College Drive flyover project complete, brings relief to Baton Rouge drivers
BATON ROUGE, La. (Louisiana First) — After years of construction and constant traffic headaches, Baton Rouge drivers are finally getting some relief. On Thursday, state leaders officially cut the ribbon on the long-anticipated College Drive Flyover project.
The Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (DOTD) gathered with local officials to mark the completion of the $61.5 million project, designed to address one of the most congested and dangerous traffic spots in the Capital Region.
'This stretch of interstate sees nearly 178,000 drivers a day. Until now, drivers had to make multiple lane changes and less than a mile just to reach the college drive exit. One of the most dangerous traffic patterns in the area,' said DOTD Secretary Joe Donahue.
Construction on the project began in 2021 in response to growing frustrations from drivers dealing with traffic delays, accidents, and confusing merges near the busy I-10/I-12 interchange. The new flyover provides a direct, two-lane ramp from I-10 and I-12 westbound to College Drive, eliminating the dangerous weaving that plagued the area for decades.
'Safety is always DOTD's top priority, and this project reflects that commitment,' Donahue said.
Public Information Director Rodney Mallet said the redesigned traffic pattern is expected to significantly improve both safety and commute times.
'It's really going to help the traffic flow, and it's going to be a safer situation because people aren't going to be weaving,' Mallet said.
The College Drive Flyover was originally a component of the broader I-10 Widening Project. However, leaders determined it could be completed sooner and fast-tracked its development using the design-build method, a move that helped expedite construction and minimize costs.
DOTD said additional infrastructure upgrades are still underway throughout Baton Rouge, including the ongoing I-10 widening and the new bridge over City Park Lakes, which is expected to be completed by the end of this year.
The College Drive Flyover is now fully open to drivers, offering a smoother, safer route through one of Baton Rouge's busiest corridors.
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Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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- Yahoo
Look at road closures in El Paso area for week of June 13
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I-10 West and East between Redd and Resler alternate lane closures Crews will be paving. Saturday, June 21 through Sunday, June 22 3 a.m. to 3 a.m. (24-hour closure) I-10 West closed at Sunland Park / Resler Detour: Traffic to exit at Sunland Park / Resler exit ramp (Exit 13), proceed o CD Lanes using the Resler exit (Exit 12), continue on CD Lanes to Mesa intersection, proceed through Mesa, Thorn and Redd intersections and enter I-10 West using the Redd entrance ramp I-10 West at Sunland Park entrance ramp closed I-10 West at Mesa exit ramp will remain closed until further notice. Once closure is opened, traffic will use Sunland Park / Resler exit ramp Crews will be working on traffic switch. I-10 Widening West 2 Monday, June 16 through Saturday, June 21 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. (as needed) I-10 east- and westbound between Anthony and Nashua alternate lane closures North and South Desert between Anthony and Nashua alternate lane closures Crews will be working on dirt work and miscellaneous removals. Artcraft Monday, June 16 through Friday, June 20 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Artcraft east- and westbound between Stateline and North Desert alternate lane closures Crews will be performing electrical work and delivering construction materials. Transmountain Rehab Monday, June 16 through June 20 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Loop 375 west- and eastbound between Stations 11 and 30 left lane closed Loop 375 eastbound between Stations 55 and 75 left lane closed Crews will be removing and replacing cable barrier foundations and installation of guardrail. Districtwide Signing Monday June 16 9 4p.m. Loop 375 southbound between Sargent Major and Spur 601 right lane closed Spur 601 eastbound between Global Reach and Liberty Expressway alternate lane closures Tuesday, June 17 9 4 p.m. Loop 375 eastbound at Spur 1966 left lane closed Spur 601 eastbound between Constitution and Liberty Expressway alternate lane closures Wednesday, June 18 9 4p.m. Spur 1966 right lane closed Thursday, June 19 9 4p.m. Spur 1966 right lane closed Safety Lighting Monday, June16 through Friday, June 