Airport travelers had been told to expect that the Interstate 10 flyover would be finished by November 2022.

That deadline won’t be met, a state Department of Transportation and Development spokesperson said this week. Instead, the state hopes to open the flyover “by early 2023, weather permitting,” according to Chris Welty.

While officials thought they were on track to finish the flyover ramps ahead of schedule last year, Hurricane Ida threw a wrench into their plans. Meanwhile, contractors have struggled with the supply chain issues bedeviling the construction industry.

“Hurricane Ida and the immediate aftermath of the storm affected the project timeline,” said Welty. “Following the hurricane, it took several weeks to restore the project to pre-Ida status. In addition, material haul trucks were not available because of the cleanup efforts in the region.”

Still, Welty said that another component of the overall $125.6 million project, the novel “diverging diamond” interchange at the street level, will open in late summer. While the swooping flyovers will benefit motorists coming to and from New Orleans, the interchange will speed interstate traffic to and from the direction of Baton Rouge.

Officials at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport want to build a roughly $85 million connector road to whisk passengers from a potential Amtrak train station on the south side of its footprint to the gleaming new terminal on the north side.

The airport hopes to use federal funds to cover most of the cost of the roadway, whose pilings could also one day serve as the foundation for a more ambitious and expensive automated people mover.
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The airport’s plans for the connector call for a separate roadway on pilings that travels on the east side of its campus. Going north from the south terminal, it would be positioned between the current airport access road and fenceline, then snake around a runway to the north terminal.
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One day, airport officials hope to build an even quicker connection – an automated people mover like at the airport in Tampa, Florida. The people mover, which is in a very early phase of planning, would use the same pilings as the connector road. That project would take at least five years and $500 million to build, officials say.