BATON ROUGE — The city broke ground on a new road project along Florida Boulevard designed to improve pedestrian safety.

The work will add signals, sidewalks and bike lanes from North 22nd Street to Airline Highway.

Mayor-President Sid Edwards said the city's number one priority is safety.

"I mean Florida Boulevard is problematic in our parish, but also a lot of wrecks, a lot of pedestrian accidents, bike accidents," Edwards said, "and this project here, I'm simply calling it a lifesaver."

He said the project is big for all citizens in the parish to be able to travel the highway and areas they need to go in.

The estimated cost for the construction is $60 million.