Motorists who use the Causeway Bridge should be a bit safer crossing Lake Pontchartrain in the next few months.
Two projects are set to begin soon on the 24-mile-long span. Construction for safety shoulders is expected to start in February. The first staggered shoulder will be completed as early as July.
Each month after that, an additional shoulder will be opened until all twelve are operational.
Work is aso scheduled to begin in early April on higher guardrails for the southbound bridge. Currently, those rails are 25-inches high. The new construction will raise them to 40 inches.
General Manager of the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, Carlton Dufrechou, has said there are eight-to-ten breakdowns on the Causeway every day. In the last 25 years, more than a dozen crashes have sent vehicles over the rail and into the lake.