Smooth Ride Home asphalt coming to Eunice area

By Harlan Kirgan
harlan.kirgan@eunicetoday.com
The massive St. Landry Parish Smooth Ride Home Program is arriving in the Eunice area.
St. Landry Parish President Bill Fontenot said, “It is really now hitting Eunice. It really is.”
The 15-year program, funded by a 2 cent sales tax, is expected to pave up to 80 percent of the 800 miles of roads in St. Landry Parish and all of the major parish roads, Fontenot said.
Construction started in September 2014, but since November has encountered about three months of weather-related delays.
“With this good weather, this stretch of good weather, this luck, we’ve had the blessing of the last four to five days, it really allows for a contractor to get started and gain some momentum,” Fontenot said.
Work crews are starting to arrive in the Eunice area.
On Thursday, a crew was finishing work on Guillory Road east of Eunice.
A crew was scheduled to begin work on South Vivian Road Friday morning.
About 100 miles of road has been paved and another 100 miles is under contract, he said.
Fontenot expects about 200 miles of road work to be completed by the end of fall.
“Then we will, probably after the first of the year, bid another 100 or so miles,” he said. “So, that will take care of over 300 miles.”
The annual payment for the $66 million bond issue is about $5.3 million to $5.5 million, he said. But the sales tax is generating about $7.3 million a year, he said.
After about three years, Fontenot expects a surplus will be generated, which can then be used for more road work — improving 10 to 15 miles of roads a year, he said.
The first roads improved under the program may be ready for work again in 15 years, which is when the tax will be up for a renewal, he said.
Before the program, there were 700 miles of roads that needed maintenance, he said.
‘All them needed maintenance virtually every day and that was just an impossibility,” Fontenot said. “We lived in a situation that we could never recover from. We were always going to have bad roads.”
Before the road program, parish roads were often repaired in a process that ended with “pothole and bump roads,” he said.
“I think some people are already feeling the significance of these 100 miles that we have paved,” he said.
“When you have better roads and when you live in an area that improving one would think you would feel better about the living conditions,” he said.
Prairie Construction and Coastal Bridge Contractors won the bidding for the first projects, he said.
It is Coastal that is making its way into the Eunice area, he said.
Roads are covered with a minimum of two inches of asphaltic concrete, but in some cases roads must be rebuilt from the base up, he said.
And, many of the roads have not been paved since the 1970s, he said.
Before roads are paved, parish crews attend to drainage issues, he said.
Eunice area roads receiving paving or about to be paved are:
Soileau Road from La. 757 to La. 13.
St. Mary Road from Perchville to U.S. 190 and U.S. 190 to La. 29.
South Vivian from Perchville Road to Maple Avenue.
Lawyer Road from Dresser Loop to La. 13.
Dresser Loop from La. 757 to Lawyer Road.
Guillory Road from U.S. 190 to Parish Line.
In Phase 2, Contract B, there are 42 miles of roads to receive work of which 65 percent are in the Eunice area.