BATON ROUGE - Four lanes, one road, connecting Perkins Road to the Mall of Louisiana Boulevard and to I-10 is the anticipated outcome of a years-long project by MOVEBR.

"We're certainly looking forward to the progression of that project, and eventually, from what we see here in terms of the carpool line and the build-up there at The Dunham school," Wimbledon Estates resident Sheldon Perkins said.

Since breaking ground in 2021, two bridges included in the project were completed in 2023: the Dawson Creek Bridge and Backcourt Bridge, but there are still no roadways leading to the other side, yet.

Which came as a surprise to Tyler Parks, who lives just a street over from the backcourt bridge in the Wimbledon Estates.

"You could hear something was going on, but we really didn't know what it was, but now we know it's a bridge that doesn't go anywhere," Wimbledon Estates resident Tyler Parks said.

But the construction process has faced a few hurdles. Transportation and Drainage Director for East Baton Rouge Parish, Fred Raiford, says the biggest one was COVID.

"People say, well, that's been long, well yeah, it may have been, but it did impact the engineering work that had to take place," Raiford said.

Raiford says they are now working on the next phase of the project, which is building the underpass under the railroad track, but that has also presented a hiccup.

"We're still waiting on the railroad agreement, which was a very big delay factor. The railroad company we were dealing with was bought out by another company, and they were merging. The agreements that we had under the old company wasn't good for the new company," Raiford said.

Before the underpass is complete, Raiford says another contract will go out for the roadwork, which will tie all the features together.

"Particularly dealing with the underpass. You don't do anything in a hurry with that cause the railroad won't let you, and then you don't want to assume the liability that it wasn't built or constructed correctly, because then the city would also have some potential liability, and we don't want that," Raiford said.

People living in the area should start to see more work happening.

"When this is finished. We have all the pieces and parts together. I think we will be able to move in the right direction," Raiford said.

Raiford anticipates another two and a half years before we may see traffic on this new roadway.