BATON ROUGE — East Baton Rouge Parish officials broke ground Wednesday on their "Restoring Plank Road" project.

It is the largest project in the MOVEBR's Bus Rapid Transit Project and will stretch from Interstate 110 to Airline Highway.

Ever since launching in 2019, MOVEBR has been working on its goal to modernize public transportation and enhance connectivity from North Baton Rouge to Mid-City, Downtown and LSU. In October, they'll move forward with the largest of 60 projects MOVEBR has for North Baton Rouge.

"Plank Road is gonna be repaved, we're gonna have sidewalks. We'll also have a bus rapid transit that will come here with only a 15-minute wait with platforms. We're going to see elevated lighting," Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome said.

The enhanced lighting and signals are intended to increase safety and accessibility for pedestrians and drivers alike.

"I lived not too far from here in the community on Osceola Street and more importantly, it shows our concern for the area of North Baton Rouge," Broome said.

Some people who work along Plank Road say they're concerned about how long the work will take. City-Parish officials said they'll always have at least one lane open.

"We want this project to have minimal impact on the citizens who travel this route, so it's going to be done in phases," Broome said.

"We also looked at maybe doing some nighttime work because if there are issues in a certain portion of the corridor, we will look into trying to accommodate that to make sure that everything works for the best for (the) motoring public," EBR Transportation and Drainage Director Fred Raiford said.

The Plank Road revitalization project will repave all of Plank Road from I-110 to Airline Highway. The entire Bus Rapid Transit Project is expected to last 20 months. Officials say they do not have a specific timeline yet for just the Plank Road portion.

"It could be more, it could be less, depending on what kind of problems we see with the existing road base," Raiford said.

WBRZ spoke to Plank Road business Tony's Seafood's co-owner Bill Pizzolato, who says he's excited about the opportunity the project can bring to the area when it's completed.

"It's been something a long time coming. We've been on Plank Rd. for over 65 years and within a four-block area. So this is part of our life. It's part of the people that's been here," Pizzolato said.

EBR officials say that while the Plank Rd project officially begins Oct. 1, actual construction will likely start a couple of weeks later.