Moving Forward

The ride to and from work is getting smoother and smoother in St. Landry Parish as the first two phases of an ambitious parishwide “Smooth Ride Home” road rebuilding program near completion.

It’s a visionary plan that Parish President Bill Fontenot says should be a model for the state and the nation. “It’s better than the U.S. or the state in my opinion,” he said. “We are upgrading our roads to a standard that will last for many, many years to come. This is work that has been needed for decades.”

The parish has about $42.5 million in road work currently under contract and plans to open bids for the next phases over the coming 12 months, according to Fontenot.  There are about 800 miles of locally maintained roads in St. Landry Parish and he estimates that 700 miles of those roads need work of one sort or another

Fontenot said some 120 miles of work has been done and he anticipates completion of 300 miles by next spring. That, he said, will cover all of the primary connector roads in the parish.

The work is funded by a 15-year, two-cent sales tax approved in October 2013 by voters in the rural portions of the parish. The tax generates about $7 million a year that is dedicated exclusively to rural road improvements

St. Landry Parish sold $66 million in bonds to fund the entire project, with completion of the last substantial projects expected in about three years. Fontenot said retiring the bonds will require about $5.7 million a year. That leaves approximately $2 million a year available for smaller road projects

The program “will allow us to improve our roads to a standard that will last for many, many years to come,” according to Fontenot, a licensed civil engineer who retired after nearly 40 years with the Louisiana highway department.

“Until this program was approved, we were forced to wait for state or federal dollars to fix our roads—and those funds just haven’t been there lately,” he said. “Now we’re doing this ourselves, and in a better way.”

He said some of the roads on the renovation list are in reasonable shape and require only a new overlay of asphalt, but that some of them must be completely rebuilt after years of neglect.

“The whole foundation is bad” for such roads, he said. “We are having to dig up two to three feet of the old road and mix it with lime and cement to create a new foundation.”

“Smooth Ride Home will extend the lives of the roadways for about 15 years, which is about the average lifespan of an asphalt road in our climate. That will allow the parish to begin a 

systematic maintenance program that will keep them in good shape”, Fontenot said.

The parish president noted that bids for the first parts of the project have been lower than anticipated. “This will allow our money to go further so we can improve even more roads,” he said.

Fontenot praised “the foresight of the voters” who approved the tax necessary “to address a deteriorating road system that many people regarded as the biggest challenge facing St. Landry Parish. This is really historical for the parish,” he said.

“These roads will not only pave the way for residents and school buses and visitors to our parish, but they will be an important part of the infrastructure that makes St. Landry more and more attractive to a growing number of businesses,” he said.

Photography by Freddie Herpin/Daily World