Airline Highway

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Airline Highway is a divided highway in the U.S. state of Louisiana, built in the 1930s and 1940s to bypass the older Jefferson Highway. It carries U.S. Highway 61 from New Orleans northwest to Baton Rouge, and U.S. Highway 190 from Baton Rouge west over the Mississippi River on the Huey P. Long Bridge. US 190 continues west towards Opelousas on an extension built at roughly the same time.

The highway was named because it runs relatively straight on a new alignment (see airline), rather than alongside the winding Mississippi River. Ironically, the name became quite fitting, as both Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport and Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport are along the highway. The majority of the New Orleans-Baton Rouge section was built parallel to the Louisiana Railway and Navigation Company, which was itself built later than the slightly longer Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad. The former Louisiana Railway, now part of the Kansas City Southern Railway, crosses the Huey Long Bridge with the highway and splits to the northwest towards Shreveport; the extension to Opelousas parallels the New Orleans, Texas and Mexico Railway (later part of the Missouri Pacific Railroad).

In an effort to clean up the highway's notorious history due to the seedy hotels and motels that once lined it, the portion in Jefferson Parish has been renamed Airline Drive.

Sign showing the intersection of U.S. Highway 61 (Airline Highway) at U.S. Highway 51 in LaPlace, Louisiana
Sign showing the intersection of U.S. Highway 61 (Airline Highway) at U.S. Highway 51 in LaPlace, Louisiana

The portion of the Airline Highway north and east of downtown Baton Rouge carries U.S. Highway 61 and U.S. Highway 190 around downtown, and includes several interchanges. The bypass was designated U.S. Highway 61/190 Bypass from 1957 to 1963,[1] after which US 61 and US 190 were moved onto it, and their old routes through downtown became U.S. Highway 61/190 Business. The bypass and business routes originally intersected in a traffic circle, which was replaced in 1967 by a cloverleaf interchange.

1955 Interstate Highway plans, showing the Baton Rouge bypass on the Airline Highway as an urban route (numbered I-410 by 1959)
1955 Interstate Highway plans, showing the Baton Rouge bypass on the Airline Highway as an urban route (numbered I-410 by 1959)

In the original 1955 plan for urban Interstate Highways, numbered by 1959, the Baton Rouge bypass was designated Interstate 410; it would have connected to Interstate 10 on both ends (as I-10 would have used the US 190 corridor immediately west of Baton Rouge, still crossing the Atchafalaya Swamp in its present location). The route was cancelled by the end of the 1960s (and the number was later reused for another Interstate 410).

[edit] References

  1. ^ U.S. Highways: Bypass U.S. Highways
v • d • e
Auxiliary routes of Interstate 10
California: 110 • 110 (former) • 210 • 710 — Arizona: 410 (unbuilt) • 510 (former) • 710 (unbuilt) — Texas: 110 • 410 • 610 — Louisiana: 110 • 210 • 310 • 310 (unbuilt) • 410 (unbuilt) • 410 (unbuilt) • 510 • 610 • 910 (unsigned) — Mississippi: 110 — Alabama: 210 (former) — Florida: 110
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