October Update: Finalist SEIS End-To-End Alternatives Introduced; Public Meeting Held (AKA: The Fog Lifts)

Addendum (12-24-2021): After so many years of absence, I have decided to restart this blog in lieu of some major updates in the progress of the I-49 Lafayette Connector freeway project. Future posts will reflect the progress of the Functional Corridor Study and the Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) processes that are currently ongoing. I have also made some minor edits to this particular blog post to correct some misspellings. Further posts are incoming. — AJK

A new milestone in the development of the I-49 Lafayette Connector project was fulfilled yesterday.

The LADOTD and the Lafayette Connector Partners (LCP) consultant group held an official Public Meeting last Thursday to officially introduce to the public the finalist End-to-End Refinement Alternatives that would be analyzed and vetted through the Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) process.

Essentially the final Refinement Alternatives will be down to comparisons of two options:

1) The Selected Alternative that was originally approved in the 2003 Final EIS/Record of Decision (ROD); and

2) a Base Refinement Alternative that was created and revised through the Tier II and Tier III Corridor Refinement Processes held during the previous 12 months; itself also broken down with 2 Subalternative designs.

The 2003 ROD Alternative is included only as a control for comparison purposes; the 2017 Refinement Alternative will be ultimately tweaked and revised into the final Supplemental Selected Alternative that will be approved through the SEIS process with a Supplemental ROD.

Here’s a full view of the original 2003 ROD Alternative (all graphics are screencapped from the official LADOTD/LCP Lafayette Connector website).

Full view from end to end of the originally approved 2003 EIS/ROD Selected Alternative alignment/design for the I-49 Lafayette Connector. This will be analyzed in the SEIS only for comparison purposes and will NOT be the final Supplemental Selected Alternative.

You can clearly see the main features of the original 2003 ROD alternative:

1) Three-level directional interchange at Kaliste Saloom Road;
2) Conventional slip-ramp diamond interchange at University Avenue/Surrey Street, dependent on displacement of Runway 11-29 at Lafayette Regional Airport as to adjust the runway’s glide path for aircraft approaches/landings/takeoffs;
3) Standalone Single Point Urban Interchanges (SPUI’s) at Johnston Street and a combined Second Street/Third Street couplet, with accompanying underpass grade separations of the BNSF/UP railroad mainline, for direct access downtown;
4) Incorporation of the existing Evangeline Thruway one-way couplet into the freeway frontage road system;
5) A slip-ramp Urban Diamond interchange at Willow Street, with “crossunder” connections under the elevated structure at Castille Avenue/Martin Luther King Drive and Donlon Avenue/Walmart Drive;
6) A higher than conventional vertical clearance (22 feet) along the downtown core area along the Sterling Grove neighborhood (which is a designated Historical District) in order to mitigate the visual impact on the district and surrounding neighborhood; and
7) A brief “dip” of fill section between Johnston and Jefferson streets to accommodate the downtown interchanges.

Due to the strong feedback by local officials who wanted major changes in the design, as well as providing for the changes in the environment and the general area since the 2003 ROD was issued; the Concept Refinement Process was initialized in January 2015 for the purpose of proposing changes and modifications to the design. The resulting three tiered process ended up producing first 19 alternative concepts and 6 series concepts for the central downtown core section, and 25 Potential Design Modifications throughout the corridor (Tier 1); which was reduced down to 4 proposed alignments using 2 series (Elevated and Partially Depressed, the latter split into Open Trench and Cut-and-Cover Tunnel suboptions). Further analysis during Tier II eliminated the Series 6 Partially Depressed option (much to the chagrin of many locals); and reduced the concepts down to two finalists:

Elevated with the existing Evangeline Thruway remaining in couplet form;

and

Elevated with the Thruway converted into a Grand Boulevard on its southbound ROW and the northbound ROW reverted into a local street.

