GONZALES, La. (BRPROUD) — One highway in Ascension Parish is getting a major upgrade after getting millions of dollars from the legislature.
“The sooner they do it, the better we’ll be,” stated longtime Gonzales resident Annie Hall.
Hall is ready for the improvements coming to Highway 30.
“I try to have me a couple of bottles of water in the car with me and maybe a snack because you could be sitting,” she said.
The Ascension Parish government was able to obtain $31 million, $19 million of it going toward expanding the highway.
“Highway 73 and Highway 30, that intersection has seen 6,000 new traffic counts, 6,000 new cars. If you put those bumper to bumper, you are talking about 17.7 miles of cars,” said Parish President Clint Cointment.
The state legislature deemed the upgrade to this long stretch of road to be an essential asset, categorizing it as a mega fund project.
“When you look at this industrial corridor and what it means not only to the parish of Ascension but to the region, it’s a half a billion dollars in annual wages. That’s not employees just from Ascension. That’s St. John, Assumption, Iberville, East Baton Rouge…” Cointment explained.
He said this project will pay dividends.
“We have planned over $10 billion in new projects that are scheduled in the coming years, which is reaching a $20 billion level of new industrial projects in this corridor,” he said.
“They need to do that. They need to invest the money in the community when we are paying taxes,” added Hall
Environmental studies are underway, and parish leaders said the start date of construction is still pending.