Work starts on Ascension roundabout
PORT VINCENT — State traffic engineers plan to fine-tune a La. 16 traffic signal’s light cycle near a future roundabout in Ascension Parish to help prevent heavy traffic from backing up into the new interchange, an official said.
The Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development started work Tuesday on the $1.24 million roundabout at the T-intersection of La. 431 and La. 42 west of the Amite River Bridge, DOTD spokesman Dustin Annison said.
The work is expected to be finished by mid-August, barring weather delays, Annison said.
Modern roundabouts are circular intersections without traffic control lights designed to carry continuous traffic flows and to improve safety.
The one-lane intersection will have a circumference of 124 feet. According to plans, travel lanes are 20 feet wide. Inside the travel lanes a 21-foot-wide circular apron will be installed to ease the transit of trailers and 18-wheelers through the roundabout.
But on the other side the bridge from the future roundabout — about three-tenths of a mile away — is a traffic light at the busy intersection of La. 42 and La. 16 in Livingston Parish.
Scott Boyle, DOTD district traffic operations engineer, said this week during an open house on the roundabout that traffic engineers will make the needed adjustments to the light after the roundabout is built.
He said the planned adjustments would be no different than those done after other highway improvements are finished.
During the open house, some residents expressed hope that the roundabout would help ease traffic congestion, adding that they did not have worries about negotiating the roundabout.
“It don’t bother me as long as it don’t make me late for work,” said Robert Pendarvis, 47, of Port Vincent.
But a few also noted that evening traffic on La. 42 and La. 431 headed toward Livingston Parish will sometimes back up from the La. 16 traffic light west across the Amite River Bridge and into the La. 431-La. 42 intersection.
Lester Fortenberry, 62, of Hobart in Ascension Parish, said he pointed out the backups to engineers and was told the lights would have be adjusted. But he said he wondered what would happen if traffic still backed up into the roundabout.
Marie Fortenberry, 65, Lester’s wife, said she thought the roundabout would help.
“It can’t be any worse than it is now,” she said.
Robert Aydell, 83, of Port Vincent, said the roundabout might look good with a few cars on it, but said he does not know how it would look with a few hundred.
“The traffic light (at La. 16) is what holds everybody up,” Aydell said.
He said the roundabout would help, but would not solve the big problem, which is the need for another bridge over the Amite River.
Boyle did say that traffic back-ups from the La. 16-La. 42 light into the La. 431-La. 42 roundabout are possible.
“It could. It could happen,” he said.
But he noted heavy traffic flow at the light is usually in one direction, depending on the time of day. He explained traffic engineers can set the lights to provide more time to move the heaviest traffic surges through the intersection.
Traffic lights nearest the future roundabout on La. 42 westbound and La. 431 southbound are a few miles away in Ascension.