Further analysis was undertaken involving local arterial street access and connectivity underneath the mainline Connector facility, revisions to avoid encroaching upon the LFT Runway 11-29 glide flight path made necessary by the revoking of the proposed displacement, and means to avoid further impacts to the Freetown-Port Rico neighborhood, which itself became a Historical District in 2015.

These new refinement alternatives and subalternatives reflect the consensus of the stakeholders and community in balancing the need for the Connector to handle the traffic logjam on the current Evangeline Thruway with the desire to maintain and improve connectivity and improve asthetics; and also upgrade multimodal access to include pedestrians and bicyclists.

The Base Refinement Alternative is shown below in full:

Proposed Base Refinement Alternative for I-49 Lafayette Connector freeway, reflecting the refinements and revisions developed through the tiered Concept Refinement Process.

The hatched blue segment at the southern end of the project reflects improvements that will be incorporated into the related US 90 interchange with Verot School Road; which will be designed and constructed separately from the Connector.

The primary features of the Base Refined Alternative are defined below.

1) The interchange with Kaliste Saloom Road is reduced in scope and design to a 2-level elevated Diverging T, where the cross movements meet at grade rather than are grade separated. This allows for a less expensive and visually less intrusive design, and also allows for adjusting the local connection roads between Kaliste Saloom Rd. and Hugh Walls Rd. to avoid encroaching a recently built motel and the Walls Estate property.

Revised Kaliste Saloom Road interchange under 2017 Base Refinement Alternative. Blue hatched segments are associated with the proposed US 90/Future I-49 South interchange with Verot School Road, which is a separate project.

2)  The University Avenue/Surrey Street interchange is moderately redesigned by depressing University/Surrey below its existing level by a maximum of 15 feet, adjusting the level of the frontage road system to connect with the lowered University/Surrey ROW, and reducing the vertical profile of the Connector mainline overpass of University/Surrey so that the current glide path for Runway 11-29 at LFT is not encroached. Pumping would be required during rainfall events at the University/Surrey underpass due to the proximity of the Vermilion River crossings of University and the Connector/Evangeline Thruway mainline/frontage system, and retaining walls will probably be necessary to accommodate businesses currently along the existing intersection.

Base Refinement Alternative showing revisions for the University Avenue/Surrey Street interchange.

3.)  The most significant change from the Tier II proposals is that the proposed connection ramps linking the Evangeline Thruway to the Connector are shifted completely out of the central core area. The north connection ramps I’ll get to shortly; but the south connection ramps, which formerly were placed to connect to the Thruway at Eleventh Street, have now been pushed well to the south to south of Pinhook Road. In addition, the ramps which would have been the north connection to University/Surrey have been shifted north to north of Pinhook Road, connecting with the Evangeline Thruway couplet system south of Taft Street.

The result: Pinhook Road now gets a full interchange with I-49.

Furthermore, the Pinhook Road intersection with the Thruway/Connector is improved by adding a displaced left turn segment from westbound Pinhook to southbound Evangeline Thruway, similar to what you would find in a continuous flow intersection. Adjustments and refinements are made to the local street system to accommodate these revisions; they have been tweaked a bit from the original proposals brought out in the September CSS meetings for improved local access.

Base Refinement Alternative design for the Pinhook Road interchange. The insert shows the Reduced Phase/Diverging Left Turn movement proposed for the intersection of Pinhook with the Evangeline Thruway. (Source: Lafayette Connector website)

4) The shifting of the downtown connection ramps out of the central core segment of the Connector greatly simplifies the design of the mainline; it simply “floats” on elevated structure through the corridor. The “tangent” section that straightens the ROW between Johnston Street and Jefferson Street away from the originally proposed sweeping curve is officially incorporated in the Base Refinement Alternative; as well as the realignment of the northbound Evangeline Thruway from Jefferson to Bellot Drive in order to shift it further away from the St. Genevieve Catholic Church and the Sterling Grove Historical District. The removal of the north connection ramps, originally proposed to connect to the Thruway north of Second Street, means that Simcoe Street and Mudd Avenue are no longer severed and can run continuous under the Connector ROW. Indeed, the current proposal basically keeps the status quo of the downtown street grid intact, save for the adjustments to the northbound Thruway.

