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'It needs a lot of work:' Officials, residents call for work on Central roadway after multiple accidents
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CENTRAL - Law enforcement and residents are calling for changes to Greenwell Springs Road in Central before another person is killed.
"It's a bad roadway, it needs a lot of work. There's zero shoulder, we had a couple of fatalities. We had a fatality the other day," Central Police Chief Roger Corcoran said. "You will end up in a ditch if your tires go off the roadway."
Corcoran said there have been issues on this road for years, specifically between the 19000 and 23000 blocks.
"The drop off from the asphalt is almost 12 inches, there's no room for error at all. We're going to have more wrecks there," he said.
On Sept. 12, four people were taken to the hospital after a crash on Greenwell Springs Road near Lighthouse Avenue.
Central resident Hunter Callahan lives near the crash site. He said the wrecks on Greenwell Springs Road are scary.
"They had one right here, there's been two or three in the past year right in front of this empty lot, there was the wreck where that man lost his life," Callahan said.
Central resident of three decades Charles Tubre said he had never seen the roads this bad.
"In my 30 years, I've seen all kinds of accidents but it's getting worse every day," Tubre said.
Solutions differ. Some think there should be improvements to infrastructure.
"Maybe they could put a culvert there, put some dirt, I would rather someone run into some dirt than run off into that ditch because that ditch is 4 feet deep," Corcoran said.
"They need a shoulder and a little more traffic enforcement," Tubre said.
DOTD Public Information Officer Rodney Mallett said filling in ditches, creating new culverts, or building road shoulders would be a difficult project for Greenwell Springs Road. However, he said there is a parish-wide project set to go up for bid in 2026 that will add safety features to roads like raised pavement markings and rumble strips. Greenwell Springs Road, also known as LA 37, is on the list of roads for the project.
Others said there needs to be more work done to enforce the rules of the road.
"It's a whole lot of distracted driving and speeding," Callahan said. "If people paid attention and weren't playing on phones and just obeyed the speed limit."
DOTD said there were more than 800 people killed in crashes last year state-wide, adding the majority of the deaths could have been prevented if people paid attention to the roads and wore their seatbelts.
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