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January 22, 2007
Feature Photo: Monorail, 1950s Style
One of the proposals being floated in post-K New Orleans is the idea of "high speed rail" lines connecting anything from downtown to the airport, possibly going out as far as Baton Rouge. The 2000-series Von Dullen cars would actually do nicely for an express line to the airport, since they can do a good speed and their classic looks fit the city well, but the elevated monorail concept has also come up. But this isn't the first time New Orleans has considered a monorail.
During the post-WWII period, the mayor of New Orleans was deLesseps Story "Chep" Morrison. Coming on the heels of the war and the old-style politics of the Maestri administration, Morrison was widely regarded as a progressive and a reformer. Chep's big vision was to make New Orleans essentially what Miami is now--the gateway to Central and South America. He worked hard at "internationalizing" New Orleans, even though most locals, rich, poor, black, and white, weren't all that interested.
Still, Morrison pressed forward with his ideas, particularly in the area of modernizing the city's infrastructure. Morrison made the concept of a single passenger railroad station a reality (there were five of them before the Union Passenger Termainal on Loyola Avenue was built). He invested in a major repair and beautification program for Canal Street in the 1950s. And, sadly, it was Morrison and his people who allowed NOPSI to replace the remaining post-war streetcar lines with buses, finally to the point where even the Canal streetcar line was discontinued.
Not all of Morrison's ideas were accepted, however. When the federal government began the planning for the Interstate Highway System, Morrison was a supporter of the "riverfront expressway" concept, which would have ruined the French Quarter. Morrison was less interested with the past than the future, though. One of the ultra-modern concepts proposed by Morrison was a "monorail" train that would originate at the Union Passenger Terminal and end at Moisant Field in Kenner, Louisiana. The cost was prohibitive, however--elevated piers and track aren't cheap. The artist's conception above was developed in 1959. Monorails have evolved conceptually since the late 50s into the trains we see at DisneyLand/World and many airports across the world.
Posted by YatPundit at January 22, 2007 12:23 PM
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