Designates a portion of United States Highway 171 in Sabine Parish as " Speaker Joe R. Salter Memorial Highway". (8/1/26) (EG +$1,500 SG EX See Note)

Senate Bill 160 designates a specific portion of United States Highway 171 in Sabine Parish as the "Joe R. Salter Memorial Highway." The designated section begins at the northern village limit of Florien, Louisiana and extends southward through the village to its southern boundary. The bill creates this memorial designation through direct statutory enactment without amending any existing highway designation statute, instead establishing the memorial name as a new legal designation for this particular stretch of the federal highway corridor within the state.

The Department of Transportation and Development bears the responsibility for erecting and maintaining signage that reflects this memorial designation along the designated highway segment. However, the department's obligation to install and maintain such signs is conditioned upon the receipt of local or private funding to cover the actual costs associated with sign materials, fabrication, mounting posts, and installation. The statute establishes a cost limit of seven hundred fifty dollars per sign, meaning that the department's reimbursable expenses for any individual sign cannot exceed that amount. This funding requirement effectively places the financial burden of the memorial highway project on local government entities or private individuals rather than on the state highway maintenance budget.

The designation operates within Louisiana's existing framework for state and federal highway management, which is primarily governed by the Department of Transportation and Development's statutory authority. The bill's language including the phrase "notwithstanding any other provision of law to the contrary" indicates legislative intent to override any conflicting provisions that might otherwise apply to highway naming or designation procedures. Memorial highway designations represent a traditional legislative practice in state highway systems and typically carry no substantive effect on highway operations, maintenance standards, or traffic regulations, functioning instead as honorary recognitions that appear through signage along the roadway.