John James Audubon Bridge

For 90 river miles between Natchez and Baton Rouge, there was no way across the Mississippi until 2011. The ferry between New Roads and St. Francisville had carried 720 vehicles per day — the last ferry crossing on the Louisiana stretch of the river. When the John James Audubon Bridge opened in May 2011, it ended that crossing. The bridge connects West Feliciana and Pointe Coupee parishes where the river narrows between high bluffs. The 2.44-mile elevated structure carries Louisiana Highway 10, which is in concurrence with the Zachary Taylor Parkway. The cable-stayed span between towers measures 1,583 feet, third longest in the Americas after Mexico's Baluarte Bridge. The total length is 12,883 feet. The bridge became officially connected across the Mississippi on December 29, 2010. Completion for public use was not expected until June 2011, but rising water levels forced the closure of the ferry, and the bridge opened early on May 5. In its first year, it averaged 2,887 vehicles per day — significantly more than the ferry had carried. In 1992, the bridge was estimated to cost $50 million and be completed by 1998. It actually cost $409 million and was completed in 2011. In its February 11, 2013 issue, Engineering News-Record named it winner of its transportation category and gave it the overall Editor's Choice award for being the top construction project recently completed in the United States. The bridge takes its name from John James Audubon, who painted 32 of his Birds of America works while residing at Oakley Plantation in St. Francisville as a tutor to Eliza Pirrie in 1821. A 2011 legislative compromise preserved the name while honoring two Marine Corps Commandants from the parishes the bridge connects: the east approach became the General Robert H. Barrow Memorial Approach, the west the General John A. Lejeune Memorial Approach. Drive it for the bluff view — best at late afternoon with light on the towers.