MORE trains for Bossier City?

[dimebag1980]

The new Benton Road overpass construction has just begun, but according to the following article, even before the overpass is opened, the amount of KCS trains crossing the major thoroughfares of Bossier City is expected to double. But with the huge expansion of KCS' enormous rail yard in the north Shreveport/Blanchard area, I actually expected to see more rail traffic... just not this soon.

more trains for Bossier City

[NCB]

^How do the residents of the area feel about more trains and the even heavier traffic backups that they will cause?

[dimebag1980]

^How do the residents of the area feel about more trains and the even heavier traffic backups that they will cause?

As a lifelong resident of the area, who grew up in that area of Bossier, I will speak for all of them and say IT SUCKS! Now that is from the perspective of a driver who gets stuck at rail crossings almost everytime I drive in Bossier. But Bossier is trying to battle the problem with infrastructure improvements, like overpasses and such. But you can only build so many overpasses before your city is nothing but one big overpass. Thankfully, some Bossier City thoroughfares have underpasses, where the trains go over the flow of traffic rather than under. In retrospect, the city certainly should have built them all as underpasses decades ago, but in their defense, I know the city of Bossier never planned on being anything more than a small suburb to Shreveport. That's all fine and dandy, but now Bossier is on pace to be the big fish in the pond, leaving Shreveport as the smaller city. This said, the city is trying to keep up by building the necessary infrastructure, but as we all know that is a very expensive thing to do. One of the best things they're trying to do is extend the riverfont parkway making it more of a thoroughfare. Since the trains go over the top of it rather than intersecting with it, there will be no traffic tie-ups related to that.

Airline Drive is really bad, and when there's a train it's WAY worse. After leaving the gym yesterday, my wife and I drove down Airline to eat lunch at Quizno's. There was no train... there was no accident... but the traffic was as bad as rush hour on the freeway. People trying to squeeze through intersections as the light changes, leaving them stuck out in the middle blocking the cross-traffic, people not being able to switch lanes because it's so congested, etc. Now imagine a train thrown into the mix... it's absolutely unreal.