New Orleans St Claude Line Stops Short of Press Street.

The New Orleans RTA streetcar line down St. Claude Avenue to Poland Ave. is stopped short for now; the line will end at Elysian Fields Ave. because the Norfolk Southern Railroad will have nothing to do with a streetcar line crossing their tracks at Press Street. There's nothing mentioning a possible flyover or duckunder at the NSRR tracks, but I suspect they'd have nothing to do with that, either. Considering how unsafe the existing St. Claude Ave. grade crossing is , if I were the railroad, I'd demand that the state and the city shut it down immediately! Plus all other grade crossings on the riverside of Gentilly Boulevard, all the way to the river.

Anyway, here are some images:

Suggested forty-five year plan for New Orleans area rapid transit to 2050.

Basically, light railways and commuter rail. [1]

Closeup of same, at the historic core. [2]

 

So what I would suggest, is sever the Rampart Street section of the line at Franklin Ave. and send it out that way to the Lake. I would then take the section of the line east of the NSRR and hook it up to the riverfront Streetcar in the French Quarter. Both suggested modifications are shown in blue. 

My suggested changes using a nola.com-generated map.

 

Because eventually, we are going to have to get around using non-petroleum dependent forms of transportation because we won't have oil extraction at the rates we've been having since 1995 for much longer. Peak Oil, you know.

 

Notes:

 

[1]  Eugene L. Birch & Susan M. Wachter, eds. Rebuilding Urban Places After Disaster / Lessons from Hurricane Katrina. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006, Plate 20: Transit and transportation plan.

[2] Ibid.