BATON ROUGE – Improvements are coming to downtown: soon, it will be more walkable along River Road.
It’s all about connectivity. The new planned walkways will create easier access to downtown and also make it safer for people to walk around. There are two areas in the works where the Downtown Development District is planning to expand and create sidewalks.
One will start at the Hilton and connect to the IBM building along River Road. The other will start at the Hollywood Casino and extend to the Riverview apartments.
There are currently no sidewalks on those two stretches, making it harder, and more dangerous, for people to walk or bike in those areas.
“From Hollywood Casino, we have a couple of apartments and residential complexes to our north that are downtown but they’re sort of disconnected,” said Whitney Hoffman Sayal, Executive Director of the DDD, “If you live there, you probably have to get in your car to come downtown to a restaurant.
“We want to share with them the experience of walkability that downtown offers people when they live here. That will connect them more easily to get on their bike, talk a walk to get to the river, to come downtown, for whatever they want to come downtown for.”
The DDD received a $100,000 grant for the project. They’re currently waiting for the construction documents. Activity should begin next year and be completed within three to six months.
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