Plans for a new crossing over the Mississippi River in Iberville Parish are moving forward into the environmental evaluation phase, marking a significant milestone in efforts to improve connectivity between the east and west banks. The bridge, with three possible locations, will serve local traffic in the greater Baton Rouge area and are projected to cost at least $2 billion. The project, led by LDOTD and Atlas Technical Consultants, LLC, aims to enhance transportation capacity, provide an alternative route for incident management and improve overall system operations. Progress has been made on the design of the foundations of the bridge towers, with the northernmost crossing at River Mile 206.0 involving two tower foundations. The other two alternatives, at River Miles 202.8 and 202.1, feature three main towers. Phase one of the project, which included an enhanced planning study, concluded in the summer of 2022. The project has since moved into phase two— environmental evaluation. Paul Vaught, the lead project manager for the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development, emphasized the need to be vigilant and cautious in the design and implementation. “It’s a lot more than lines on the map and what we’re impacting,” Vaught said. “Where can we go if we find the best crossing location and everything looks great, but then you get into the engineering and find out it wasn’t a feasible place to put a bridge from a scour perspective, geotechnical perspective, or bridge design perspective? “You’ve wasted a lot of time and effort and advanced the project to a place where you’ve got to go backwards.” Vaught explained that the team has had to carefully manage the schedule, pushing the project forward while reassessing new information as it arises, which has required them to adjust their approach to its execution. The team has begun pre-NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) tasks, which included surveys using LIDAR data, topographic studies, and geotechnical explorations. Current work focuses on refining traffic models, toll estimates, and preliminary construction costs, alongside hydrologic and hydraulic studies to assess drainage across the project area. The NEPA phase is expected to begin in late 2024 and continue through spring 2026, although Vaught conceded the project is about a year behind its original timeline. “Some of the negotiating and contracting to include these new things took longer than expected, that’s just part of the nature of dealing with a large, dynamic consultant team,” Vaught said. “The other part of it is there’s new FHWA regulations, some rules that have been released from when we began the project to now.”