Streetcars may be on the horizon for Veterans Boulevard

6th February 2012   ·   0 Comments

By Christopher Tidmore
Contributing Writer

“I’m a great enthusiast for streetcars,” explained then-Jeff Council­man John Young. “This may sound ambitious, but I would love to see a streetcar go down Veterans Blvd. one day.”

Young was running to fill the unexpired term of Aaron Brous­sard as Jefferson Parish President when he expressed that dream to the editors of The Louisiana Weekly. It was not an ambition that one usually associated with Jefferson, or suburban politicians in general.

Now, as the new Chairman of the Regional Planning Commission, Young has argued not only for experiments in light-rail transport to bring the metro together, but iconic ability of streetcars to transform marginal neighborhoods in Orleans Parish. The Parish President wants to do the same in Jefferson, and, on Friday, January 12, he and his allies on the RPC took the first steps to bringing streetcars to Veterans Blvd.

The Commission plans to spend $75,000 to hire the consulting firm of Parson Brinckerhoff to conduct a 10-month study for a streetcar from the 17th Street Canal at West End to Lakeside Shopping Center. Initially, it would be a Veterans line alone. However, Young, a year ago, outlined his hope that the route that would in time go from the end of the Canal Street line at Odd Fellow’s Rest Cemetery (connecting at the Canal Blvd. neutral ground) to West End, down Veterans not only to the Mall, but eventually to the airport. That is, if the public consents.

Call it the Louis Armstrong Line. Eventually, commuters and tourists would have light rail possibilities from the CBD/French Quarter, through the two main streets of Orleans and Jefferson, and finally to Armstrong International Airport. Add the St. Charles, Loyola Drive-Superdome-Amtrack, and Ram­part-St. Claude (Desire) lines, and the main shopping annexes would be connected with the main transport hubs, with many of the metro’s most notable neighborhoods along the way. (A link, in effect of not only the Faubourg Marigny to Uptown, but both to Lakeview and Old Metairie—at Bonnabel and Met. Rd.).

Cross parish transportation systems have historically had little appeal in Louisiana in general, and between Jefferson and Orleans in particular. (In fact, feeling that anxiety, Young and the RPC are both quick to note that this current plan under study only puts Streetcars along Veterans solely in Jefferson Parish. No further links will be made without exhaustive public comment—and approval.)

Nevertheless, pushing this streetcar expansion, in part, is the private public transport operator in both Jefferson and Orleans that has openly advocated greater interparish links. The French firm Veolia Transport runs bus systems in both parishes and St. Charles, St. John the Baptist, and St. James parishes to boot. For reasons of economy, Veolia has repeatedly attempted to convince parish governments over the last few years of the efficacy of cross parish bus routes in places where they make economic sense, such as between Lakeview and East Jefferson.

With little success. (Ironically, in a historically racial reversal, Lakeview voters worried about potential cross-parish criminal transport and increased traffic from Jefferson.) Veolia, attempting to make the financial case for its own bottom line matched with the social justice case of easy regional transportation for the impoverished got exactly no­where—at least when speaking of diesel buses.

Streetcars have a different public perception, one that ironically ends up with higher ridership rates, and a greater degree of profit, despite the large up-front infrastructure costs to build the tracks. Put simply, people, locals as well as tourists, will ride streetcars when the majority of neither would even consider stepping upon a bus.

When the Riverfront Streetcar premiered, organizers like Pres Kabicoff were astonished to discover that 30 percent of the riders, on what had been perceived as a tourist-focused conveyance, were residents of New Orleans—most of whom never rode a bus. The same became true with ridership rates when the Canal Street line reopened over a decade ago. For the first time since the 1960s, a form of public transport in New Orleans saw an uptick in daily patronage over the same bus route that had gone up and down Canal Street multiple times per day.

Part of the justification in the construction of the reborn Desire Streetcar Line, to run down Rampart St. and St. Claude Ave. dealt with the fact that this is one of the highest traveled bus lines in the city. Ridership on a streetcar would only increase, based on the aforementioned perception that Orleanians will opt for a streetcar over a bus any day.

But, the simple financials are match with an intangible of neighborhood recovery, the other justification Young has for the Vets. Blvd line. Multiple studies have proven a higher willingness for urban pioneers to move into neighborhoods within eight blocks of streetcar, over those without.

Some argue that the ancillary proof of the streetcar’s potential transformative influence is already apparent. Treme and New Marigny are currently under going a massive real estate boom as investors and new homeowners rush into the neighborhoods to restore properties. This occurs even before the first street car track has been laid.

Young often observers, “Jef­ferson is where Orleans was in the late ’60s…Unless we make serious choices about the future…about our quality of life…we’ll end up with many of the same urban problems [and much of the same out-migration] as New Orleans.”

The concept of a streetcar is not just to take Orleanians to rows of shops along Upper Veterans and to the retail mecca of Lakeside Mall. It is also to make the neighborhoods along its route, from Bucktown to Bonnabel to the outskirts of Bridgedale, still attractive to young people seeking to buy a house.

In other words, Young noted, if East Jefferson wishes to avoid having parts of Metairie deteriorate as parts of Gentilly have, a somewhat contemporaneous neighborhood where the young left and the old began to die out leaving housing vacant, the Parish must invest in the “quality of life” to draw new residents.

“We started that with the public art program,” the Parish President explained more than a year ago. “We trying to upgrade our parks and playgrounds…I just want Jefferson to be the best place to live.”

“Besides,” he added, “Orleans is getting its fair share of federal [light rail] money. I don’t see why Jefferson should be left out.”

Jeff Councilman At-Large Chris Roberts thinks the Parish President is on the wrong tract, and his pursuit of streetcars could endanger some of the improvements of which Young boasts. He argued that any rail project along Veterans Blvd could endanger the $2.7 million spent in recent years on landscaping and positioning of donated sculptures on neutral grounds.

Calling the $75,000 “a misuse of public money” on a “project that is not remotely feasible,” Roberts called upon the RPC to abandon the study.

The councilman does raise the valid points that a streetcar rail construction would be very expensive in street-reconstruction to lay down tracks, and as it approaches Lakeside (and beyond), the Parish would have to pay to cover over drainage canals along Veterans, a potentially huge expenditure in a parish where most residents already drive a car.

Still, Young‘s allies note that a study could provide a way to garner federal resources for those infrastructure improvements, making it worth the cost. As one close friend of the Parish President and RPC Chairman put it, “That’s the purpose of the study, Councilman Roberts, to find out if we can afford it.”

This article was originally published in the February 6, 2012 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper