A paving crew works on Kings Highway between Line and Creswell Avenues in Shreveport, La., Thursday, Aug. 22, 2024.
Expect traveling on Kings Highway through Shreveport's Highland neighborhood to take a little long for a little longer — road construction work there hit a snag but work should be wrapped up in a couple weeks. City engineers hoped roadwork to improve drainage underneath Kings Highway between Line and Creswell avenues would have been finished before students returned for the schoolyear to nearby C.E.
Byrd High School, but the contractors missed that mark and still are working to improve drainage under the road before rebuilding the traveling lanes. There'd previously been no drainage at all underneath that portion of the roadway, and naturally upswelling water there was responsible for the deteriorating condition of the street. "We had some issues with underground springs at that location.
That area, unfortunately, has some of that that was causing continual deterioration of the road. So we've hired a contractor to go in," said Shreveport Public Works Director Gary Norman. The construction currently has reduced the number of travel lanes on Kings Highway, slowing traffic on the busy roadway.
The north side of the road has been dug up so drainage issues can be fixed before the street is rebuilt. A paving crew works on Kings Highway between Line and Creswell Avenues in Shreveport, La., Thursday, Aug.
22, 2024. Norman said groundwater swelling from natural springs is responsible for the road sinkage and potholes along that stretch of Kings Highway. Contractors will replace some of the water and sewerage infrastructure there, as well as install something like a French drain, a kind of gravel-filled trench with perforated piping used to redirect surface and groundwater into the storm drainage.
Norman said that road section lacks drainage of any kind, but the hope is the upgrades should make similar repairs unnecessary in the future. The work is behind schedule, however. "We were intending to be through with it by the start of school, which we didn't quite make.
But hopefully we'll see it finished up here in the next few weeks," Norman said. Assistant City Engineer David Smith said the work is scheduled to be complete by Sept. 6.
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