A Context

A Context

1. Transportation Planning in New Orleans

The largest transportation planning effort in New Orleans in recent years was contained within the 2004 transportation element of the New Century New Orleans Master Plan, which presented goals and recommendations for shaping the transportation system in New Orleans in the future. Transportation was also discussed in the recovery plans created in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and over the decades prior to the storm. Transportation planning has been an ongoing process throughout the city’s history, as exemplified by the remaining and restored streetcar lines that currently operate within city limits, and the original street grid of the French Quarter. And over the years, studies and plans large and small have addressed various transportation issues involving roads, highways and transit by proposing solutions intended to make movement throughout the city more efficient and accessible. In 1975, for example, the fi rm Wallace M. Harg conducted a Growth Management Plan, whose primary purpose was to assist in the revitalization of the New Orleans Central Business District. The plan recommended, but never fully implemented, changing the modal split of people entering the CBD from what was then a 50/50 transit/automobile split to a 75/25 transit/automobile split. Due to several factors, however, the opposite has occurred, with far more people currently reaching the CBD via automobile. This chapter builds upon the fi ndings and recommendations of these other plans, weaving them together into an overall building strategy.