Base Refinement Alternative Downtown core section. Inserts are the Subalternative (E-1 and M-1) modifications.

5) The Base Refinement Alternative includes the conversion of the Evangeline Thruway between Taft and Simcoe Streets into an urbanized Grand Boulevard centered on the southbound Thruway ROW. The current northbound Thruway in that section, and in the section orphaned through the realignment adjacent to Sterling Grove (Jefferson to Bellot), would revert to a local two-way street within the neighborhood street grid. As an alternative option, Subalternative E-1 is offered which would avoid the Grand Boulevard design and simply retain and improve the existing Thruway couplet, save for the northbound Thruway realignment from Jefferson to Bellot.

SubAlternative E-1, which would retain the existing Evangeline Thruway couplet.

In addition, due to the desire from locals (particularly the Evangeline Thruway Redevelopment Team, through their Evangeline Corridor Initiative) to relieve the impact of the Connector structure and enhance connectivity and multimodal opportunities, another subalternative design was added for consideration. SubAlternative M-1 would raise the height of the Connector mainline structures to allow for an additional bump-up in vertical clearance in the downtown core area. The base condition would be 22 feet (as mandated in the 2003 ROD as part of the mitigation plan for the Sterling Grove Historical District); M-1 would raise that level up to 30 feet throughout the downtown area.

SubAlternative M-1, providing for a 30 foot vertical clearance in the downtown area.

6) The segment north of downtown between the Louisiana & Delta Railroad Breaux Bridge Spur and I-10 also underwent some major changes between Tier II and Tier III. In particular, LCP had to resolve a beef from the ECI over the latter’s proposal for a North Gateway design keyed on a large circle interchange for Willow Street. The consultants ultimately rejected that design due to insufficent and incompatible traffic flow, and went with the conventional slip-ramp urban diamond design from the original 2003 ROD. However, they did make some modest concessions to the ECI regarding the two local “crossunder” connections bracketing the Willow Street interchange; and they also found an unique way of providing the north connection ramps to the central Downtown segment. The graphic below shows the results.

Base Refinement Alternative North Segment, including the Willow Street interchange and local "crossunder" roundabouts for local access.
Base Refinement Alternative North Segment, including the Willow Street interchange, braided north connection ramps for the Thruway, and local “crossunder” roundabouts for local access.

The design revisions that stand out are: the two “dogbone roundabouts” that are now added to negotiate access at the Donlon Avenue/Walmart Drive and Castille Avenue/Dr. Martin Luther King Drive crossover intersections with the Thruway; and the newly relocated connection ramps to the Thruway that are now braided with the south ramps to the Willow Street interchange. In order to fit the Donlon and Northside Walmart access roads to meet the new “bone ’bout,” new local connectors are built, and the existing 3/4 intersection with Donlon/WMT are modded into RIRO (right-in/right-out) intersections. In addition, portions of the existing two-way service road fronting the Thruway are eliminated south of Chappius Drive, which is now channeled along the remaining portion to Willow Street.

The north roundabout connecting MLK Drive and Castille with the service roads flanking the Thruway also got some modest tweaking in order to save some ROW space and better serve local access. The biggest change is the addition of a new local street that would run parallel to the Thruway between MLK and Willow that would link to a new tie-in to a truncated frontage road. This would simplify greatly the design of the Castille/MLK roundabout, since it serves as the transition between the beginning of the one-way frontage road network and the existing two-way service roads. (The crossover at Chalmette Drive that was originally scheduled to be the transition is now eliminated, giving more space for the elevated section of the Connector mainline to drop back to grade level for the I-10 interchange.)

