Media Coverage

• Ceremony signals completion of U.S. Highway 171 widening project (7/15/2010)
  State and local officials gathered here Wednesday afternoon to signal the completion of the widening of U.S. Highway 171 from Shreveport to Lake Charles.

• Easy ride north (7/15/2010)
  U.S. 171 from Lake Charles to Shreveport is now four-laned, and area officials are touting the highway's potential for Southwest Louisiana's economy.

• Budget woes keep road issues off grid (5/31/2010)
  Despite a gaping backlog and bumpy rides, state highway improvements are a virtual nonissue during the 2010 legislative session.

• State roads and bridges would get more money under lawmakers' proposal (4/13/2010)
  A group of lawmakers wants the state to direct $750 million more each year toward improving roads and bridges. The panel, which combines the transportation committees and the tax-law committees of each chamber, is introducing a House concurrent resolution by Rep. Hollis Downs, R-Ruston, that spells out that priority and others.

• Jeff David: Where the politics meet the road (2/22/2010)
  The resignation of Louisiana Department of Transportation Secretary William Ankner may be applauded by some, but the state has lost a well-qualified and serious professional who simply got caught up in the century-old fight between politics and engineering in public road building. Politics won.

• Legislature not independent (2/21/2010)
  Looking for solutions to Louisiana's road and bridge problems? Don't bother looking in the Louisiana Legislature.

• Editorial: Roads options must be explored (2/18/2010)
  William Ankner, Gov. Bobby Jindal's secretary of the Department of Transportation and Development, may have been a man of steely competence who had no taste for the good old boy nonsense in Baton Rouge. Or Ankner may have been tone-deaf to the subtleties in an area of state politics where funding difficulties run smack into competing regional interests.

• Boss gone, but woes stay (2/16/2010)
  There were some cringe-inducing moments for any state bureaucrat watching a live Internet broadcast of transportation secretary William Ankner getting roughed up all afternoon Feb. 4 by an angry legislative committee.

• Louisiana's roads are rough to travel: An editorial (1/9/2010)
  Louisiana's roads aren't the worst in the nation. There are seven states with bumpier highways and outmoded bridges, according to a study by the Reason Foundation.

• State's roads among nation's worst (1/8/2010)
  Louisiana ranks 43rd among the states in overall highway and bridge conditions, congestion and money spent on roads and bridges, according to a study released by a California think tank.

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