Causeway work begins this week
Starting this week, work starts on the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway to add shoulder segments to the bridge, increasing the amount of emergency stopping space. It's part of the reason why Causeway tolls went up almost two years ago.
If you want to be technical about it, work is already underway, as crews build the parts necessary -- it's just final assemble that gets started this week.
"These'll be basically like LEGO blocks," explained Causeway General Manager Carlton Dufrechou. "The piles, the pile caps, the entire deck sections are being fabricated off-site. All of the will be barged out to the bridge."
He says each emergency stopping bay will be 16 feet wide and more than a thousand feet long: "It will almost quadruple the emergency stopping area on the bridge."
Dufrechou says the work will all happen on the lake-side of the guardrail, so it won't even impact traffic that much.
"There'll be no impacts to our traffic at all," he said, "except at the bitter end, right before each segmented shoulder is opened up, there'll be a nighttime cut of the existing barrier."
Dufrechou says there will be a few days of lane closure as they prep for that.