$60M awarded for I-10 upgrade near Lafayette to Henderson

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Nationally Significant Freight and Highway Projects Program, also known as FASTLANE, will award $60 million to the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development as part of the I-10 Freight Corridor Rehabilitation and Expansion (CoRE) project.
Dr. Charles Boustany, R-Lafayette, announced the grant in a news release.
Boustany led a letter of support for DOTD’s grant application with the entire Louisiana Congressional delegation in April, the news release stated.
Under the CoRE project, DOTD will be replacing pavement and adding an additional lane on I-10 in Lafayette between the I-10/I-49 interchange and the Atchafalaya Floodway Bridge. In 2015 alone, this corridor carried 120 million tons of freight worth $204 billion, with an annual average daily traffic volume of 74,591 drivers per day on the westbound segment and 52, 240 drives per day on the eastbound segment.
Much of the heavily-traveled corridor has not been repaved since the 1960s, causing widespread deterioration of pavement conditions.
The FASTLANE program is a new competitive grant program created under the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act to provide funding for nationally significant highway, bridge, and freight projects. Congress authorized $800 million to be allocated in the grant’s inaugural year.
Boustany said: “The I-10 corridor has long been a nightmare for both commercial and individual drivers in South Louisiana. Poor road quality combined with the sheer volume of daily freight and traffic on the corridor makes it a huge safety concern. I am excited for this project to get underway and I look forward to seeing some tangible results for our years of work on this issue.”