RTA: St. Charles Avenue Streetcar Not to Return Until "End of 2007"
I didn't hear this live, but while trolling the WWL Radio audio archives over the weekend I found a brief interview with an RTA spokesperson conducted Friday.
The good news: the portion of the St. Charles Avenue Line from Canal Street to Lee Circle will be back online "sometime before Christmas." Testing (using a streetcar) to begin this upcoming week or perhaps the following week. The bad news: The full line isn't slated to return until the "end of 2007." And that didn't even sound so definite.
Its already been 15 months. The end of 2007 would be 28 months with New Orleans minus the St. Charles Avenue Streetcar Line. I guess I should be thankful the carpetbagger parking on the St. Charles and South Carrollton neutral grounds is no longer an issue.
Restortation of the Line should be of the utmost priority and I don't get the feeling that it is . . . .
Audio clip from WWL Radio. Listen and weep.
TAGS: Katrina, New Orleans, NOLA, Streetcar, St. Charles Avenue Streetcar Line, RTA
posted by Seymour D. Fair @ 9:45 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
after the storm one of the first normal things i did was go to a friends house who lives a block off canal street in mid-city.
it freaked me out to see the olive green car pass by.
im just a little to young to remember when that was the norm.
i think they should keep the red cars on the river and keep the green cars on canal and st charles and eventually get a loop from riverbend to north carrolten.
man that would be sweet.
I don't understand it, either. The tracks were not damaged, but the catenary system was. They have been working on it for months, but only in starts and stops. Several months back, they put up new poles on Carondelet Street downtown, but have never been back to even remove the mess they created. What gives?
Mad,
It's not just repairs from Katrina, they're upgrading electrical components to the St Charles line. This was planned to be done before the storm. Why it's taking so long I don't know.
The city as is every other municipality is using Katrina as an opportunity to get the Feds to pay for things that already needed repair. Smart or not that seems to be happening everywhere.
I think I'd have made the St. Charles street car line a fairly high priority. It's symbolic of some return to normalcy.
BTW-Brought my Dad down last Saturday, his first time since Katrina. He couldn't believe the devastation. I told him it was 1000 times better but it's just hard to know unless you've seen it with your own eyes. Pictures just don't do it justice.
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