New Orleans – Trolley Work To Start

Rail Transit Online, June 2001

Construction of the long-planned 4.1-mile streetcar line along Canal Street is expected to be underway by Labor Day. Crews will work in the median, or neutral ground, of the historic thoroughfare in five-block increments to keep traffic disruption to a minimum. The work will be divided into three phases: Baronne to Salcedo Streets starting in late August, Salcedo to the cemeteries at City Park Avenue beginning in October and a one-mile spur along North Carrollton Avenue to City Park in January. Meanwhile, assembly of 23 new trolleys roughly replicating the original Perley Thomas cars operating the St. Charles line should be underway by the end of May at Carrollton Shops. The contemporary version will have air conditioning, a modern propulsion system and wheelchair lifts on both sides. They will be stored and maintained at the A. Philip Randolph Operations Facility on Canal Street. A $15 million renovation and expansion of the building should begin in December. The $157 million streetcar project, which has been in the planning stage for a decade, is scheduled to open by the fall of 2003. “There are many reasons why this has taken so long, but the good news is that we no longer have to talk about delays,” Regional Transit Authority Chairman Robert Tucker told the New Orleans Times-Picayune. Operationally, every second Canal streetcar will continue onto the Riverfront line to its Esplanade Avenue terminus.