Road Report - Grapevine, TX to Natchitoches, LA via Shreveport

[Scubadude62-WO]

Via I-635, US-80, I-20, LA-3132 and I-49

Surprisingly light traffic leaving Grapevine and going around the 635 beltway. Lots of heavy, long-term construction on the east side of Dallas. Lots of lane shifts and narrow lanes. While the traffic was light by morning standards, we were normally only going around 50 or so, which was plenty fast enough for the neverending lane shifts!

Once we got on to US-80, it was a nice run, with a couple of light construction areas, but a nice, smooth road. I-20 was also a decent road.

Once we hit Louisiana, though, that all changed. 6 years ago we were tortured with a drive through Shreveport on I-20. I thought to myself that this time we're taking the south bypass around Shreveport this time, so it will be better.

Wrong. LA-3132 is by far the worst piece of roadway we have ever driven on, period. It's a total embarrassment to the entire state of Louisiana. There is absolutely no excuse for a modern, highly-trafficked highway to be in this condition.

Once we got onto I-49S, the road got a little better, but was probably still in the lower half of road surfaces for this trip.

Tomorrow we're headed to New Orleans, and locals here in Natchitoches say that as bad as the roads in Shreveport are, NOLA is even worse. We shall see, and I shall report.

 

[Isaac-1]

I think you mean the LA3132 Loop on the south side of Shreveport, the issue with this road is the spacing of the concrete expansion joints, which tend to setup a resonance with longer wheel base vehicles like RV's. The trick to driving this road is to slow down until the resonance disappears, for our motorhome with a 178 inch wheel base, that is about 52 mph

 

[Scubadude62-WO]

Thanks for catching the typo. It's fixed. It wasn't the spacing of the expansion joints alone, but the crumbling pavement, potholes and the like.

And, while I'm often the slow guy, 52 in a 70 zone is, to me, asking for either a road rage incident, or getting rear-ended. I was running 60 in the 70 zone and maybe 65 in the 75 areas.