New Orleans will expand its streetcar network

The last 19th century Ford Bacon & Davis car (Ole 29), still in work car service on St. Charles Avenue, 2008 (wikimedia)

The St Charles Streetcar, a must-do for tourists. (travelpod.com)

NEW ORLEANS – The city of New Orleans has announced that it will be expanding its network of streetcar lines. The project will include two and a half miles of new track, the New York Times reported. The lines will go past the Central Business District and the famous French Quarter, and then eastward into residential, working-class neighborhoods like Treme, Marigny and Bywater, with the hopes of serving those still-struggling communities.

Two extensions are planned: the first, to cost $45 million with funding from a federal grant, is scheduled for completion in June 2012. The second, at a cost of $79 million, financed by revenue from a city sales tax bond, is scheduled for completion by late 2013.

Streetcars once crisscrossed the city, but there are currently only three operating lines: the St. Charles Avenue Line, the Riverfront Line and the Canal Street Line. All three were damaged by Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath.

The new lines will go past neighborhoods not considered major tourist spots. The proposed lines will connect Canal Street, the city’s main boulevard, with the neighborhoods of Treme, Marigny, New Marigny, St. Roch, and the Bywater. Historically, these neighborhoods, known as downtown, were home to French, Creole, and immigrant families.

Appropriately, an additional spur track is planned for Elysian Fields Avenue, the setting for the 1947 Tennessee Williams play A Streetcar Named Desire.