Tagged: Crescent City Connection

A partial recount in the November referendum that extended tolls on the Crescent City Connection for 20 years has been set for Feb. 16.

The Times-Picayune reports state District Judge William Morvant ordered the review after Mike Teachworth of Harvey, director of Stop the Tolls, filed suit in December. The proposal was approved by 18 votes out of more than 308,000 cast.

An East Baton Rouge Parish judge has ordered a recount of the vote that extended tolls on the Crescent City Connection bridge for 20 years.

The vote passed by a margin of 16 votes out of 308,000 cast on Nov. 6 in Orleans, Jefferson and Plaquemines parishes.

State Representative Pat Connick tells WWL-AM that officials won't recount every vote — just the absentee votes in Orleans Parish.

He opposed renewing the tolls, which bring in more than $20 million a year.

The new year is bringing free rush-hour tow trucks to help keep traffic flowing on one of the nation's busiest bridges.

The Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development says a tow truck will be stationed on the Crescent City Connection Bridge for three hours in the morning and three in the evening on weekdays.

The department says in a news release that the bridge is the nation's fifth busiest, with more than 156,000 vehicles crossing it daily and more than 33 million a year.

The Crescent City Connection Police Department has been transferred to Louisiana State Police as part of a restructuring of the bridge police division.

The state Department of Transportation and Development says the police department's administrative transfer to the Department of Public Safety was effective Monday.

Officials say the New Orleans-based bridge police officers will continue wearing their current uniforms and using their current marked vehicles until midnight Dec. 31. At that time, the officers will get new DPS uniforms and vehicles.