The never ending Bourbon Street project

They will be digging in these blocks until the next Tricentennial or until the money runs out whatever comes first.

A sewer pipe improperly connected to a drainage line under Bourbon Street backed up into the bathroom of the True Religion clothing store in the Astor Crowne Plaza Hotel on Canal Street, revealing a problem missed during the months that crews were rebuilding the roadway and the pipes beneath it.

The oversight means contractors will, once again, have to tear up a portion of the first block of Bourbon, just months after that part of a project plagued by delays and cost overruns was thought to have been completed.

It's probably a good thing since the more money they have to spend digging up the street, the less they'll have for surveillance cameras and rent-a-cop squads, right?  I think the original pile of money Mitch got for them to do all of this stuff was $40 million. If so, they've already blown a quarter of it. 

The first phase of the work, covering the 100 through 400 blocks of Bourbon, was expected to cost $6 million and last from April to June of last year. Instead, it wound up with a $10.3 million price tag and didn't wrap up until January.

This story also says the city is about to put out bids on digging up the next 4 blocks.  This would be different from the process used for the first four.