BY KEITH DAVIS
Last week, we released a plan concept that showed a rather bold region-wide vision for transit expansion. There is one critical piece of that plan that is the most important one: the Blue Line. The Blue Line is the name of an idea to connect the New Orleans Central Business District (CBD) and the Louis Armstrong International Airport (MSY) with an elevated, automated rail line.
The Blue Line name was chosen as a nod to New Orleans public transportation history. The original Blue Line was a streetcar that ran from Napoleon Avenue all the way to the modern-day Causeway Boulevard via Metairie Road, named as such for its royal blue destination signs on the front of the car. The line ceased operations in 1934. Just as that line connected the inner city to the edge of the city, the modern Blue Line would serve a similar purpose, adapted to the present-day needs and geographic scale of Greater New Orleans.
The vision for the Blue Line is a 14-mile, 19-station, and completely grade separated (aka elevated above street level) light metro line. When going from the CBD to MSY, the route would start by heading downriver from Union Passenger Terminal (UPT) along the neutral ground of Loyola Avenue. The line would continue through the heart of the CBD and then turn towards the lake on Tulane Avenue, running along that stretch above the street all the way to Carrollton Avenue. At Carrollton, the Blue Line starts running along and then in the middle of I-10 before making a left into Jefferson Parish at Veterans Boulevard. The line keeps going down Vets until it reaches the airport property, and its final terminus would be an enclosed station somewhere inside or near the Short Term Parking Garage at MSY, just a two minute walk from the terminal.
Although the airport connection is invaluable for a lot of reasons, the main purpose of the Blue Line is not just to funnel people between the CBD and MSY. In most areas along the route, the train would stop every half mile to every mile or so, making essentially everything that is directly on the line within a short walk of a station. And there’s a lot that’s directly on the line. There is no other 14-mile corridor in the state that has as many jobs and destinations within walking distance as the Blue Line corridor. A few of the major destinations along the route include Louisiana’s busiest airport, its second largest mall, a growing medical research district, the Superdome, and the largest concentration of jobs in the state: the CBD. Just because the train would make frequent stops, it would not be slow. A one-way trip would take around 30-35 minutes, and express services would be possible as well. Driving into the CBD from the airport can sometimes take double that.
The mention of an “elevated train line” can often bring up mental images of the Chicago L or one of New York’s rather unsightly elevated subway lines, but transit construction has come a long way in a hundred years. The Blue Line would have a much less pronounced visual (and auditory) presence in the areas it goes through. There are actually some very beautiful elevated metro systems around the world. The Vancouver Skytrain is a great example with its low elevated viaducts and small stations that interact harmoniously with the surrounding neighborhood. The total width of modern elevated tracks is about 20-25 feet, the same as two car traffic lanes. For comparison, the Claiborne Expressway bridge is 100 feet wide (and these trains would not spew a single ounce of tailpipe pollution into the surrounding areas).
The Blue Line level of service
The type of transit service that would be possible with the Blue Line is truly on the cutting edge of modern public transit. Because trains are elevated and there are no stoplights, pedestrians, or competing traffic, trains can run without delays at any time of the day. The closed environment also allows trains to run very close behind one another — a feature that is impossible with streetcars or buses (even Bus Rapid Transit). Trains can arrive reliably as often as every 90 seconds in this kind of model, but for New Orleans a frequency of every four to five minutes would likely suffice. This kind of transit would form the backbone of the greater regional transit system, which feeds into the Blue Line with the existing bus and streetcar network.
Because the line is grade separated, another key feature is possible: driverless trains. While self-driving cars still have a long way to go, automated trains have been in service around the world for decades. This would be a game changer for two reasons: reliability and operating costs. Trains that do not have a driver are much less expensive and much more reliable. At first that might sound like the rationale of a company looking to save costs by outsourcing jobs at the expense of local workers, but in this case it isn’t. The existing bus network would not go away — in fact, it would likely need to be expanded to support the increased transit demand that the Blue Line would create. This would lead to net job growth, with no jobs being lost even though the Blue Line wouldn’t need train train drivers. According to a 2015 transit study, staff savings are often as high as 70% when metro systems are fully automated (compared to a system that requires drivers). When considering that staffing is one of the largest expenses a transit agency is responsible for, this leaves a lot more money for other things like bus operations. By investing in a fully grade separated system, the upfront construction costs might be higher than building a street-running light rail system, but the long-term windfall from lower operating costs can help justify the upfront cost.
Staffing shortages and bus maintenance issues have been two of the key contributing factors to the Regional Transit Authority (RTA)’s 2023 service cuts and the unreliability we’ve been experiencing, much to the chagrin of local transit riders. This exposes two of the weaknesses of bus-based transit: buses do not last nearly as long as trains, and each vehicle needs one well trained individual to drive it. A rail-based, driverless metro option may cost more to build, but it is the best way to avoid the kind of service issues we have right now.
The Blue Line has never been more possible than now
The term “cutting-edge” is not usually used to describe the infrastructure of New Orleans, but the Blue Line could be just that. This raises a legitimate question: “Can a city like New Orleans, that takes months (or longer) to patch a pothole really build something as ambitious as this?” The answer is yes. This type of project would draw from separate buckets of money and expertise to build this system. The city’s inability to patch a pothole or run a reliable bus service does not mean it could not build and operate an automated train system.
The timing for transit expansion is ideal. Additional funding streams continue to be made available through the US Department of Transportation (USDOT) in the form of new grants and more flexible borrowing options for Federal transit project funding. When combining these funding streams with local dollars that could be raised through additional taxes on tourist-centric goods and services, New Orleanians could end up paying very little of the cost while seeing great quality of life improvements from the project.
There will be more discussion of the costs/benefits of this system in the future, but for now, we’ll leave you with this: the Blue Line is possible, and there has never been a better time to build it. At the moment, the most important task at hand is drumming up local support for public transit expansion. If enough people support it, lawmakers will get behind it as well.
Did someone say Blue Line merch? Keep an eye out — it’s coming.
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