Those of us fighting the controversial Interstate 49 Inner-city Connector in Shreveport noticed something curious about the images on display at yesterday’s public meeting on proposed routes for the project. As you can see from these photos, the highway builders depict the ICC Options 1 through 3A with two lanes in each direction. When you get to Option 5, which is the existing loop around west Shreveport consisting of LA 3132 and I-220, the images show three lanes in each direction. Could it be that the highway builders are falsely claiming that two lanes must be added to the loop in each direction so as to grossly inflate the cost and make the loop option inferior to the inner-city options?

When they canceled the ICC in the 1990s federal highway officials cited two things:

1) environmental issues associated with gouging an elevated freeway through historic districts, neighborhoods and a wetlands area; and

2) the existence of the highway loop around Shreveport.

Somehow the local highway lobbyists revived the ICC, and now, millions of tax dollars in consulting fees later, we have charades like this. That makes the I-49 ICC a “zombie” project, and an expensive one.

Your tax dollars at work.