Barber Brothers Contracting Co. is the apparent low bidder for widening nearly four miles of La. 42 in Ascension Parish, new bid results show.

The long-awaited $27.5 million road project through Prairieville is expected to take two-and-a-half years to complete.

The project will widen two-lane La. 42 to a four- and five-lane highway between Airline Highway and Woodhaven Drive, just east of La. 44.

The area along the stretch of highway is a growing suburb, and La. 42 is the major route through it. Sidewalks and bike lanes will also be built along the expanded highway.

The bid opening for the La. 42 project at the state Department of of Transportation and Development on Wednesday came just one day after the state announced James Construction Group won a $72 million design-build contract to widen I-10 from four to six lanes between Highland Road in Baton Rouge and La. 73 in Prairieville.

Brendan Rush, DOTD spokesman, said funding for the La. 42 project has been in line for several years and was not related to a gas tax increase that failed in the state Legislature this year.

He noted that the stretch of La. 42 slated for widening has already been cleared for sewer and utility improvement. The sewer work was required required under state health and environmental rules and led to delays in the road widening project.

Ascension Parish lacks a regional municipal sewer system, despite years of effort to create one. Open ditches often receive partially treated sewer effluent from homes and businesses along major roads in Ascension. The La. 42 widening will remove existing drainage ditches in favor of new underground pipelines, which, under health rules, can't accept the effluent that had gone into the open ditches.

Barber Brothers led four other companies for the La. 42 expansion with a total construction bid of nearly $27.5 million. Other bids ranged from nearly $30.6 million to $39 million, according to apparent bid results on DOTD's website. The state had estimated the cost at nearly $25.7 million.

As part of the bids, contractors had to give a time estimate for the length of the project. Barber Brothers says it expects the construction job to take 850 days, or about 2.3 years.

Barber Brothers was the firm that widened La. 73 in Ascension Parish a few years ago from two to three lanes, another project that ran into delays over similarly required sewer installations.

In response to those delays, DOTD broke up the La. 42 project, putting the sewer and other utility work first in one phase before the construction phase went to bid. Ascension Parish officials announced last month that the last parts of the sewer improvements along La. 42 had been finished.

Follow David J. Mitchell on Twitter, @NewsieDave.

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After lengthy delays for required sewer improvements, bids opened for La. 42 road construction in Ascension - The Advocate