Sarasota Drive bridge reopened after nearly a year of construction

BATON ROUGE – Construction workers were busy Wednesday afternoon watering the freshly-laid patches of grass along the edges of the new bridge on Sarasota Drive. 

Work to reconstruct the bridge began in July of 2022. A traffic engineer for the EBR City-Parish told WBRZ that the bridge needed to be rebuilt because it was old and the support beams underneath it were rotting. 

Residents of the Monticello neighborhood, like Audrey Fountain, say they are happy to return to their normal routes after being forced to take a detour for nearly a year. 

“It was a nightmare having to detour and I’m happy that it’s back, it looks nice,” said Fountain, who has lived in her home on Sarasota Drive for more than 30 years. 

The EBR City-Parish says funding for the $3.1 million project was split between two projects– the bridge on Sarasota and another bridge on Chevelle Drive. Both projects took longer than anticipated due to weather complications. 

“It did take a lot more time than what people thought but the end result is good and I think that’s what counts,”  Fountain said.

The bridge reopened May 15.