BATON ROUGE - City leaders, bike enthusiasts and organizers from the Downtown Development District (DDD) held a ribbon cutting ceremony Tuesday to commemorate a big win for connectivity throughout downtown and mid-city. 

The Downtown Greenway Connector at Louisiana Avenue was designed to connect the multi-use path that runs through downtown with Government Street and surrounding neighborhoods. Whitney Hoffmann-Sayal with the DDD says Interstate 110 acted as a barrier between the two trails. 

"While it's a small project, it has a huge impact because you're creating a 2.75 mile and a four mile and connecting them together into one cohesive system," Hoffmann-Sayal said. 

The plans were broken into two phases, with phase one completed Tuesday. Phase two will provide better lighting along the connector and improve sidewalks through the area. 

"Then also we're looking at doing some lighting including some artistic lighting to make it a pleasant experience at night," Hoffmann-Sayal said. 

The cost of phase one was around $400,000 and received 80 percent of its funding from a grant through the LaDOTD. The City-Parish contributed 20 percent.

Phase two has gone to bid and will start at the beginning of 2024.