BAKER - A 2025 report card released by the American Society of Civil Engineers ranked Louisiana's infrastructure a "C-minus" overall, with roads and bridges receiving a "D".

"Louisiana is a place that everybody knows once you get here, that the roads are different than any other state," Baker Resident Harry Horton said.

Senator Bill Cassidy announced earlier this week that Louisiana will receive $19.5 million to enhance roadway safety from his Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

The funding works to improve roads and bridges across the state.

"Louisiana has a fairly high rate of deaths per mile of highway. Now, it's both from pedestrians and bicyclists, and it's from cars. If we can make the streets safer, we make our place a safer place to live, and our state is better," Cassidy said.

Baton Rouge is expected to receive $1.1 million in funding, with East Feliciana Parish receiving $1.2 million and Baker seeing $160,000 as part of the "Safe Streets and Roads For All project."

"You know you drive down Groom Road, and it looks like you're swerving, you know, just trying to avoid all the potholes on the road. I know people with brand new cars getting front-end alignments," Baker Resident Deundre Jones said.

Some Baker residents say it would be nice to have more lighting along the roadway, along with more sidewalks for biking and walking.

Jelani King says he walks to work every day.

"I walk up Lavey Lane, so if you know where Lavey Lane is, there are no sidewalks in there, and people are looking at me like I'm crazy, trying to walk for work or whatever I'm doing," King said.

For residents like Harry Horton, the construction is the biggest problem.

"Contractors tend to lag as far as completing the job. They'll start on the job in one neighborhood, and then they'll go to another job, so they'll leave it, and nobody is working on that particular job," Horton said.

Cassidy says the funding for infrastructure takes a while to deploy because of engineering and environmental work. He says that over the next decade, he would like Louisiana to show the most improvement of any other state.

"We've got this kind of legacy of poverty in our state. I prefer to look at that as our challenge. That is our challenge, and if we can pick up that challenge, we go from here to there. Then we are a testament to other states that this is what you can do," Cassidy said.

Cassidy says now that the money is coming in, residents can expect to see every parish have a bridge redone.