20 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Loop 375 east- and westbound between Fonseca and US-54 shoulder closed Loop 375 east- and westbound between Fonseca and San Marcial left lane closed Loop 375 between Cordova Bridge and Cypress right two lanes closed Delta east- and westbound between Cypress and Customs shoulder closed Crews will be working on lighting improvements. Spall Repair Monday, June 16 through Thursday, June 19 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. (Nightly) I-10 West between Cotton and Sunland Park alternate lane closures Crews will be working on spall. Guardrail Repair Monday, June 16 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. US 54 North between Cassidy and Spur 601 right lane and connecting ramp to Spur 601 eastbound closed Tuesday, June 17 9 am to 4 p.m. I-10 East between Schuster and Porfirio Diaz right lane closed Wednesday, June 18 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Gateway East between Copia and Raynolds left lane closed Thursday, June 19 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. I-10 East between McRae and Hawkins right lane and off-ramp at Hawkins closed Friday, June 20 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Loop 375 eastbound between Executive and Asarco right lane closed Crews will be working on guardrail. Miscellaneous Concrete Repair Monday, June 16 through Friday, May 20 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Doniphan westbound between Redd and Coates right lane closed Crews will be working on sidewalk. 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Thursday, June 12 to Sunday, June 29Nightly, 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. Purple Heart Highway (Loop 375) full closure between Montana Avenue and Iron Medics Drive Crews will be moving barriers along the north- and southbound lanes. Loop 375 Widening Project Monday, June 16 to Friday, June 20 Daily, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Americas Avenue (frontage road) southbound right lane between North Loop Drive and UPRR Bridge Americas Avenue (frontage road) southbound left lane between Pan American Drive to South Americas Avenue Crews will be working on installing driveways and copings Monday, June 16 to Thursday, June 19 Nightly, 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. Loop 375 northbound main lanes between Zaragoza Road (point of entry) and North Loop Entrance Ramp Crews will be painting. Horizon/Darrington Reconstruction Project Monday, June 16 to Friday, June 20 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Horizon Boulevard eastbound right lane and shoulder closure from Horizon Darrington Road to Breaux Street Crews will be setting up light poles. 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Saturday, June 21 Daily, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Gateway West Boulevard passing Zaragoza Road left lane closure Gateway East Boulevard before Zaragoza Road left lane closure Gateway East Boulevard at Zaragoza Road turnaround complete closure Crews will be placing concrete riprap. I-10 Metal Beam Guard Fence Project Monday, June 16 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. I-10 eastbound right lane closure before Horizon Boulevard Crews will be working on guardrail. Tuesday, June 17 to Wednesday, June 18 Daily, 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. I-10 westbound right lane closure from Eastlake Exit Ramp to Eastlake Entrance Ramp Crews will be working on guardrail. Montana Widening Project Tuesday, June 10 to Thursday, June 12 Nightly, 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. Eastbound Montana Frontage Road full closure between George Dieter Drive and Saul Kleinfeld Drive Crews will be paving. Only local traffic will be allowed to go through. Closure Links: West Area Project Closures I-10 Widening West Closures East Area Project Closures Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
16 hours ago
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How Waymo got the edge on the competition and Tesla's robotaxi (so far)
'We are being super paranoid about safety." That's what Tesla CEO Elon Musk said after revealing the company's robotaxi test would start on June 22, later than expected, adding that the date could 'shift' beyond that. Meanwhile, betting site Polymarket lists only a 30% chance that Tesla (TSLA) launches the service before July, highlighting Musk's rosy predictions on self-driving that have been constantly pushed back. While Tesla is on the verge of starting a new chapter for the company, Alphabet's (GOOG) Waymo has been quietly racking up mile after mile, trip after trip, providing actual paid robotaxi rides to customers in San Francisco, Phoenix, Los Angeles, and Austin — where Tesla's test will begin. At stake is a huge opportunity for companies like Waymo, Tesla, and others. Goldman analyst Mark Delaney estimates the market for traditional ride-hailing in the US is worth approximately $58 billion currently, but could be worth more than $330 billion by 2030, with robotaxi-type services pushing the industry forward and reducing costs by — among other factors —not requiring a human driver. Waymo has an early lead, and it seems a big one. Rivals like Argo AI and GM-backed Cruise are gone, leaving only smaller players like Zoox (backed by Amazon), China's Pony AI (PONY), and WeRide (WRD), and of course Tesla. Waymo (before it was even called that) started off as an in-house startup as part of Google's X initiative way back in 2009. After some testing and securing of permits, the project officially became Waymo in 2016, and it started testing its Pacifica hybrid vans kitted out with cameras, LIDAR laser sensors, and radar. 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'Waymo is undoubtedly the leader in autonomous driving technology, with their self-driving software (SDS) being widely regarded as best in class,' said University of San Francisco engineering professor William Riggs, an expert in autonomous technology. 'They have been around the longest, had patient capital, and have the most miles on the road proving that self-driving tech works.' Riggs believes Waymo's software strategy combined with its diversified sensor suite, along with its manufacturer partnerships such as Chrysler, Hyundai, Zeekr, and Toyota, allowed Waymo to maintain a strong presence in the market and adapt to different vehicle platforms. Autonomous expert Katie Driggs-Campbell of the University of Illinois' Grainger College of Engineering agrees. 'Initially, I believe their strength came from the computer vision/learning and compute expertise from Google,' Driggs-Campbell said, noting that Waymo has now 'blended real-world experience, recorded data, and simulation [generated] data to form a reliable system.' Waymo also touts its safety record, as well as how open it's been with data. 'We have an incredibly rigorous safety framework in place, and our safety record speaks for itself,' Waymo's spokesperson said, adding that the company has been voluntarily sharing safety performance data with the public, which goes beyond regulatory requirements. Waymo's approach could not be more different from Tesla's, and that has contributed to the dominant lead it sees currently. Tesla did not immediately respond to Yahoo Finance when seeking comment. But per Musk biographer Walter Isaacson, Musk was enamored with Tesla's vision-only, neural network-powered self-driving system when it was presented to him. He deemed it superior to Tesla's prior system, which ran on millions of lines of code using a rules-based system fed by data coming from radar and LIDAR sensors. Tesla's current FSD (full self-driving) and robotaxi software use only a vision-based system powered by a neural network 'brain' that is constantly training itself using videos collected by millions of Tesla vehicles. (And as opposed to Waymo, Tesla has reportedly asked the city of Austin to block release of safety records related to its robotaxi launch.) While Waymo holds a big early lead, what could stop the pioneer from growing more could be its operations and manufacturing ability. Riggs believes building vehicles at scale remains a significant hurdle for Waymo. 'Currently, they operate between 700 and 1,000 vehicles in their major markets and are producing roughly 1,500 vehicles annually. This relatively modest production volume could become a bottleneck for scaling their operations further,' he said. The other challenge for startups like Waymo in general versus Tesla is that their costs per vehicle are higher. Waymo's self-driving tech and sensors reportedly cost $100,000 plus the cost of the vehicle itself (for example, the Jaguar I-Pace retails for $73,875 in the US). While some of those costs have come down, scaling to new cities and providing enough vehicles to take on Uber, for example, will require more than the 1,500 vehicles currently produced a year. Tesla, meanwhile, has the ability to produce 2 million or more EVs a year, which include the hardware necessary for its FSD and robotaxi software. Tesla also has millions of vehicles on the road that could be converted for robotaxi use, though that would require the company's Hardware 4 autopilot software, which only started rolling out in early 2023. 