BATON ROUGE — The new College Drive exit ramps opening Wednesday at 5 a.m. are going to be safer and more efficient for drivers.

"It's going to be safer and it's also going to really help the congestion during the peak hours," Rodney Mallett DOTD spokesman said.

College Drive is less than one mile from the I-10/12 split and some drivers were forced to change lanes three times in that space to get to the exit. Now, there will be a dedicated exit for both I-10 and I-12 going westbound to get off at College Drive.

"You're not gonna have the accordion effect where people are hitting their brakes trying to switch lanes and then everybody has to stop. so it's really gonna help traffic a lot" Mallett said.

This helps people like Sage Nugent, who takes the route to work at Tio Javis Mexican Grill almost every day.

"I have been driving here for about a year. I started last May so literally five to six days a week for a year I've been dealing with the same exit" Nugent said. "I'm just excited for the kind of stress relief it will bring to get a little bit better plan on it."

Mallett said that this is just one part of the $52 million College Flyover Project overhauling the interstate near College Drive.

"We're going to stop the weave on I-10 for people that wanna get off on college and people who want to go downtown," Mallett said. "It will help me get my timing down a little bit better as far as getting here and I think it will help with a lot of the traffic and keeping people from riding in that lane and moving back over and to skip over some of the traffic as well"

Traffic merging from both exit ramps will converge north of I-10 westbound, separated from interstate traffic by concrete barriers. The lanes leading to the College Drive exit are already configured for this new use.