Senate panel backs bill asking DOTD to consider A+B bidding to speed road projects

Baton Rouge — The Senate Committee on Transportation heard testimony May 14 on Senate Bill 216, a measure by Senator Jay Hodges that asks the Department of Transportation and Development to consider procurement methods that link contract price to completion time so projects that seriously disrupt traffic can be completed sooner.

Senator Jay Hodges, the bill’s sponsor, said A+B bidding — a method that factors in both cost (A) and time (B) when evaluating bids — can discourage lengthy delays and encourage earlier completion on major projects. “This is a very important factor when you do A plus B bidding. It's a game changer,” Hodges said, noting long projects cost users time and money.

Department of Transportation and Development Secretary Shawn Donahue told the committee the mechanism DOTD would use is to estimate the daily road‑user cost and multiply that by the proposed construction duration to produce a time penalty. “The mechanism that's used… is typically the impact to the users of the facility,” Donahue said, and explained that higher average daily traffic and longer estimated completion times push the methodology toward favoring faster, albeit more expensive, bids when overall user cost favors speed.

The committee adopted an amendment (set 1740) that changed the bill from a mandate to a requirement to evaluate A+B bidding for projects meeting defined criteria: average daily traffic greater than 20,000, an estimated construction time exceeding 300 days, or projects built in multiple phases. The amendment narrows application and preserves DOTD’s discretion in budgeting and method selection.

Local planners and transportation advocates supported the change. Britney Robert of Leadership St. Tammany, who sits on her parish planning commission, told senators the proposal could help expedite multimodal projects that now take years: “Oh my God, finally some relief, a way for DOT to maybe expedite things,” she said, adding delays on state highways in fast‑growing parishes can carry safety consequences.

Lobby groups signaled only qualified concern after the amendment; Secretary Donahue said the department already uses similar tools selectively and that the bill would require only an evaluation and consideration, not universal application. The committee reported Senate Bill 216 as amended.

Ending: The bill now goes to the Senate floor with an amendment directing DOTD to evaluate A+B bidding for high‑impact projects and to consider user‑cost factors when deciding procurement methods. Senators said they expect further discussion during floor debate and with DOTD on implementation details.