Dangerous Evangeline Thruway thoroughfare needs a safety upgrade, residents say

LAFAYETTE, La. (KLFY) Since December, at least four people have been hit by a vehicle traveling along the Evangeline Thruway.

Former LCG councilman Kenneth Boudreaux says efforts to bring attention to the state about a proposed walkway, to his knowledge, has hit a speed bump.

For many residents without a car, the only to get from one side to the other is walk or ride a bike.

Pedestrian identified in Sunday night Evangeline Thruway crash

"I'm mainly riding with the cars with the traffic on the freeway.  I have people swerving around me. I have people like beeping their horn at me," resident Megan Spincken said.

Spincken says there are pedestrian push-button traffic light controls and bike lanes along major roads throughout Lafayette.

She asks why not along the Evangeline Thruway?

"They have a right-of-way for people with bikes, but you'll don't have one everywhere else.  Why you got one on Johnston Street but not the Evangeline Thruway?" Spincken questioned.

Former councilman Boudreaux says there have been fatalities all the way to the I-10 overpass.

Boudreaux says he had found a bit of money from a capital improvement budget; just hopefully to at least get a walkway or walk-ramp study conducted.

He explains eventually that money went away.

"Trying to get buy-ins from the State of Louisiana, the Acadiana Planning Commission as well as the local administration to say look we have a problem here.  We have people dying just simply trying to walk to and from work,"Boudreaux said.

Boudreaux expresses he's frustrated and many people who live in the area are too.

"The last time we talked we can't get a library to address literacy and education and just growth.

Now, we can't get a walkway for a safe passage," Boudreaux added.