BATON ROUGE - City-Parish transportation officials are looking to address the congestion on College Drive in a rather unconventional way. 

"It's outside the box, but lots of times we get criticized by people that we don't think outside the box like other cities. I think this project will set that example," EBR Transportation Director Fred Raiford said.

Aside from the planned signal upgrades and improvements for pedestrians, project plans are calling for an entirely new road to be constructed in two phases. Raiford says it's called a backage road. 

"It's gonna be a road that's gonna be between the shopping area and the parking lot and the main businesses out on College," Raiford said.

During phase 1 of the project, a road will be built through the Hobby Lobby parking lot behind Chick-Fil-A and other establishments to connect Bennington and Concord avenues.

"Phase 2 will tie in from College and go through the Walmart [parking lot] and go all the way up to Balis," Raiford said.

"There's a lot that remains to be seen with parking, with egress from our business and obviously injury, and then the timeframe. Weather plays a huge factor, are there changes to the renderings changes to the simulation? That'll be a huge factor as well so I think it's going to be longer than most people anticipate," Chick-fil-A property owner Sean Teague said.

According to Raiford, the goal is to build these roads before major lane restrictions take place on I-10 in 2025. The additional side streets will hopefully alleviate some of the congestion from the main road. 

"There's been a lot of comments about how College Drive is not user friendly. I think once we're finished you're going to see a lot of traffic move to the back of these businesses. Conceptually, I think it will work, I'm happy about it. Looking at the data shows it can be greatly improved so I feel very good about it," Raiford said.