A closer view of the Base Alternative design for the Willow Street Interchange and the two dogbone roundabouts.

It was all of these refinements that were introduced by the LCP and LADOTD teams: first to the Community Work Group on Wednesday, and then to the Technical Advisory Committee Thursday morning and the general public via the Public Meeting/Moderated Session Thursday night.

Public and stakeholder comment (both oral and written) was solicited at the Open House Public Meeting; feedback will be taken and recorded for official posterity up until November 1st. Then, if warranted, revisions to the E2E alternatives will be developed and presented to the CSS committees (CWG and TAC), and presented to the public through another Open House Public Meeting. Once feedback response to that is received, the Executive Committee will be activated to ingest all the reaction and select the final recommended alternatives. After that happens, the finalists  would undergo the detailed evaluations of an SEIS, the selection of a Supplemental Preferred Alternative for approval from the Acadiana MPO and Lafayette Consolidated Government, the production and release of the Draft SEIS document for official review, the official Draft SEIS Public Hearing for public review, the development of the Final SEIS document with the selection of the winning Supplemental Selected Alternative for final approval, and the Supplemental Record of Decision for the SSA that would then head back into the originally planned CSS Corridor Functional Design Plan process to develop the detailed design specifics.

And then the real process of finding funding for the project begins.

That is, unless the Sierra Club and the Concerned Citizens group decide to take another legal shot at derailing the project. Based on the continuing howls of Connector opponents like Michael Waldon, who runs the anti-Connector blog Connector Comments, that’s pretty much a guaranteed deal. Waldon attended Wednesday’s CSS meeting, and submitted comments restating his opposition based on the concerns about: how the Connector would threaten to pollute the Chicot Aquifer by unleashing the poisons of the former Southern Pacific Railroad classification yard through digging of pilings; how the elevated freeway would blast noise into the surrounding neighborhoods such that expensive sound walls would be necessary; and how elevated freeways in general are such the devil that cities are demolishing them in droves to make way for beautiful surface boulevards more appropriate for local development. And, of course, to push for the Teche Ridge Bypass through St. Martin Parish as a much more friendly alternative. Considering the progress that LADOTD is getting on completing the rest of I-49 South/freeway US 90 through Lafayette Parish, including the now under construction Albertsons’ Parkway interchange and the proposed interchanges at South Ambassador Caffery Parkway, Youngsville Highway, and Verot School Road, however, it may be a bit too little, too late for that.

Another (or related) alternative suggested by Connector opponents is to simply build the Grand Boulevard segment of the Evangeline Thruway right now as a standalone project, while fully obstructing in every way progress in building the Connector freeway. Strangely enough, some proponents of the Connector are also warming to the idea of a standalone Grand Boulevard-ization of the Thruway; the Lafayette City-Parish Consolidated Government and the ETRT just reached an agreement to make a push to apply for another US Department of Transportation TIGER grant (the same process that landed them funds for what became the ECI) to design and build the Grand Boulevard section as a interim stepping stone until the Connector gets funding. Whether this is real or simply a push to get LADOTD to drop in some more funding for the additional enhancements (Signature Bridge, bike/ped paths, hardscaping, Complete Streets, higher clearance) remains to be seen.

As always, watch this space for further updates.

How Little Lies Grow Big (Or…Nope, The Connector Is NOT Going To Poison Lafayette’s Drinking Water)

My last post pretty much detailed the latest attempt by opponents of the Connector freeway project to exploit legitimate concern over the former Southern Pacific rail yard and potential possible contamination of the Chicot Aquifer, which provides Lafayette’s drinking water.

Well…further investigation confirms my initial belief that this is more blown up hype than actual threat. I’m not saying that clean water isn’t important, just that the screams from Connector opponents using this as a wedge to divert the project away are not as justified as they think.

