Looking down U.S. Highway 11 south of Slidell towards the lake, it doesn’t look like there is enough space to widen the current two-lane highway to four lanes.

But that is the proposal put forth by the Regional Planning Commission, and the Department of Transportation Development.

Business owners and residents along the highway were informed of the project earlier this week when they received flyers asking them to attend a public meeting on the proposal Thursday at 6 p. m. in the Salmen cafeteria on Spartan Drive.

Two-lane traffic would become four lanes on U.S. Highway 11 from Spartan Drive to Lake Pontchartrain if proposed plans by the Regional Planning Commission and the DOTD are approved. Plus there would be paths for bikes and jogging, plus a median with trees. (Erik Sanzenbach)

The meeting will provide information about the project and get public input and suggestions on the proposal. Members of the Regional Planning Commission and representatives from the Krebs, LaSalle, LeMieux Consultants Inc. will be on had to give out information and listen to the public. Krebs, LaSalle, LeMieux Consultants have been hired to be the project engineering consultants and their first job is to conduct an environmental study of the proposal, according to Carmelo Gutierrez, spokesman for the consultants.

Gutierrez said the meeting would address environmental and socioeconomic issues and gauge the public’s response.

Judging by the initial reaction from some businesses along U.S. 11, the consultants might get a cool reception at the meeting.

“I’m totally against it,” Shaq Nizamuddin, owner of Shaq’s Discount said. Nizamuddin has been operating his business on U.S. 11 since 1995, and he questions the need for another two lanes to the highway.

“I would agree to a turning lane in the middle, but there is no need for the rest of this stuff,” Nizamuddin said.

The “rest of the this stuff” are proposals to put in a bike path, a jogging path and a tree-lined median. Nizamuddin said widening the highway would only decrease his parking lot, which means a loss of business for him.

The problem is the west side of the highway is lined with fishing camps and houses sandwiched between the highway and a canal that flows to Lake Pontchartrain. There just doesn’t seem to be any room to expand. However, on the east side, where Nizamuddin and other businesses, homes and apartment complexes are located, there is room to expand. Gutierrez said the state owns the right-of-ways on both sides of the highway and there is more than enough room to add two lanes. On the west side, there is a right-of-way 30 feet wide and a 120-foot right of way on the east side.

“We would expand the road to the east,” Gutierrez said.

But that would crowd in the businesses and other structures, according to Nizamuddin.

“The road would end up just where my slab starts,” he said. “There is no room for parking.”

At the other end of U.S. 11, near the entrance to the U.S. 11 bridge, David LaMulle, of LaMulle Construction also has his doubts about widening the highway.

“It is a double-edged sword. The widening will beautify the area, but it will crush a lot of businesses,” LaMulle said.

Like Nizamuddin, the expanded road would end up near the front steps of LaMulle’s office. “It would not behoove me to do that,” he said.

He also questions whether the highway even needs to be widened.

“There are better ways to spend the money,” LaMulle said. He added that with the new Interstate 10 Twin Span across the lake, and the I-10 entrance at Oak Harbor, there is no need for the widening, because the amount of traffic doesn’t warrant it. If anything, he said U.S. 11 could use a middle turning lane, but that would be it.

Also, both Nizamuddin and LaMulle wonder how traffic will be affected when four lanes have to be narrowed to two lanes so traffic can get across the two-lane U.S. 11 bridge.

“I don’t see it in the cards for the state to build another bridge there,” LaMulle said.

Arguments like this are greeted with enthusiasim by Gutierrez or the DOTD.

“You have to understand, this is very early in the project,” DOTD spokesman Dustin Annison said. “That’s why we need this meeting to get input and hear what people have to say.”

St. Tammany Parish, according to spokesperson Suzanne Parsons Stymiest has been looking for a way to improve the area after Hurricane Katrina hit the area.

“We wanted to renew it as a portal to the parish,” Stymiest said. “It would help to promote business and tourism and beautify the area.” She added the addition would be “beneficial for everyone.”

But LaMulle doesn’t see the project as good for the area.

“What is added is not equal to what will be taken away,” LaMulle said.

Gutierrez said if the environmental study is approved, there would be an engineering study that would take about eight months. He said that after that, work could maybe start in 2012.

However, he said, there is still a question of funding. He said the Federal Highway Administration would kick in 80 percent of the money and the state would pay the other 20 percent.

For more information, call Gutierrez at (504) 837-9470.