5 hours Ago By Emily Burleigh
Published 5:53 pm Friday, December 13, 2024 By Emily Burleigh Residents living along West Sallier St. are experiencing the “growing pain” of the street’s reconstruction project, but the end result will be worth it. That is what Councilman John Ieyoub, District D, said at a community meeting held in the Lake Charles City Council Chambers on Thursday for homeowners on the stretch of West Sallier Street from Marine to Lake streets.
Meyer and Associates General Manager Byron Racca called it a project of “removal and replacement and relocation.” The $17 million project — $2 million from capital outlay and $15 million from city funds — will go to bid soon and begin construction in the second quarter of 2025. The two-lane roadway will be upgraded to a three-lane, with the middle lane as a turning lane, and the Lake-Sallier intersection will be reconstructed.
The project includes a drainage overhaul with water and sanitary sewer improvements that will bring the infrastructure up to city code. On the south side of the right lane, a 10-foot wide shared-use path will be constructed. The path will connect to the path included in the Nelson Road Bridge and Extension Project — a $101 million project LADOTD project that is expected to be completed at the end of 2026.
The shared-use path is part of the One Lake Charles Bike Trail and will be a quality-of-life enhancement for residential neighborhoods, he said. “The shared-use path is what helps encourage that and provides that ability to these neighborhoods because it’s a place to walk, ride bikes, with adequate space that is protected from adverse weather.” The Sallier St.
Reconstruction is one in a triad of projects that will improve the Sallier Street and Nelson-Prien Road corridors, including the Nelson Road Bridge project and Port of Lake Charles Rail Relocation. The project’s ball got rolling with the passage of a 2007 bond of about $8 million, Ieyoub said. The city decided to put the street’s improvements on hold until construction on the Nelson Road Extension Bridge was underway; the project broke ground in the summer of 2023.
For the street to be widened, the Port’s railway had to be relocated. “We always wanted a much wider Sallier Street,” he explained. “They had a 50-foot right-of-way on the south side.
For us to widen it, we needed to trade them and move it over to the north side, get it away from the neighborhoods, stop all those crossings.” The Port’s $5.8 million rail project is currently under construction and is expected to be completed in the first quarter of the new year.
The relocation of the rail will eliminate 12 crossings. The remaining crossings will be signalized to improve safety and minimize noise, he said. Sallier residents who attended the meeting expressed excitement about the project.
“I know there’s more than just this roomful that are interested in this project in the city,” said a resident of almost 80 years. “It’s a pretty big deal as far as I’m concerned.” However, there were concerns over street elevation and traffic.
Racca has worked on the project since its genesis. When residents asked about the “humps” they have to drive through to get into their neighborhoods, he assured them that the roadway has been designed for a “smooth, seamless transition,” an upgrade that is possible because of the rail’s relocation. Traffic (during and after construction) was the most vocalized worry.
He said the details of how the project will be divided during construction and how traffic maintenance will be instituted won’t be known until the project bid is awarded to a contractor. The widening of the street will mitigate left-turn traffic delays after construction, he said. When asked about traffic from Port employees, Racca said the primary goal of the Nelson extension project is to divert commercial traffic away from Sallier.
“The city of Lake Charles is going to have the opportunity, once everything is constructed, to designate the traffic classification for Sallier Street,” he said. “That will take them a while to learn.” The anticipated completion time is the fourth quarter of 2026.
The streets will remain open during construction. Iyeoub acknowledged the bumps in the road residents are experiencing. Especially the acute ones, like gravel on cars (a temporary asphalt will be used during construction to eliminate the gravel issue, he noted).
He urged residents to keep the vision of progress alive amid construction. “We try to work with them (residents) and the contractors to get them as much knowledge as they possibly can so that they can endure this small little window of inconvenience so that eventually they’ll have a fantastic route, a fantastic place to live, a fantastic way to walk their dogs. “Anything that you can see right in front of you that’s improved will help soften the blow of inconvenience as we wait for the final product to be delivered.
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