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March 21, 2004

Farewell to the Cemeteries Bus Line

As the last Canal streetcar switched from the Canal tracks to the St. Charles line on the morning of May 31, 1964, a fleet of General Motors “new looks” buses was already rolling on Canal, bringing morning commuters downtown from the cemeteries in air-conditioned comfort. The current fleet of Flixable buses servicing Canal Street will leave the city’s transit hub on the morning of April 18, 2004, when revenue service for the Canal streetcar is planned to begin.

The buses won’t leave with the fanfare the streetcars received in 1964, but RTA and the members of the Amalgamated Transit Union who operated the Cemeteries line are to be commended for a fine job. One can argue that a bus ride is not nearly as historical or romantic as a streetcar ride, but the people of the city weren’t looking for romance in the early sixties. They were looking for something much more basic.

There are a number of theories as to why streetcar lines across the country were discontinued in favor of buses, but there’s no grand conspiracy behind the discontinuance of the Canal line. By the 1960s, NOPSI’s fleet of Perley Thomas cars was old and in terrible shape. The company, already beginning what was to be two decades of losses in the Transit division, did not want to make the financial investment required to renew the streetcars. They preferred eliminating the streetcars and using the capital to buy buses which could be then used anywhere in the NOPSI transit system. They dangled two carrots in front of bus riders. The first was a big one: air conditioning. Summer heat and humidity made the streetcar ride down Canal to the CBD a rough one for men and women dressed for work in the city’s office buildings. The prospect of being able to get to work without having seat through your clothes was irresistible.

The second offering from NOPSI was also quite enticing. By switching Canal from streetcars to buses, the company was able to extend the Canal line into the new Lakeview subdivisions of Lake Vista and Lakeshore. This meant that Lakeshore residents (the neighborhood running roughly from West End Blvd. to Canal Blvd, out by Lake Pontchartrain) would be able to get on a bus right near home and ride it all the way to St. Charles Avenue without having to transfer from bus to streetcar at the cemeteries. NOPSI sweetened the deal by planning two “express” lines to run the same routes as the regular extended lines. The express lines would not stop once they reached the cemeteries until they got to Claiborne Avenue.

The city took the bait, despite the cries of preservationists who wanted to save the Canal streetcars. The one consolation the preservationists got in that Spring of 1964 was that NOPSI was required to keep the St. Charles streetcar line running and had to put money into its restoration and upkeep.

Posted by Edward J. Branley at March 21, 2004 6:31 PM

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