BATON ROUGE - The delayed Picardy-Perkins Connector/Mall of Louisiana Blvd. project is expected to resume construction in the coming months. Residents in the Wimbledon Estates neighborhood are excited for the project to resume and for the roads to two bridges to be completed.

One MOVEBR announcement expected the project to be finished in late 2022.

Currently, the Back Court Drive Bridge and Dawson Creek Twin Bridges are blocked and unable to be traveled as they are missing paving to connect to other roadways.

"It looks like it's going to be another year and a half to two years before we have any traffic coming through here because we have a lot more work to do," resident Larry Bizette said.

The Picardy-Perkins Connector provides an alternative to Bluebonnet Blvd. and links Perkins Road to Mall of Louisiana Blvd to I-10. It aims to relieve traffic congestion.

"There's carpooling with Dunham School, we have a great relationship with the school, and so I'm not sure if they want to divert that with this bridge, which would be a great thing," Bizette said.

The project includes two bridges, a railroad underpass and a pump station. The two bridges were constructed first.

"They're part of the project, without the bridges you can't go where you need to go," EBR Director of Transportation and Drainage Fred Raiford said. "Normally, bridges take the longest to be under construction."

According to MOVEBR, these two bridges were finished in July 2023. The next step is to advertise for bids on the railroad underpass and pump station that was originally to begin in late 2023. Raiford said advertising will begin in the third week of January.

"Takes 30 days to bid the work," Raiford said. "Once it's been reviewed by us and okayed, then we will go to the Metro Council which will probably be sometime in March."

Raiford said COVID-19 pushed the project back as did completing paperwork twice for the railroad underpass.

"[The railroad company was] being bought out, traded to another railroad company and that created... We had agreements ready to go, but all of a sudden, no we didn't. We have a new owner that had to be dealt with, so that's part of the reason for the delay," Raiford said.

The EBR City-Parish is aiming for work to start back up in late April or May.

Bizette said he is ready for the bridge to be finished.

"I'm glad they did it, it looks good, it's very nice and we're excited about it," Bizette said.