Walker meeting to do so.

According to the latest maps, the loop could bisect eastern Walker at La. 449, residents said.

The Central route, the most northern route under consideration, would leave Interstate 12 east of Walker and run along the Arnold Road area in Livingston Parish and cross the Amite River over a new bridge, planners have said.

The 90- to 100-mile loop, expected to cost $4 billion and take eight to 10 years to build, is being designed to ease traffic congestion on I-10 and I-12 through Baton Rouge and adjacent parishes, while opening potential new areas to economic and residential development.

For the most part, residents addressing town officials Monday said they simply do not want to lose their homes in order to solve the traffic woes of commuters.

“To round it up, we’re not-in-my-backyard people,” said John Haynes, a Walker resident who gave the board a petition of nearly 100 signatures asking planners to move the route.

Steve Stafford, a town resident who is at risk of losing his family homestead dating from 1885 to the loop, said he thinks widening I-12 to Walker and widening U.S. 190 should be done first before considering the loop.

“I don’t think this is about traffic,” Stafford said.

“This is about economic development and that’s unconstitutional.”

Mayor Travis Clark said he and Walker residents, including a retired East Baton Rouge Parish civil engineer whose house is in the loop’s proposed path, will meet with loop consulting engineers March 21.