Lake Pontchartrain Causeway

The Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, or the Causeway, consists of two parallel bridges that are the longest bridges in the world by total length. These parallel bridges cross Lake Pontchartrain in southern Louisiana. The longer of the two bridges is 23.87 miles (38.41 kilometers) long. The bridges are supported by over 9,000 concrete pilings. The two bridges feature bascule spans over the navigation channel 8 miles (13 km) south of the north shore.

The southern end of the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway is in Metairie, Louisiana, a suburb of New Orleans. The northern end is at Mandeville, Louisiana.

The original Causeway was a two-lane span that opened in 1956. A parallel two-lane span, 1/100th of a mile (16.1 m) longer than the original, opened on May 10, 1969. The Causeway has always been a toll bridge. Until 1999, tolls were collected from traffic going in each direction. To alleviate congestion on the south shore, toll collections were eliminated on the northbound span. The standard tolls for cars changed from $1.50 in each direction to a $3.00 toll collected on the North Shore for southbound traffic only.

The opening of the Causeway boosted the fortunes of small North Shore communities because residents could commute to New Orleans, bringing the North Shore into the New Orleans metropolitan area.

After Hurricane Katrina on August 29th, 2005, videos collected showed damage to the bridge, but the damage was largely cosmetic and mostly on the unused turnaround on the older southbound span; the structural foundations remained intact. With the I-10 Pontchartrain Expressway severely damaged, the Causeway was used as a major route for recovery teams to get into New Orleans. The bridge was reopened for public use on October 14th, 2005.

Third span plans

In 2002, the Causeway Commission discussed the construction of a third span, before ultimately deciding to renovate the existing spans as studies showed traffic growth leveling off. The third span was estimated to have cost $400 million. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, traffic has grown to 40,000 vehicles per day as the population of Northshore parishes have rapidly increased. A 1992 traffic study predicted the traffic capacity of the current spans would be exceeded in 2007; an estimate that was later revised to an earlier date and rendered useless by Katrina related population shifts. In early March 2006, General Manager Robert Lambert acknowledged that the Commission may revisit the plan for a third span. Lambert cited the increase in traffic and the need for better evacuations routes to the north as the leading reasons for reexamining the need for a new span. The proposed third span would be east of the current northbound span and include two travel lanes and a full right-hand shoulder. The current southbound span would also be fitted with a full shoulder. The current northbound span would then be used as a one lane with full shoulder reversible roadway to correspond with peak travel hours^*^*.

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Third span plans

See also

External links