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Return of the Canal Street Streetcars
Look left, look right and listen for the clakety clack and the ding ding ding. Happily, once again you'll have to proceed with caution when crossing the tracks along the River and on Canal St. because New Orleans' famed streetcars are back in limited service since Katrina put a bad spell on the system in August. Sadly, the sassy new cherry red cars that serviced the downtown lines before the storm are in the streetcar hospital drying out and waiting on a massive influx of federal money to restore them to their air-conditioned and handicap-accessible glory. They'll be back, but it will surely take a while. The old St. Charles Avenue line, a National Historic Landmark, suffered severe track damage and wind damage to its catenary overhead power network, but the historic green Perley Thomas cars that have serviced the oak arbored boulevard since the 1920s, survived the storm waters snug, high and dry in their uptown barn at Willow and Carrollton. So the enterprising gang at The Regional Transit Authority which oversees the historic transit system and knows full well the symbolic power of New Orleans' streetcars, concocted a plan to get seven Perley Thomas cars from Uptown, Downtown for the time being. The Riverfront line that runs along the edge of the French Quarter to the Convention Center upriver by the Crescent City Connection and Thalia Street is a pleasant if short ride. Cars also run from Esplanade and the River, skirt the riverside of the Quarter and clang toward the lake on Canal Street reversing at Crozat. For now the fare for a ride in New Orleans history is free.
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