BATON ROUGE (AP) — A proposed $4 billion expressway that would loop vehicles around the Baton Rouge area could trigger a major land and development boom as well as speed up the capital’s often-infamous slow traffic.

The proposed loop would stretch from 80 to 100 miles around Baton Rouge and could open up thousands of acres of raw land to development. Within a few years, tracts of land that are now barely accessible by road could wind up on or near a lucrative loop interchange.

‘‘We will watch the changing face of areas that were once rural, but will now become main economic centers because of the loop,’’ Mayor Kip Holden said.

Property located in and around the loop interchanges could easily skyrocket to $1 million per acre, said Herb Gomez, executive vice president of the Greater Baton Rouge Association of Realtors.

While some landowners may be looking at a gold mine, Gomez said that in areas where the loop is elevated, the impact on land values could be nominal.

Currently, a team of consultants is working under a $2 million contract to find the most efficient corridor for the loop and recommend ways to finance it, including the use of tolls.

Holden’s chief administrative officer, Walter Monsour, said the key to mapping out a successful loop corridor is to rely on engineering rather than politics. During a briefing last week, Monsour advised two committees to put politics aside in their efforts to help determine the best loop corridor.

‘‘You need to make sure that your decisions are based on what is best for this region and what is best for the state of Louisiana, or it’s not going to work,’’ Monsour said.

One committee is composed of engineers, public works officials and planners from the five parishes who will offer technical expertise. The other committee is a panel of business and community leaders who will interact with homeowners, civic associations and others who could be directly affected by the loop.

Monsour said the five parish presidents who are coordinating the loop plan are following a model that has been successful with other toll-supported projects.

‘‘We are not reinventing the wheel. We are simply following a proven model,’’ Monsour said.

Monsour said the five parishes involved in the project — East Baton Rouge, West Baton Rouge, Livingston, Ascension and Iberville — are moving to secure $500,000 in federal money to protect land in and around the loop interchanges from development.

Holden said governments would need to move quickly to acquire the needed right of way for the loop in order to avoid speculation that may drive up costs.

Engineers are using a northern bypass study completed in 2004 that proposed a northern loop that would split off Interstate 12 near Walker, run north and tie into a revamped U.S. 190 Mississippi River Bridge.

A second portion of the loop would connect Interstate 12 near Walker to Interstate 10 south of Baton Rouge. The final portion of the loop would run from Interstate 10 west across the Mississippi River.

New bridges would be needed across the Mississippi River south of Baton Rouge, the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway and the Amite River, consultants said.

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Information from: The Advocate, http://www.theadvocate.com