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How to Ride the Trolley in New Orleans

Written By Sunday, November 28, 2021 Add Comment Edit

New Orleans' public transportation system is considering cutting back streetcar service as officials grapple with a plunge in ridership due to the coronavirus.

Since the pandemic triggered restrictions on businesses in early March, the Regional Transit Authority's iconic streetcars have seen a 90% decline from normal ridership levels. The RTA already has most of its system running on the less-frequent Saturday schedule in response, but the streetcars — which once provided millions of dollars in fares when they were filled with tourists — are now costing the agency much more to run per passenger.

As a fix, the RTA is considering running the streetcars less often. While the schedule now has an eight-minute wait between streetcars on Saturdays, the RTA could increase that to a 15-minute wait or longer.

"It's just time for us to take a hard look at what that service level should be, but still maintaining adequate social distancing," said RTA chief executive Alex Wiggins during a meeting of the RTA board this week. "Right now eight minutes between streetcars is just too much service."

RTA officials stressed that the plans aren't final. The agency's operations committee will discuss streetcar options at its September meeting, a spokesperson said Thursday.

Such service adjustments highlight a stuttering city economy where job losses, business closures and the fear of catching the virus have kept many off of public transit. The city has also had far fewer tourists in town to ride the historic forest green and crimson streetcars down St. Charles Avenue, or their newer bright red and yellow counterparts along Rampart Street, Canal Street and the riverfront.

They are also a blow to a transit system that made significant investments in the electric cars after Hurricane Katrina. Leaders held up the vehicles and their tracks as a way to stimulate economic development along the Loyola, St. Claude and Rampart corridors, and they increased service on existing lines along key city arteries such as Canal Street to help riders better connect to jobs, schools and entertainment.

The coronavirus is the second calamity to curtail streetcar service in the past year. The Rampart-St. Claude line has been out of commission since the collapse of the Hard Rock hotel at the corner of Canal and Rampart in October. The area near the collapse was a hub for streetcars and buses, but has since become off limits to those vehicles.

While the streetcars, particularly the popular Canal Street lines, are not exclusively used by tourists, there have been far fewer riders on streetcars than on buses since tourism took a nose-dive due to COVID-19, according to Alex Posorske, head of advocacy group RIDE New Orleans, which has studied the system extensively in recent years.

The economic slowdown due to the virus has in turn impacted the sales tax revenue that funds 80% of RTA's operations. Fares and other funding make up the rest. The RTA received roughly $43 million in federal CARES Act aid earlier this year.

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In response, the agency has run all of its vehicles on a slower daily schedule than normal, applying the schedule that is typically used on Saturdays every day of the week.

In June, only five riders per revenue hour had boarded the agency's streetcars, compared to 32 riders per hour that boarded them in July 2019, and 12 per hour that boarded them in November, a month after the Hard Rock collapse, according to data the RTA presented in early August.

Transit rider Andersen Gabrych, who lives in the French Quarter, said the collapse complicated his commute so much that he had to quit his job as a substitute special education teacher. He now works at Starbucks.

Because the visually-pleasing streetcars are often more reliable than buses, the RTA should find a way to keep them running, he said. "As a city aesthetic, for me, if I don't see those streetcars at the quarter, it's like, 'Well, why am I even here?" Gabrych said.

Data show the streetcars were also only hitting their on-time target 70% of the time as of June, meaning that many riders waited longer than the eight-minute intervals the agency advertised. Buses met that target 63% of the time. Unless on-time performance improves, a cut to the streetcar's schedule could mean some riders wait longer than the 15-minute intervals the RTA is considering.

Wiggins said he was optimistic that transit usage would bounce back when the economy eventually recovers, but rider advocates said the agency should make more adjustments now in order to line up with changes in ridership patterns.

Posorske of RIDE New Orleans said the RTA should consider redirecting resources used to run empty streetcars toward boosting bus service, as some bus routes have been packed in recent months.

"We want to see more buses during peak hours ... the Saturday service is not sufficient," he said.

To curb the risk of spreading coronavirus, the RTA has enforced social distancing on its vehicles and added more vehicles to some of its routes. Shields separate drivers from passengers, and all who board buses and streetcars must wear masks.

The agency lost three of its employees to COVID-19 earlier this year, adding to a citywide total of more than 570 deaths as of this week. More than 75 other employees have been sickened by the disease.

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How to Ride the Trolley in New Orleans

Source: https://www.nola.com/news/politics/article_49b3ee78-e89e-11ea-9798-af5b1dec6bec.html

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