Streetcars!

An article from Architect magazine regarding streetcars in New Orleans that very much reminded me of Milwaukee's planning process to add streetcars to the downtown area.

But contrary to Milwaukee's initial focus on the East side commuters, New Orleans apparently took a different tack:

This past January, the Federal Transit Administration signed an agreement with the New Orleans Regional Transit Authority for $45 million in federal economic stimulus funds to build a new, 1.5-mile streetcar line. It would link Canal Street with the Union Passenger Terminal, a 1954 structure that’s now home to the Amtrak and Greyhound stations.

Skeptical New Orleanians wondered why. Of course, connecting to a regional transportation center was a sensible thing. But the line passed block after block of bleak, asphalt-savanna surface parking that flanks partially filled office towers. Why not route the new streetcar through communities that already had a denser residential population?

The answer came pretty quickly. Routing the streetcar through an underused part of the city, it turned out, was like adding water to sea monkeys. The blocks came to life almost immediately.

 
If Milwaukee followed the same process, the initial streetcar route would run along the vacant lots of the former Park East Freeway, although a planned route extension does run to this region.  One can only hope the initial route of the streetcar is successful enough to attract additional funding for extensions that would run to the Parkway East lots and to the Brady Street area.