The trigger of all this was a presentation on April 3rd given by the main anti-Connector group Concerned Citizens for Good Government (CCGG). They were the official group that sponsored the lawsuit in 2003-2004 which attempted to void the Record of Decision (ROD) issued in Feburary of that year, citing deliberate distortion and underreporting of harms to the neighborhoods affected by the freeway project through Lafayette. That lawsuit was dismissed by District Judge Tucker Melancon in August of 2004; whence he ruled that the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (LADOTD) and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) had followed correctly all its guidelines and protocols in their approval processes concerning the Connector. The ruling was appealed to the US Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, but was upheld.

The CCGG then went a bit dormant until last year, when the LADOTD, FHWA, and Lafayette Consolidated Government decided to revive the Connector design and engineering study process with their Conceptual Design/CSS Study and preparation of a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS). Reviving their opposition to the Connector project as destructive to the “heart of Lafayette”; the CCGG were backing as an alternative an eastern bypass through St. Martin Parish along the Teche-Coteau Ridge above, refered to as the Teche Ridge Bypass.

While the main opposition from the CCGG in the original lawsuit was due to the possible impacts on the Sterling Grove Historical District which lies just to the east of the Connector right-of-way; an increasing point of opposition has become the direct impact of the elevated freeway on the property formerly used by Southern Pacific Railroad up to the 1950’s for their major classification and maintenance rail yard. The Connector ROW would transverse through the former rail yard property, which stands between the current Evangeline Thruway and the existing main rail line now used by BNSF Railway and Union Pacific Railroad.

Map of old Southern Pacific rail yard in Lafayette, circa 1940’s.
Google Earth overview of former SP Rail Yard property boundary over existing Lafayette, with location of nearby Lafayette Utility System water wells. (From CCGG slideshow presentation)
Proposed Concept 4-2 (Elevated with Grand Boulevard) for I-49 Lafayette Connector freeway; showing relationship to former SP rail yard between Johnston and Taft streets. (from LafayetteConnector.com)

The concern of a major project such as the Connector affecting the drinking water of a major city is most certainly legitimate, and I’m most certainly not going to cast aspersions on those who do fear the worst. However, as has been the case for much of the main opponents of this project, further research shows that this concern has been blown up so far out of proportion into a scare campaign long on propaganda and rage, and short on actual facts. That is, when they don’t twist them to suit their agenda.

Some background here: a new lawsuit is now undergoing litigation that seeks to force the original owners of the Southern Pacific rail yard property, now UPRR, to pay the full costs of cleaning up the contamination of the site; and also seeks to force the federal EPA, state Department of Environmental Quality (LADEQ), and Lafayette Utility Services (LUS) to declare the site and all water wells drawing water from the vicinity to be declared hazardous areas to be cordoned off and removed. LUS is involved in this because the main legal counsel for the lawsuit, William Goodell, Jr., had a very public press conference last December where he revealed that some contamination had been found in some LUS water wells surrounding the rail yard site, including trace elements of benzene, arsenic, and other pollutants. It is only a mere coincidence that Goodell was surrounded at his presser by representatives of the Greater Lafayette Sierra Club and by “activist” Michael Waldon. It is also just coincidence that the Sierra Club has been the principal opponent to the Connector project, and that Waldon is passionately opposed to the project enough to have a whole blog dedicated to trashing…ahhh, I mean, opposing it.

[Update (4-21-17): Michael Waldon has posted a comment to this post clarifying that he is NOT a plaintiff in the Goddell lawsuit; the correction is noted here. Also, much gratitude to Mr. Waldon for his graciousness, even if we disagree on the fundamentals regarding the Connector project.)

Which brings us to that April 3rd CCGG meeting, where Goodell, Waldon, and other Connector opponents and eco-worriers expressed their shock and horror that such a project would threaten to poison the people of Lafayette.

As we shall see, though, it’s more hype than real.

Part of the meeting was a slideshow presentation by Mr. Waldon where he attempted to make the case as to why the Connector was a dire threat to Chicot Aquifer and the water supply of Lafayette. The full slideshow is available here (via Google Drive); the group has also posted a video of the full meeting on YouTube.

