page_title: Interstate 10
section_title: Louisiana
hierarchical_section_title: Interstate 10 / Route description / Louisiana
caption_attribution_description: Original description:The I-10, running west of New Orleans, span the Bonnet Carre Spillway at Lake Pontchartrain. 2008
context_page_description: Interstate 10 is the southernmost cross-country highway in the American Interstate Highway System. I-10 is the fourth-longest Interstate in the United States at 2,460.34 miles, following I-90, I-80, and I-40. This freeway is part of the originally planned network that was laid out in 1956, and its last section was completed in 1990.
  I-10 stretches from the Pacific Ocean at State Route 1 in Santa Monica, California, to I-95 in Jacksonville, Florida. Major cities connected by I-10 include Los Angeles, Phoenix, Tucson, El Paso, San Antonio, Houston, Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Gulfport, Mobile, Tallahassee, and Jacksonville. About one-third of its length is within the state of Texas, where the freeway spans the state at its widest breadth.
context_section_description: In Lake Charles, Louisiana, a 13-mile (21 km) loop route signed as I-210 branches off of I-10 and goes through the southern portion of the city. In Lafayette, it serves as the southern terminus for Interstate 49. Shortly afterwards, there is an 18-mile (29 km) stretch of elevated highway between Lafayette and Baton Rouge known as the Atchafalaya Swamp Freeway, as it goes over the Atchafalaya River, across the Atchafalaya Basin Bridge, and the adjacent swamps. It crosses the Mississippi River at the Horace Wilkinson Bridge in Baton Rouge. Baton Rouge eastbound is the only portion of I-10 that is essentially one lane. After crossing the Horace WIlkinson bridge two lanes from I-110 South merge with two lanes I-10 East into three lanes with one of the Eastbound lanes quickly becoming an Exit Only lane. After delays, you are back to four lanes and the I-10/I-12 split. Interstate 12 links Baton Rouge to Slidell and bypasses I-10's southward jog through New Orleans by remaining north of Lake Pontchartrain. In New Orleans, a stretch of I-10 from the I-10/I-610 Junction near the Orleans-Jefferson parish line to the US 90/U.S. Route 90 Business (US 90 Bus) Junction is known as the Pontchartrain Expressway. A dip near the I-10/I-610 Junction, to travel under a railroad track, is one of the lowest points in New Orleans, and is highly susceptible to flooding. Pictures of water dozens of feet deep (several meters) during Hurricane Katrina are commonplace. Near Slidell, the final stretch of I-10 through the Mississippi state line is known as the Stephen Ambrose Memorial Highway.
  I-310 and I-510 are parts of what was slated to be I-410 and act as a southern bypass of New Orleans. I-610 is a shortcut from the eastern to western portion of New Orleans avoiding I-10's detour into New Orleans' Central Business District.
caption: I-10 running west of New Orleans, spans the Bonnet Carré Spillway at Lake Pontchartrain
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