Westlake Gets a New Overpass! Free!

You may not think that the opening of a new overpass is news, but If you ever have to travel to or through Westlake, you can count on getting stopped by a train. This is just a little life lesson people in the Westlake area are used to. The good news is that folks who use Old Spanish Trail will now find a handy overpass where once there was none. That's one less train stop for the good city.

Calcasieu parish Police Juror, Hal McMillan says the overpass will be good for the city and the parish as a whole.

"People have been waiting on trains, and anytime you wait on a train there is such a frustration factor,"

There are several great factors involved in this new overpass. Of course, it will help traffic flow through the area much more efficiently, and that's a great thing in and of itself. The really cool part is that the overpass, which took only two years to build, was built at no cost to the taxpayers!

According to McMillan, with so much economic development happening in the area, the Kansas City Southern Railway Company knew they would be using a lot more trains, so they decided to completely fund this project. At its Thursday night meeting, the police jury approved that the parish would take over and maintain the overpass, and declared the project officially completed.

Of course, we all know that the big problem is the train tracks on Sampson Street. McMillin says he's working on trying to find funding for an overpass to take care of that problem area.