For the record, Mr. Waldon’s credentials for this debate rests on his experience as a former hydrologist for the US Fish & Wildlife Service and his degrees in Environmental Engineering; he also teached at the local university in Lafayette transitioning between USL (Univ. of Southwestern Louisiana) and UL(L) (Univ. of Louisiana (Lafayette)).

Waldon starts with a history of the SP rail yard; serving freight and passenger rail traffic between Houston and New Orleans from as far back as the 1880’s up until 1959, when SP built an updated classification yard west of Lafayette near Walker Road.  Strangely enough, he does not go into what happened with the property for the nearly 60 years after the rail yard was abandoned. In a previous post here, I filled in those blanks:

It should be noted, of course, that the SPRR railyard has been inoperationable since the 1950’s, and that the property has been very much inactive save for the Consolidated Companies (“Conco”) distribution warehouse located at the intersection of the southbound Evangeline Thruway and Taft Street. There were earlier lawsuits that sought to mitigate the cleanup of the site by having Union Pacific pay for the full costs, but they were settled privately out of court.

A full article with details of the etology of the Goodell lawsuit appears here.

The Conco distribution plant is the only remaining active parcel left on the rail yard property, save for a gas station located on Johnston Street between the BNSF/UP RR crossing and southbound Evangeline Thruway. The remainder of the property appears to be abandoned.

Waldon’s presentation then goes into a geological description of the Chicot Aquifer itself:

Description of Chicot Aquifer geology (from CCGG presentation)

If anything, this graph actually understates the protection that the current aquifer has underneath Lafayette, because the clay layer protecting the water-laden sand is actually pretty thick in itself (15 to 20 feet), below the 30-40 foot surface soil. Considering that pilings for the Connector’s elevated structures would be dug generally to a depth of 30 feet, that should insure that the clay protective layer would not even be touched, let alone penetrated to the extent that the aquifer would be breached. Detailed soil borings that are required during the design and preliminary engineering process now ongoing would verify a lot of things.

Indeed, even if it was possible that the aquifer could be even remotely breached, it’s not as if LADOTD engineers and consultants aren’t aware of the issue and don’t have procedures and protocols available. This is straight from the 2003 Record of Decision, concerning possible impact of the Connector on the Chicot Aquifer:

In addition to all that, a Level 2 Site Assessment is now ongoing explicitly for the former railyard site as part of the Supplemental EIS, and an understanding has been reached with LADOTD where any cleanup of that site will be paid for through billing the original owners…which would be UPRR. LADOTD would be responsible for any costs of cleanup involving excavation for the pilings and direct ROW impacts.

Nevertheless, this probably won’t prevent Waldon from pushing on with his real agenda of stopping the Connector, since he apparently knows more than even the LADEQ hydrologists about the harms done by evil elevated freeways.

Moving on…we skip to this board where MW lists the contaminants that have been verified and are suspected to be found in the soils of the rail yard.

List of known and suspected contaminants found at former SP railyard (from CCGG presentation)

Now, that list does include some very bad dudes indeed. Arsenic can kill you in one drop. Creosote, used as a preservative for rail ties, is very toxic. No one will say that a site loaded up with that much waste shouldn’t be cleaned up, especially with a major freeway going through it. If this was Times Beach-level contamination, the hype would be worth it.

Problem is, though, the actual evidence defuses the screams of a potential toxic nightmare.

