The Bossier Parish Police Jury president broke down some of the projects coming to the parish over the next few years, including widening Benton Road, the opening of an expanded Swan Lake Road, and a new entrance to Barksdale.
Doug Rimmer, president of the Bossier Parish Police Jury and district 8 representative, discussed upcoming improvements during the Bossier Chamber of Commerce’s State of Bossier Address Tuesday.
He noted that the funding for the new entrance to Barksdale off I-20/220 has been finalized and the groundbreaking should be held May 17. He said the project is important to the protection of Barksdale.
“We think Barksdale will always be with us, but there’s a thing in the federal government called BRAC (base realignment and closure). So we’re doing everything we can to protect Barksdale because it’s important to us,” Rimmer said.
He also said residents should be able to use the newly expanded and improved Swan Lake Road in October.
Phase I of construction from I-220 north to Legacy Elementary is making progress. Phase II of the project will take the end of phase I up to Crouch Road, which will be all new road.
The jury is also hoping to widen Benton Road at I-220 by adding two extra lanes in each direction.
Parish leadership hopes to do the same by widening Swan Lake Road at I-220, adding extra lanes going north and south.
He noted the parish had recently finalized the bonding of $20.5 million for “critical” infrastructure project.
Some of that money will be used for engineering of the new East-West corridor. The new thoroughfare for parish travelers is designed to run from Winfield Road to LA Hwy. 3.
“When I took office in 2012, the staff took us through the transportation plan that had began in 2004. A lot had changed since then, we had to postpone that corridor and only focus on the North-South Corridor. But we haven’t forgotten the east-west,” said Rimmer.
Rimmer hopes to see a new roadway off Bodcau Station Road in the eastern portion of Bossier Parish to alleviate traffic off U.S. Hwy. 80 in Red Chute.
The parish also has plans to widen Palmetto Road to three lanes north up to Vance Road. They will then eventually take that up to Burt Boulevard in Benton.
They also have their eyes on extending Sligo Road to Hwy. 527 in south Bossier.
“We picked up Arthur Ray Teague Parkway where it ended at city limits on to Parkway High School, now we’ll take that on to Taylortown. That could be torpedoed if someone put in a well, so even though we don’t have the money to build this road, it’s very timely that we purchase the right of way to protect the road so we can build it,”
Finally, the jury plans to replace several bridges in the parish, beginning with the Linton Road bridge. The project is expected to start in summer 2020 and finish later that fall.
The jury will also replace the Swan Lake bridge in south Bossier over Flat River, the Sligo Road bridge, and Caplis-Sligo bridge among others.
