New Orleans streetcar expansion plan advances
Written by William C. Vantuono, Editor-in-ChiefNew Orleans Regional Transit Authority Chairwoman Barbara Major said Mondayshe expects the RTA Board of Directors to approve completion of design work on the French Quarter streetcar loop. RTA has $90 million ready for the project, and construction could begin in the summer of 2012.
The loop would travel along North Rampart and then St. Claude between Canal Street and Press Street, with a 1.2-mile spur on Elysian Fields Avenue that would connect with the existing Riverfront streetcar line at Esplanade Avenue. A second phase, still to be funded, would extend the line to Poland Avenue in the Upper 9th Ward.
The Federal Transit Administration last year awarded RTA $45 million to pay the full cost for the Loyola Avenue streetcar line. RTA plans to begin construction in June. But an RTA application for $50 million for a third new streetcar line along Convention Center Boulevard was turned down. As a result, RTA likely postpone its efforts to build the Convention Center route and commit all available money to the French Quarter loop.
