By BEN LUNDIN

Staff Reporter

LAPLACE – Residents hoping guardrails will protect them from a cavernous death trap on Airline Highway in St. Charles Parish shouldn’t hold their breath, as a complete solution to the problem seems to be nothing more than a distant dream.

A five-mile stretch of Airline Highway that overlooks a canal, between St. Rose and Norco, has been taking the lives of residents who’ve veered off its treacherous edge since the beginning of the highway’s existence, but the Louisiana State Department of Transportation has no current plans to implement protective guardrails.

A passionate letter by St. Charles Parish Council Member Desmond Hilaire prompted a 2003 study by the Louisiana State Department of Transportation which analyzed why that area, unlike other areas over canals, experiences a high rate of cars running off the highway’s edge and found an excessive number of median crossovers. In response, the Department of Transportation closed five crossovers and improved the visibility of four existing medians, according to Department of Transportation Traffic Operations Engineer Steve Strength. However, they could not find definitive evidence that guardrails would prevent vehicles from driving off the edge of the highway.

The study, which analyzed the history of the area from Jan. 1, 1993 through Sept. 30, 2003, found that during that span 161 vehicles left the roadway, 36 of which fell into the canal.

Financial issues appear to take precedence over protective measures for the Department of Transportion, according to St. Charles Parish Council Member Richard &#8220Dickie” Duhe. Without evidence that guardrails will prevent vehicles from driving off the edge of the highway, Department of Transportation officials are concerned that constructing barricades will create a slippery slope, leaving them without a reason to refuse to install guardrails in other locations.

&#8220If you don’t have statistics or reasoning that you know that this will be a countermeasure, then you can’t argue not to do it anywhere else,” Strength said. &#8220So cost could become a significant factor when we put ourselves in a position to not have a reason to not put a guardrail anywhere else in the city.”

&#8220It boils down to the fact that the state doesn’t want to spend the money,” Duhe argues. &#8220I even told them, why don’t you take a mile or two miles each year and at least do something, be proactive, all my life I’ve seen accidents of people going into that canal and I’m going on 64 years.”

Department of Transportation officials could not verify whether the accident rate has decreased since the highway’s improvements, but Duhe isn’t satisfied with the changes.

&#8220I complained about a stretch of highway and what’d they do about it but put reflectives on a pole, like that would stop anybody,” he said. &#8220They closed some openings to discourage people from turning, and what good that did I don’t know.”

St. Rose resident Sandra Washington, who lost her four children when their vehicle veered off the road and into the canal, said the changes aren’t enough protection and that a simple barrier such as a cable wire will save lives.

&#8220During the Alligator Festival, Corey Washington was traveling on a night when it was raining and what stopped that young man from going in the water at the exact site where my children went in was a 4-foot wooden cross that was put up by some of our friends,” she said. &#8220If a carpenters cross, 4-feet-tall with cement can potentially stop a car from going in the water, you’re going to tell me that the state, with all the money that they have, can’t put something there that would help that?”

The St. Charles Parish Council has bounced around ideas to solve the problem, such as getting financing from local corporations, but because Airline Highway is a State Highway, St. Charles Parish wouldn’t be guaranteed the right to build guardrails.

The Department of Transportation would need to re-evaluate the area because cost was not a particular factor in their decision not to recommend guardrails, according to Strength.

With the situation at a standstill, Duhe hopes he can motivate the residents of St. Charles Parish to take action.

&#8220Unless we get a group of people to go to the state capitol and mount a protest, to show these people that we’re serious, I don’t think anything will happen,” Duhe said. &#8220We as people involved in politics we try and try but it just falls on deaf ears.”

Washington started a foundation called SOAR, an acronym based off of her four children’s names, that finances youth empowerment seminars and provides funds for people who suffered through tragedy and crisis. She will host a fundraising event on Feb. 3, her late eldest daughter’s birthday, at Clearview Lions Hall in Kenner. Tickets can be purchased for $25 by calling (504) 305-2980 or (866) 902-9212. All proceeds go directly to the foundation.