Lafayette Utilities Systems (LUS) is the local agency that regulates the quality of Lafayette’s water supply, and they are stringently regulated by LADEQ and the EPA to enforce the highest quality water standards. To that effect they are required to give an annual report on the quality of Lafayette’s drinking water using benchmark standards provided by the EPA. The last report covers inspections from 2015, and it gave Lafayette a solid, clean, bill of health regarding their drinking water supply. Remember, this covers Lafayette’s overall water quality, not just the area surrounding the rail yard. This chart from the report shows the prerequisite stats and values for the usual contaminants:

Lafayette Utilities System’s Water Quality Report for 2015 chart for contaminants (via LUS website, highlights added by me)

I’ve highlighted the values for some contaminants for a reason: those happen to be the very contaminants that Waldon, Goddell, and the Sierra Club plantiffs exploit the most to fuel the hyped dangers of the Chicot Aquifer being breached and polluted by the Connector freeway.

Take for example, arsenic. Waldon attempts in his presentation to magnify the threat by claiming that even a little bit of arsenic can be deadly to anyone’s water supply. What he conveniently ignores, though, is that the percentage of contamination of arsenic in Lafayette’s water is actually one-fifth of the value that the EPA declares as the benchmark for dangerous (2 parts per billion for Lafayette as compared to the 10 ppb standard). Zero, of course, would be the preferred standard, but considering that Lafayette is a huge city and that the rail yard has been inactive for nearly 60 years, there really is no danger of mass arsenic poisoning.

The same could be said of dichlorobenzene (DCB) which is a proven contaminant. The CCGG presentation (backed by a Goodell presser in January) makes major noises about how DCB has been found in the presence of water wells in north Lafayette since 2008 up to the latest 2015 report, and how that most definitely indicts and convicts the rail yard as THE source of contamination.

CCGG Presentation of alleged documented contamination of water wells in Lafayette by dichlorobenzene (DCB).

A look at the actual LUS 2015 report chart, though, says otherwise: the maximum rate for DCB was 0.25 ppb, as compared to the contamination benchmark set by the EPA of 75 ppb.

So…60 years of dormancy for a former rail yard has produced levels of contamination of Lafayette’s drinking water that don’t even begin to approach rudimentary levels of danger by EPA’s own standards?

Funny thing is, why wasn’t there that much concern about the railyard and its environmental after effects from these folks before the Connector freeway was envisioned? Oh, I know, the original plan was for the freeway to follow the Evangeline Thruway and avoid cutting through the rail yard site, but that would have devastated residents fronting the Thruway and McComb-Veazay. Is this newly found concern about the purity of Lafayette’s drinking water really just a ruse to find a new base for the next set of lawsuits forthcoming to halt the Connector and impose the more friendly to some people’s interest Teche Ridge Bypass?

My latter suspicion is confirmed by what Waldon does next in his presentation. He does actually acknowledge that the current Connector SEIS process now includes the Stage 2 Environmental Site Assessment for the rail yard that he originally said LADOTD would never, ever do; but then he muses that none of this is available to the public. (This is a standard grip that Waldon and the Teche Ridge lobbyists have for the Connector process overall.) Indeed, Waldon, in concluding his presentation, makes the same old tired accusations that the Connector public input process is corrupted because no one from his side was allowed to add feedback.

CCGG presentation board of alleged “deficiencies” of Lafayette Connector Stage 2 ESA and entire CSS process.

Of course, “no public involvement” means that Waldon and his Teche Ridge lobbyists weren’t able to dominate the Connector CSS meetings with hordes of “citizens” jumping to the mic to condemn this “evil monstrosity” and impose their “common sense” bypass route. Even though Waldon was able to literally cut and paste his entire blog into the record for the November public meeting before the Tier II process concluded. Even though Connector opponents were able to invade the Community Work Group and made an effort to impose their desired solution of Teche Ridge plus a “high speed boulevard” before they were found out and called out by Transportation Secretary Shawn Wilson. But no, the “public is being denied!!”

The best response to hyperbole is still to give out the facts and let reasonable people judge them by their merits. The process will tell the tale of whether the I-49 Lafayette Connector will be a net positive for the city or not…but in the meantime, beware of fearmongers selling nonsense in the name of “protection”. The only thing they are really protecting is their privilege.