Candidates offer ideas on traffic; Holden absent

• By SCOTT DYER
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Sep 24, 2008 - Page: 4B - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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Mayor-President Kip Holden missed a candidates’ forum on transportation issues Tuesday night at LSU, but the three men running for office against him offered some new ideas about how to keep traffic moving in East Baton Rouge Parish.

Democrat Ron Johnson wants to eliminate the Interstate 10/Interstate 12 split, which he views as a major bottleneck.

Metro Councilman Wayne Carter, a Republican, said Holden is wasting $10 million to synchronize traffic signals in downtown Baton Rouge. He said he’s never had to wait more than a single light cycle at any traffic light at any downtown intersection.

Carter said he would put four-way stops downtown and use the $10 million to synchronize traffic signals on major arteries, such as Perkins Road.

Despite protests about traffic and inadequate sewer service in the area of Perkins and College Drive, the city-parish Planning Commission on Monday approved an initial site plan for the Rouzan traditional neighborhood development that will tax the infrastructure even more, Carter said.

“What happened last night wasn’t smart growth; it was bad politics,” Carter said.

The third candidate, Republican Dan Kyle, wants to relieve traffic by widening I-10 and to bolster the local bus system.

“A good public bus system would help the traffic as much as anything, but all I’ve seen from CATS is reductions in routes and service. That’s not the direction we need to go,” said Kyle, a former state legislative auditor and former BREC board member.

Kyle said the congestion that collects at the foot of the I-10 Bridge over the Mississippi River should be called the “Kip Holden traffic jam” because the mayor fought efforts to widen I-10.

Johnson, a former assistant attorney general and former parish School Board member, had a different view on the interstate system, noting that I-10 and I-12 usually have bumper-to-bumper traffic even before the split. He said traffic would flow much more freely if the split was eliminated, and I-10 and I-12 were built atop each one other, or side by side.

Johnson also noted that he supports the idea of mass transit, and said Holden vowed to pursue a light rail in his 2004 campaign.

“So far, nothing has happened — rail was taken off the table, and the loop was placed on the table. Now why that happened, I really don’t know,” he said.

Johnson said if he’s elected, he’ll revamp the bus system to go to where people need to go, like hospitals, malls and recreation areas. Capital Area Transit System buses go to those sites.