'AI runs off of data. Waymo is trying to close that data gap with more sensors per vehicle; Tesla is looking to win with more vehicles with targeted data specific to their vision-only approach,' said Ken Johnston, vice president of data and analytics at tech consulting firm Envorso and former exec at Ford and Microsoft. 'Companies like BYD and Tesla also cannot be ruled out, as they continue to innovate and expand their capabilities in this space,' Riggs added. Xiaomi is also testing autonomous driving in China, but the company has suffered from safety issues in early trials. Johnson is bullish on Tesla's robotaxi offering, but the company faces a big challenge in surviving its safety test. Uber's self-driving unit and GM's Cruise could not overcome high-profile accidents. Testing the service without any accidents in a semi-urban environment is not easy. And unlike Waymo, Tesla is under federal investigation for its autonomous software. It also still needs to provide NHTSA with answers to how it plans to roll out its robotaxi program. Meanwhile, Waymo is plugging along, adding more cities to its list of current operations, with Atlanta, Miami, and Washington, D.C., coming online in 2026. Being backed by Alphabet helps too, giving Waymo capital runway for growth, investment, and long-term community outreach. Waymo's technological lead and strong backing from Alphabet clearly have the service in pole position. But this race is far from over. Pras Subramanian is the lead auto reporter for Yahoo Finance. You can follow him on X and on Instagram. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
21 hours ago
- Yahoo
Robotaxi wars: How Waymo got the edge on the competition, and Tesla (so far)
'We are being super paranoid about safety." That's what Tesla CEO Elon Musk said after revealing the company's robotaxi test would start on June 22, later than expected, adding that the date could 'shift' beyond that. Meanwhile, betting site Polymarket lists only a 30% chance that Tesla (TSLA) launches the service before July, highlighting Musk's rosy predictions on self-driving that have been constantly pushed back. While Tesla is on the verge of starting a new chapter for the company, Alphabet's (GOOG) Waymo has been quietly racking up mile after mile, trip after trip, providing actual paid robotaxi rides to customers in San Francisco, Phoenix, Los Angeles, and Austin — where Tesla's test will begin. At stake is a huge opportunity for companies like Waymo, Tesla, and others. Goldman analyst Mark Delaney estimates the market for traditional ride-hailing in the US is worth approximately $58 billion currently, but could be worth more than $330 billion by 2030, with robotaxi-type services pushing the industry forward and reducing costs by — among other factors —not requiring a human driver. Waymo has an early lead, and it seems a big one. Rivals like Argo AI and GM-backed Cruise are gone, leaving only smaller players like Zoox (backed by Amazon), China's Pony AI (PONY) and WeRide (WRD), and of course Tesla. Waymo (before it was even called that) started off as an in-house startup as part of Google's X initiative way back in 2009. After some testing and securing of permits, the project officially became Waymo in 2016, and it started testing its Pacifica hybrid vans kitted out with cameras, LIDAR laser sensors, and radar. In 2018 Waymo and Jaguar paired up, using the British automaker's I-Pace EV for its testing; these are the vehicles most users are accustomed to seeing. Waymo's combination of vision, radar, and LIDAR, which the company calls its 'multimodal' approach, has the company claiming it has the best, and safest, robotaxi solution. Since 2020, anyone in a service area can download the Waymo app and hail a fully autonomous car. Waymo says it has the most robotaxi miles driven and that the company performs around 250,000 trips a week. A Waymo spokesperson said that the company has not yet seen a vision-only system that can achieve the levels of safety its current system has achieved, asserting that multiple sensors with overlapping fields of view are the best solution. Experts tend to agree. 'Waymo is undoubtedly the leader in autonomous driving technology, with their self-driving software (SDS) being widely regarded as best in class,' said University of San Francisco engineering professor William Riggs, an expert in autonomous technology. 