Vehicles sit in a grassy area in the parking area of Shreveport Regional Airport Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2023, in Shreveport, Louisiana. Expansion plans for Shreveport Regional Airport parking are underway, but until next summer at least the number of spots now is expected to grow by fewer than 100.
Parking can be a nightmare at the airport, a longtime problem with a solution delayed by the pandemic and now hitting new snags not the least of which is needing another cash infusion. But to give travelers at least a few more options than jumping the curb in the lot and parking their cars on the grass, the airport now is moving to quickly repurpose an employee lot that would add 75 spots to the total potentially before the end of this summer. Even so, the number of vehicles overcrowding the lot already often exceeds 75.
The Shreveport City Council next week is expected to approve a move of $500,000 out of the Airport Enterprise Fund reserves to pay for an overhaul of existing parking that would add about 275 spaces. The total cost of the project then would be $4.3 million.
The project has become more expensive than originally anticipated, according to airport spokesman Mark Crawford. And getting the project underway is taking longer than expected — there'd been hopes last fall it would . "The cost came in a little higher than we'd set up the project for," Crawford said.
"The design process took longer than we were originally told, and we were not anticipating that." The additional fu.
