(Updated….scroll to bottom.)
Last night (Wednesday), the first of three meetings of the I-49 Lafayette Connector CSS committees took place. Originally, the idea for the Community Work Group’s meeting was to finalize the alternatives that would go into the final Tier III analysis for selecting the preferred alternatives that would go into the preliminary engineering and Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) process.
That’s not the way it quite turned out, however.
What was supposed to be a summary of the Tier II process broken up into sub groups was transformed into a impromptu session where the entire CWG committee took control of the meeting from the Stantec consultants and rehashed some concerns they had over the process and the future of the Connector freeway design and construction timetable.
Essentially, the CWG, mostly made up of representatives from Lafayette Consolidated Government (LCG) and some community leaders, took major exception to LADOTD and the Lafayette Connector Partners (the consulting group paid by LADOTD to shepherd the Conceptual Design and SEIS processes) for what they said were unanswered concerns about the designs that were being pushed to Tier III.
The main objection they had was to the recent decision by LADOTD Secretary Shawn Wilson to only allow one concept design out of the two studied (the Series 4 Elevated and the Series 6 Partially Depressed/Covered) to be retained for the Tier III and SEIS processes. The fear was that the Elevated design that was favored by Wilson and the LADOTD would not include amenities sought after by LCG to mitigate and soften the huge impact the Connector would have on the footprint of the city. Also, they were convinced that the Depressed/Covered design of Series 6 had not been given a fair vetting; in particular, the design approach that was put forth by the Evangeline Thruway Redevelopment Team (ETRT) through its Evangeline Corridor Initiative (ECI) Charette Meeting process. The design for the “Cut-and-Cover” alternative proposed by LADOTD was fundamentally different from what the ECI had proposed in its Charette process.
The other major concern was that of cost-sharing for the amenities sought by LCG and the ETRT. LADOTD to date has been a bit distant about negotiating the terms of what they would be willing to pay for regarding construction. That has jolted LCG because many of the desired additions that they want for mitigating the Connector’s impact — including a “signature bridge”, provisions for bicycle and pedestrian paths, additional space for community development, and clean up of the “brownfield” site of the former Southern Pacific Railroad rail yard site from possible toxic waste contamination — would not be paid for out of Federal/State construction funds, but out of local funds that might be out of their reach.
This email letter from LCG Planning Director Carlee Alm-LaBar to LADOTD Connector Project Chief Engineer Tim Nickel (released by the Lafayette Independent) is an encapsulation of all the concerns of the locals to what they perceive as LADOTD rushing the process to push the Elevated option ahead of any true vetting of all the analysis. Ms. Alm-LaBar is also a member of the Connector Executive Committee, as well as on the ETRT. (Reposted by me via Scribd.com; scroll to bottom for Fair Use notice.)
The meeting process continued today (Thursday) with the Technical Advisory Committee having met this morning. Tomorrow evening, the Executive Committee is scheduled to meet, whereupon it is expected that they will make their final decision on which design concepts would move on to Tier III and the SEIS. The CWG did vote by majority to recommend both Series 4 and Series 6 be advanced, in defiance to the prevailing notion by Wilson that only Series 4 would be pushed due to time and expense.
As always, I will update this as events warrant.
[Fair Use Notice: The email by Carlee Alm-LeBar was originally linked in the article posted at the Lafayette Independent. Since it is already linked as a public document, I am invoking the Fair Use-Public Domain protocol in reposting the email as a public document. If there is any objection from either the Independent or Ms. Lebar or any official of LCG, I will retract the document and link only to the article.]
UPDATE (3-31-2017):
Well, it looks like the CWG revolt may actually yield some results.
Today, the Lafayette Advertiser quoted LCG Mayor-President Joel Robideaux saying that there was a chance that the Connector Executive Committee, which is scheduled to meet later this afternoon, could delay the decision to reduce down the choice of design concepts down to one (the implication being that only the Elevated option would be retained for the Tier III and SEIS processes). This would possibly allow the Depressed/Covered option more time for vetting and analysis, or even get it included into the advanced studies prior to a final decision on which concept alternatives would be selected as the preferred alternatives.
Updates as they occur, of course.