The hopes of a new Mississippi River bridge could soon become a reality with financial assistance from the federal government and Gov. John Bel Edwards spoke yesterday about the possibility.
The money for the new bridge would come from President Biden’s infrastructure plan. It is the largest infrastructure package in United States history and according to the governor, if debates on Capitol Hill go smoothly, construction could begin sooner than most people would expect.
Edwards also said the state is moving forward to develop whatever interest there may be within the private sector and that public funds are already being put towards building the new bridge to be able to move the project forward as soon as possible.
The project’s price tag would be about $2 billion.
The two current bridges that cross the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge are the Horace Wilkinson Bridge on I-10 and the Huey P. Long Bridge on US 190. The Horace Wilkinson opened on April 10, 1968, and the Huey P. Long opened in August of 1940. There is also a Huey P. Long Bridge that crosses the Mississippi River in Jefferson Parish. It opened on December 16, 1935.
