• By WILL SENTELL
• Advocate Capitol News Bureau
• Published: Mar 23, 2008 - Page: 1A - UPDATED: 03.23.08

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Louisiana’s troubled roads and bridges are in line to get more than $1 billion in new state aid during the next five years as a result of the Legislature’s most recent special session.

The assistance includes:

• n $636 million by gradually  reshuffling the state budget to boost transportation funding.
• n nearly $400 million in onetime dollars from the state’s $1.1 billion budget surplus.

The new money would pay for the widening of Interstate 12 from O’Neal Lane to Range Avenue, improvements on La. 73 in Ascension Parish and La. 43 in Livingston Parish.

Dozens of other projects, big and small, are on tap for every parish in the state.

“People are going to start seeing concrete and asphalt, and that is what people want to see,” said state Rep. Bodi White, R-Central, one of the early backers in the push for more state highway aid.

The new assistance was a key part of Gov. Bobby Jindal’s agenda for his second special session, which ended on March 14.
Lawmakers approved the plans by lopsided margins in just six days.

State road and bridge conditions have come under criticism for years.

Last year, a national transportation research group called TRIP panned the state’s system, giving out an “F” for its roads and a “D-minus” for bridge conditions.

The $1 billion authorized is on top of $600 million in onetime highway aid that won legislative approval last year.

That funding includes $30 million to widen I-10 from the I-10/12 split to Siegen Lane.

State transportation officials say the backlog of road and bridge projects totals $14 billion, and keeps growing.

“If we didn’t have this kind of new investment, we would have seen an acceleration of deterioration of our infrastructure,” said William Ankner, secretary of the state Department of Transportation and Development.

Meg Mahoney, director of technology and other areas for the Baton Rouge Area Chamber, said the combination of new and recurring aid for highways and bridges would address longtime business complaints that poor roads are hampering the state’s economic development.

Mahoney also praised the aid for I-12 and La. 73.