(C) Verite News New Orleans This story was originally published by Verite News New Orleans and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . RTA again pushes back Rampart streetcar reopening [1] ['Bobbi-Jeanne Misick', 'More Bobbi-Jeanne Misick', 'Verite News'] Date: 2024-02-27 The New Orleans Regional Transit Authority’s Rampart-St. Claude streetcar line, which has been shut down since it sustained damage in the 2019 collapse of the Hard Rock Hotel, will not reopen until May, the agency announced this week. That marks a monthslong delay from the agency’s previous estimate. The scheduled reopening of the line, which only began service in 2016, has been repeatedly pushed back. RTA officials first estimated that it would reopen in 2021, but the slow pace of the Hard Rock’s demolition kept the agency from even beginning a damage assessment for more than a year. Subsequent delays were caused by staffing shortages and a city review of the RTA’s plans, CEO Lona Edwards Hankins told Verite News last year. In November, RTA officials said the streetcar would return to Rampart Street in January, and then quickly changed projections to after Mardi Gras, which was Feb. 13. In a board meeting on Tuesday (Feb.27), Hankins told commissioners that the agency had experienced “several delays” related to the line, “via the city and via Entergy.” A statement from the RTA attributed the delays to “competing construction projects and Mardi Gras.” In an email, a spokesperson for the RTA said electric utility Entergy New Orleans conducted an emergency shutdown of the intersection at Rampart and Canal Streets in early January. That forced the agency to delay planned construction on the streetcar line. The final phase of construction on the line finally began in earnest on Feb. 19, according to an RTA statement. Construction crews working on the line have closed off lakebound lanes of Canal Street and Uptown-bound lanes of Rampart Street for the work. As a result of the work, the Canal streetcar line has also suspended service between LaSalle Street and the Mississippi River. The agency’s statement said the last phase of construction will be completed by March 31, afterwich a six-week-long training and testing phase will begin. The RTA estimates that the Canal streetcar line will resume full service in mid-April. The Rampart line is expected to reopen on May 31. The Rampart line,which runs along Rampart Street and St. Claude Avenue from Canal Street to Elysian Fields Avenue and cost more than $40 million to construct, has now been closed for more than four years — a longer time than it operated. The The line only ran for about three years before the Oct. 12, 2019 partial collapse of the Hard Rock severely damaged its power lines.. Some transit advocates have been critical of the resources that have gone into streetcar construction in the city’s core. The Rampart line primarily serves the heavily-touristed French Quarter but does not extend into parts of the city where commuters live. The work on the streetcar line comes after the RTA reduced scheduled bus service — which, unlike streetcar service, covers most of New Orleans — on 15 of its 30 lines, removing 18 buses from its active fleet and reduced the number of buses it required for peak service. The changes extended wait times between buses by between 3 and 40 minutes, depending on the route. This week, the RTA released an analysis of the recent changes to ensure that the longer wait times do not disproportionately burden the city’s minority and low income communities in violation of the Federal Civil Rights Act. The analysis, which was scheduled to be reviewed by the RTA’s governing board on Tuesday, found a “small disproportionate burden and disparate impact for low-income and minority communities,” but stressed that the cuts were intended to be short-term and the impacts would be offset by improved service reliability. At Tuesday’s meeting, the RTA’s board of commissioners deferred approval of the analysis until it can be first be presented to an operations and administration committee. Related Stories Republish This Story Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license. [END] --- [1] Url: https://veritenews.org/2024/02/27/rta-again-pushes-back-rampart-streetcar-reopening/ Published and (C) by Verite News New Orleans Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 US. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/veritenews/