This article ran initially at NewOrleans.com

NOPSI 939, a Perley A. Thomas-built streetcar, ready to begin the inbound leg on the West End line.  35 of these 900-series cars operate on the St. Charles line today.

Mayoral candidate and accessibility advocate Jonah Bascle is getting a lot of publicity of late for the issue of wheelchair access to streetcars on the St. Charles line. What seems to be a simple issue, putting some of the more modern "red" streetcars on St. Charles to allow for wheelchair access, is much more complicated than one would think.

At the outset, a disclaimer: I do not work for, nor do I speak for, NORTA or Veolia. This article is my take on the situation alone. If you want an "official" statement of position, talk to NORTA.

To fully understand the current situation, we need to go back to 1964, when transit operations in New Orleans were owned and operated by New Orleans Public Service, Incorporated (NOPSI). NOPSI later re-organized to become what is now Entergy New Orleans. In 1964, NOPSI operated two streetcar lines, one on Canal Street and one on St. Charles Avenue. NOPSI considered street rail operations to be more costly than bus operations, and wanted to close the rail department altogether. This would mean shutting down and discontinuing the St. Charles line, which still is the longest-running streetcar line in the United States. Being regulated by the New Orleans City Council, NOPSI could not simply make a unilateral decision, and the Council would never let them discontinue St. Charles. A compromise was struck, allowing NOPSI to shut discontinue rail operations on Canal, keeping 35 streetcars and the Willow Street barn for St. Charles.

By the time Streetcars, Desired, a civic group formed to oppose the demolition of the Canal line, got moving, the deal was done. Perley A. Thomas streetcar 972 turned off Canal onto St. Charles on 31-May-1964, and the city was down to one streetcar line. While Streetcars, Desired, lost the battle for Canal, they were determined not to lose St. Charles. Civic groups worked with the city to have the St. Charles line, including the streetcars, facilities, and the trackage, all listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). That listing took effect in 1971. This meant that NOPSI was required by federal law to maintain the St. Charles line as it was in 1971 from that time forward. At this time, the 35 remaining 900-series Perley A. Thomas streetcars were the line's rolling stock. Carrollton Station (the barn located on Willow Street) has the facilities to fabricate parts for the 1923-vintage streetcars, so this was all no problem.

NOPSI turned their transit division over to the newly-formed New Orleans Regional Transit Authority (NORTA, or just RTA for short in New Orleans) in 1984. By 1988, RTA opened a totally new streetcar line, Riverfront, using railroad tracks running along the east bank of the Mississippi. A cooperative effort between the civic group "Bring Our Streetcars Home" (BOSH) and RTA enabled the agency to acquire three of the Perley A. Thomas streetcars that were sold off in 1964 for use on Riverfront. These vintage streetcars were complemented by two W2 cars from Melbourne, Australia. The W2 cars have center-opening doors. Each of the stops along Riverfront line were built with wheelchair-accessible ramps. The W2s were run alternating with the ex-900 (now 400-series) cars, so every other streetcar on the line was wheelchair-accessible.

Riverfront 461 and Von Dullen 2004 at the French Market Terminal. Both series of "red ladies" are ADA-compliant.

The original configuration of the Riverfront line was one track operation with two passing sidings. The line proved to be so popular that the decision was made to apply for federal funding to convert the single railroad track into a two-track, streetcar-gauge line. The RTA plan was approved by the Clinton Administration, and the "new" Riverfront line began operations in 1997.

Enter the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 into the picture. The ADA does not apply to historic buildings and structures, and that includes the St. Charles line. Since Riverfront was implemented in 1988, its operations were grandfathered in, and RTA was not forced to make any changes. When the decision was made to re-build Riverfront, it would now have to be ADA-compliant.

The majority of ADA advocates/lobbyists do not accept compromise. The law is now on their side, therefore all new facilities and transit operations are required to be 100% compliant. That meant RTA was not permitted to return the five streetcars on Riverfront to service. RTA worked into the re-design proposal sufficient funds to upgrade the facilities at Carrollton Station to manufacture a new series of streetcars. Their goal was to design a streetcar that would have the look of the vintage Perley A. Thomas 900-series but would be ADA-compliant. These are the existing 400-series cars. The Clinton administration approved the project, partly because they were just about ready to also approve a proposal by RTA to bring back the Canal line. Canal would face the same situation, where new, compliant, streetcars would have to be built.

Ex-NOPSI 924, ex-RTA 460, in storage at Carrollton Station. 460 cannot be used on St. Charles because it's not part of the NRHP-listed rolling stock. It can't be used on Riverfront or Canal because it's not ADA-compliant.

