Louisiana Roads - I-510/LA 47/Six Flags




The end of the I-510 SB frontage road at Almonaster Blvd. On paper, it looks like a great bypass for US 90, avoiding the downtrodden neighborhoods of the east wards, but that is no longer true. After Hurricane Katrina, most of the businesses along the highway were flooded out and never returned, and perhaps as a consequence, the road was never repaired. As it dips in and out of floodwaters and broken pavement, the only scenery along Almonaster is used car lots and junkyards, because those require no buildings, only the plentiful vacant land. I won't call the road untraversable, just stay away after it rains. That doesn't explain why Chalmette and Poydras were ever signed to the right, because the LA 47 bridge is just to the left, unless the sign was moved from Almonaster Blvd. EB to the end of the frontage road.


Almonaster Blvd. EB at the beginning of I-510. The Interstate ought to at least cross the Green Bridge to Chalmette, if you ask me.


Terrible views of the Green Bridge, technically the Paris Road Bridge. At least you can see the shape in one photo and the color in the other.


A Katrina-damaged sign, SB, for a Katrina-damaged park, and the sign assembly on Lake Forest Blvd. WB at I-510 Exit 1B. Since the park has been and will be closed since 2005, the sign is obviously older than that, so it's not surprising to see the bent corner from the hurricane; it's only surprising that LADOTD left it up at all.


What the amusement park looks like from I-510 SB. The rides look fine from here, but are irrecoverable due to water damage. Six Flags has taken away most of the working parts for use elsewhere, while the city has tried to sue to stop them because the property defaulted out of Six Flags' hands. Other suitors to redevelop the land are dissuaded by the constant depreciation in the value of what's left as Six Flags continues to spirit away the goods. The biggest casualty of all of these was the Mega Zeph, a tribute to the Zephyr from the former Pontchartrain Beach amusement park (a park so old that it was whites only with a separate but unequal colored facility nearby). Mega Zeph was a rarity - a wooden coaster built on a steel frame to prevent termite infestation. However, the wooden parts were not immune from saltwater damage during flooding, and the entire structure is a write-off. It's the behemoth in the second and third photos here.


The park looks so inviting, and yet one's hopes are quashed upon seeing that there's no way in or out. The "Do not enter" sign is too pitiful to even be considered an afterthought. In addition to the entrance road being hopelessly overgrown, notice that it hasn't been repaired since the hurricane so that it still ponds after storms.


Back north past Mega Zeph. I guess someday it will have its own tribute as well. Moon Unit Zepha?

See more Katrina damage along I-10
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