BATON ROUGE, LA – After nearly five years, East Baton Rouge officials have assured residents the Picardy-Perkins Connector remains “extremely close” to completion and has officially entered advanced stages of partial completion, despite somehow appearing exactly the same since roughly early 2023.
The MOVEBR traffic project, intended to ease congestion near Perkins Road and Bluebonnet, currently features several completed bridges, scattered construction equipment, dirt piles, orange barrels, and enough partially paved roadway to create the powerful illusion that crews may get back to construction “literally any day now.”
“I drive by it every morning and think, ‘Wow, they’re finally wrapping this thing up,’” said a local resident. “Then six months pass and the same excavator is still parked in the exact same spot.”
Officials recently announced the project still requires additional railroad work, drainage coordination, utility adjustments, roadway connections, environmental review, final engineering, and what one spokesperson described as “a couple tiny multi-year items.”
Transportation leaders remain optimistic the connector will dramatically improve traffic just in time for another 4,000 apartments, three new subdivisions, and a luxury mixed-use development to open nearby.
Residents say they now use the project itself as a calendar system.
Meanwhile, officials confirmed a grand opening ribbon-cutting ceremony is already being tentatively planned for sometime between LSU’s next three football coaching searches.
