On Jan. 6, Gov. Bobby Jindal joined Department of Transportation and Development Secretary William Ankner, State Sen. Dale Erdey, State Rep. Mack A. “Bodi” White and Livingston Parish President Mike Grimmer to officially mark the completion of the La. 16 widening project between Denham Springs and Watson.

Jindal said, “In addition to providing much-needed relief to drivers, these new lanes will continue to spur economic growth in this region. La. 16 is an excellent example of how investment in infrastructure will further job creation and business expansion in our state, and help move Louisiana forward.”

DOTD hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the completion of the project. Other speakers included State Sen. Dale Erdey, State Rep. Mack A. “Bodi” White and Livingston Parish President Mike Grimmer.

“We are here today to keep a promise we made just over one year ago. We said we’d be finished by the end of 2008, and we succeeded,” said DOTD Secretary William Ankner. “This is another example of DOTD making a promise to the citizens of Louisiana and delivering on it.”

Work on the $7.7 million project included widening La. 16 from two to four lanes with a raised median from just north of La. 1025 to just south of La. 1019. The new lanes are 12 ft. (3.6 m) wide with 10-ft. (3 m) outside shoulders and 6-ft. (1.8 m) inside shoulders.

In addition, turn outs were constructed at every side street to allow drivers needing to turn a way to get out of traffic.

More than 25,000 drivers use this road each day. The new lanes will eliminate a bottleneck and ease congestion on this heavily traveled stretch of La. 16, according to officials.

Work on the project began in November 2007. The contractor for the project is Barriere Construction Co. LLC of Franklinton. It was the first capacity project constructed in this area using surplus funds obtained from the 2007 Legislative Session.

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