'They have been around the longest, had patient capital and have the most miles on the road proving that self-driving tech works.' Riggs believes Waymo's software strategy combined with its diversified sensor suite, along with its manufacturer partnerships such as Chrysler, Hyundai, Zeekr, and Toyota, allowed Waymo to maintain a strong presence in the market and adapt to different vehicle platforms. Autonomous expert Katie Driggs-Campbell of University of Illinois' Grainger College of Engineering agrees. 'Initially, I believe their strength came from the computer vision/learning and compute expertise from Google,' Driggs-Campbell said, noting that Waymo has now 'blended real-world experience, recorded data, and simulation [generated] data to form a reliable system.' Waymo also touts its safety record, as well as how open it's been with data. 'We have an incredibly rigorous safety framework in place, and our safety record speaks for itself,' Waymo's spokesperson said, adding that the company has been voluntarily sharing safety performance data with the public, which goes beyond regulatory requirements. Waymo's approach could not be more different from Tesla's, and that has contributed to the dominant lead it sees currently. Tesla did not immediately respond to Yahoo Finance when seeking comment. But per Musk biographer Walter Isaacson, Musk was enamored with Tesla's vision-only, neural network-powered self-driving system when it was presented to him. He deemed it superior to Tesla's prior system, which ran on millions of lines of code using a rules-based system fed by data coming from radar and LIDAR sensors. Tesla's current FSD (full self-driving) and robotaxi software use only a vision-based system powered by a neural network 'brain' that is constantly training itself using videos collected by millions of Tesla vehicles. (And as opposed to Waymo, Tesla has reportedly asked the city of Austin to block release of safety records related to its robotaxi launch.) While Waymo holds a big early lead, what could stop the pioneer from growing more could be its operations and manufacturing ability. Riggs believes building vehicles at scale remains a significant hurdle for Waymo. 'Currently, they operate between 700 and 1,000 vehicles in their major markets and are producing roughly 1,500 vehicles annually. This relatively modest production volume could become a bottleneck for scaling their operations further,' he said. The other challenge for startups like Waymo in general versus Tesla is that their costs per vehicle are higher. Waymo's self-driving tech and sensors reportedly cost $100,000 plus the cost of the vehicle itself (for example, the Jaguar I-Pace retails for $73,875 in the US). While some of those costs have come down, scaling to new cities and providing enough vehicles to take on Uber, for example, will require more than the 1,500 vehicles currently produced a year. Tesla, meanwhile, has the ability to produce 2 million or more EVs a year, which include the hardware necessary for its FSD and robotaxi software. Tesla also has millions of vehicles on the road that could be converted for robotaxi use, though that would require the company's Hardware 4 autopilot software, which only started rolling out in early 2023. 'AI runs off of data. Waymo is trying to close that data gap with more sensors per vehicle; Tesla is looking to win with more vehicles with targeted data specific to their vision-only approach,' said Ken Johnston, vice president of data and analytics at tech consulting firm Envorso and former exec at Ford and Microsoft. 'Companies like BYD and Tesla also cannot be ruled out, as they continue to innovate and expand their capabilities in this space,' Riggs added. Xiaomi is also testing autonomous driving in China, but the company has suffered from safety issues in early trials. Johnson is bullish on Tesla's robotaxi offering, but the company faces a big challenge in surviving its safety test. Uber's self-driving unit and GM's Cruise could not overcome high-profile accidents. Testing the service without any accidents in a semi-urban environment is not easy. And unlike Waymo, Tesla is under federal investigation for its autonomous software. It also still needs to provide NHTSA with answers to how it plans to roll out its robotaxi program. Meanwhile, Waymo is plugging along, adding more cities to its list of current operations, with Atlanta, Miami, and Washington, D.C., coming online in 2026. Being backed by Alphabet helps too, giving Waymo capital runway for growth, investment, and long-term community outreach. Waymo's technological lead and strong backing from Alphabet clearly have the service in pole position. But this race is far from over. Pras Subramanian is the lead auto reporter for Yahoo Finance. You can follow him on X and on Instagram. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