Now that streetcar operations have returned to pre-storm routes, two of the three lines are ADA-compliant, and one is protected by its listing on the NRHP. The historical consensus (and again, this is my observation, not an official position from RTA) is to take a hard-line stance on St. Charles. Because ADA advocates across the country demand 100% access to all transit lines covered by the Act, RTA is unwilling to let St. Charles come under ADA's jurisdiction. The easy way to make sure that would never happen is to not deviate at all from the 1971 configuration and rolling stock. Their position has always been to not open this door even a crack, lest they risk that protection and lose the NRHP protection. They cite their inability to run the three BOSH Perley Thomas streetcars on Riverfront as justification for this.

There's another dynamic at work here, and that's the bigger picture of transit access for disabled riders in general. RTA operates what they call "Paratransit" - to stay ADA-compliant. The Paratransit is a combination of buses with lifts, and automobiles that can transport disabled riders in lieu of the regularly scheduled bus line, as well as the St. Charles line. The management company operating the system for NORTA prior to and just after the storm never did get Paratransit to work successfully. The program had cost overruns, and service was so spotty that access advocates were regularly threatening to sue RTA to demand it be fixed. Certainly Veolia Transportation, one of the big names internationally in transit management, has the know-how to work on solving the issues of disabled-access in New Orleans' transit system, but any solution is going to require money and a willingness of all concerned to adapt.

Edward J. Branley is the author of New Orleans: The Canal Streetcar Line (Arcadia, 2004), and editor of Canal StreetCar (dot com) at www.canalstreetcar.com.  Photos are courtesy CanalStreetCar.com.

yeahyourite, Drew.

logo of Chuck Taggart's splendid NOLA site

Fig Street Art Studio has a great article on their blog about the history of the blue-and-white street tiles that still grace many of the streets of New Orleans.

The Krewe of Barkus is always a good time.  Their online store doesn't have an item listing for this year's poster, so I'm assuming you have to register for the parade to get it.

(hat tip to Jenn for spotting the poster!)

I've never done a serious giveaway on any of my websites.  Time to change that! 

Here's how it works:  I'm giving away several SIGNED copies of my book, New Orleans: The Canal Streetcar Line.  This will actually be four contests.

Contest #1 - Register as a user at CanalStreetCar.com, then tweet that you registered to @canalstreetcar on twitter or e-mail edward@canalstreetcar.com

Contest #2 - Register as a user at BoshBook.com (the website for my forthcoming book on the Brothers of the Sacred Heart), then tweet @canalstreetcar (or e-mail)

Contest #3 - Register as a user at YatCuisine (http://food.yatpundit.com) and tweet @yatcuisine that you did (or e-mail) 

Contest #4 - Register as a user at YatMedia and tweet @yatmedia that you did (or e-mail)

Next Friday, 22-January-2010, at 2pm we'll randomly choose a winner from each of the four groups, You can enter four times (once for each contest) but you can only win one copy of the book.

Unknown Perley A. Thomas streetcar heading up St. Charles Avenue.  Great photo by Taylor Davidson, originally posted to NOLALicious.

clicky image for larger version

(part 4 of 4 - Part 1/Part 2)

Perley A. Thomas streetcar #910, running inbound on St. Charles Avenue

Three new streetcar lines for New Orleans! Sounds exciting, but there's the obvious gotcha to the discussion--somebody's got to pay for it all.

The price tag for constructing the St. Claude, Convention Center, and Loyola Ave. lines will be $212 million.

(details after the jump)

(part 3 of 4 - Part 1/Part 2)

Elk Place and Canal Street, early 1960s

The third new streetcar line proposed by NORTA would link Canal Street with the Union Passenger Terminal.  Located at Loyola and Howard Avenues, right next to the Pontchartrain Expressway, UPT is the city's Amtrak passenger rail station as well as Grehyound Bus line's terminal. 

(more after the jump)

Liberty Place at the foot of Canal Street in the 1900s. This is where Canal and Tchopitoulas Streets come together. Liberty Place was torn up in 1965, to make way for the Rivergate Convention Center (now the site of Harrah's Casino).

The New Orleans Regional Transit Authority (NORTA) has been very diligent in their pursuit of federal stimulus funds, making pitches for three new streetcar lines in New Orleans. Yesterday, we laid out the plan for the return of the St. Claude line. Today we'll look at NORTA's second proposal, a return of part of the old Tchopitoulas line to support the Convention Center.

(more after the jump)