A BRIDGE TOO EXPENSIVE

If you work or live on the West Bank, chances are you pay to cross the Crescent City Connection. State officials say the tolls bring in about $22 million a year, three-quarters of the bridge's $25 million operating budget.

But many days, when motorists pass through the toll plaza or roll along the elevated West Bank or the Pontchartrain expressways, we question whether we're getting our money's worth.

In the spring of 2000, CCC officials finished a $16 million beautification project on both sides of the Mississippi River that produced some nice iron benches, trash cans, split leaf philodendra, brick work and a paved pedestrian-bike path underneath the elevated West Bank Expressway.

After that, the older span of the bridge got a fresh coat of paint, a job that took more than four years and cost nearly $20 million. (Now, the newer span is peeling paint and could use a few new light bulbs.)

And in the face of a $10 million shortfall in the bridge's operating budget, the agency paid $3.8 million to renovate most of the CCC offices and build a nice 6,000-square-foot addition to the toll plaza that houses the new Louisiana 1 toll road folks.

Yet, traffic is a nightmare, even for toll tag users. Algiers traffic trying to merge from Gen. De Gaulle Drive onto the bridge during rush hour is often clogged by impatient drivers trying to cut in. Crescent City Connection police officers used to monitor the situation, but now they are rarely seen there. And on any given day, drivers are more apt to see police cruisers from the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office, the Gretna Police Department and lately, Louisiana State Police, parked along the shoulder, presumably to deter speeding, than bridge police.

"At certain times, they're all over the place, but other times, they're nowhere to be found," state Rep. Patrick Connick, R-Harvey, said of the CCC police. "All of the cars are parked outside police headquarters under the bridge."...