PATTERSON, La. (KLFY) – Motorists heading to the Morgan City area on Highway 90 have noticed lots of changes in St. Mary Parish.

Since the beginning of 2017, the DOTD has put in more than 30 J-Turns and gotten rid of some of the intersections with signals.

“What we’ve found in other projects is we get about a 30 percent reduction in crashes and about a 50 percent reduction in injuries, so we make the roadway much safer,” said DOTD District Administrator Bill Oliver.

The $16 million project runs from Wax Lake Outlet near Calumet to Berwick.

Oliver said U.S. 90 has had many accidents and several fatalities over the years. The J-Turn project offers many improvements.

“We eliminate most of the left turns coming across the road so you reduce the conflict points and it makes it much safer in that you have less right angle incidences and crashes which are the really severe crashes,” Oliver said.

They’re also building deceleration lanes into the J-Turns which allow traffic to slow down.

“So you get the trucks out of the roadway instead of them coming across the road and the trailers hanging over the roadway,” Oliver said.

You could call the J-Turn project a temporary fix, but it could be a while until there’s a permanent one. This section of Highway 90 is part of the future I-49 South corridor.

Once the road opens as an interstate, the J-Turns will be gone.

“We’ll remove all those J-Turns because we’ll have a fully controlled access highway with interchanges and ramps,” said Oliver.

The J-Turn project area is 11 miles long. The DOTD said the work is essentially done. Crews are cleaning up and doing the finishing touches before the final inspection in a few weeks.