CARENCRO — The City of Carencro is working to address concerns that come with major development. The new Amazon sorting facility will bring with it 1,400 jobs, but some also worry it will be a prime location for traffic issues.
Tuesday night, DOTD held a meeting to address those concerns.
Drivers that spoke during the meeting say it's the intersection at Hector Connoly Road off of I-49 that concerns them the most. Many say during rush hour, they become gridlocked.
"You have the problem of people going across four lanes of traffic, and people trying to make a right hand turn," John Pere said.
Pere and his wife were one of several speaking about the intersection Tuesday night.
"Like he said, people try to cut across, then you have a real mess right there," one man said.
"You have all the traffic coming from Super One, the other shopping center where Dollar Tree is," a woman added. "When that light turns red, everything becomes a complete stop."
According to DOTD, changes will be made to all three major intersections around the Amazon facility.
"You're going to see new striping, you'll see new signalization, you're going to see some new shoulders. Long-term, we want to double the roundabout at Hector Connoly," DOTD secretary Shawn Wilson explained.
Wilson says he has confidence that Amazon is properly addressing traffic concerns.
"Amazon is doing some work themselves, to address their access issues, closet to their facility" Wilson said.
The bidding process for the project begins in July. Officials say drivers should start to see construction after that.
Below is a DOTD slideshow on the Amazon facility (note: overlay slides with the project layout are preliminary).
