Louisiana highway officials told a state legislative subcommittee last week that the bond-financed John J. Audubon Bridge over the Mississippi River should open in November.
The bridge is one of the 16 projects in the Transportation Infrastructure Model for Economic Development, or TIMED, program approved by voters in 1989. The bridge’s cost was originally estimated at $50 million but the current price tag is $404 million.
Total cost of the entire program was set at $1.2 billion in 1990, but now is expected to cost at least $5.2 billion.
The State Bond Commission will consider a request today to boost a scheduled TIMED bond sale to $685 million from $485 million. The state expects to issue another $500 million of debt in 2010 supported by four cents of Louisiana’s 20-cent-per-gallon gasoline tax, but it will not be enough to fund the remaining projects.
The new Audubon Bridge is being built across the Mississippi between Pointe Coupee and West Feliciana parishes in south-central Louisiana.
