At a city council meeting, the City of Breaux Bridge's engineers showed the proposed layout of an extension of Mills Avenue from Rees Street to intersect with Doyle Malecon Road. Champaign Road, where the hospital is would then intersect with Mills Avenue through a roundabout making it more accessible.
"The problem there is it's on a dead-end street that you have to access off of a local street that runs in front of a school so it’s kind of difficult,” Breaux Bridge Mayor Ricky Calias said. “Or at least it’s an unusual way to get to what has become kind of a major regional hospital for the parish.”
The city has taken over the project by way of local funding rather than the federal funding route.
"That money that we secured through the NPO will then be used to upgrade the intersection of Rees Street and the new extension of Mills to accommodate this street expansion,” Mayor Calais said.
The intent is to have the two roads intersect behind Parc Hardy. He said option A if funding is allotted would allow for Mills Road to extend all the way to Doyle. Option B would stop at the intersection of Champagne Blvd.
He said eventually he hopes to add more lanes to Mills Avenue.
"Initially both would be two,” Calais said. “The plan would be for one day to increase Mills to a four-lane divided street. Where we’d come back at some point in the future and add a second lane on the outside of two existing lanes."
Boye Preschool and Childcare is located off of Champagne Blvd. Owner Elaina Boye Guidry said she is for the Mills Avenue extension and thinks it would help with traffic in the area.
"As a small business owner here in Breaux Bridge I do think that the extension would be beneficial to our community,” Guidry said. “Breaux Bridge is growing it would help with traffic flow and it would also help with easier access to our local hospital here in town. And it would help the businesses and our townspeople. I think it would be a great expansion.”
Mayor Calais said we can expect to see construction begin 15 to 18 months from now. He said the project should take nine months to complete.
