NEW ORLEANS — The Rampart-Loyola streetcar line will start running again on Sunday morning, according to the RTA. It has been out of service since the partial collapse of the Hard Rock Hotel in 2019.
“We noticed a considerable decrease in foot traffic,” said Robert Bowling, General Manager of The Lost Sock on Rampart Street. The streetcar runs 1.6 miles from Elysian Fields and St. Claude Avenues to the Union Passenger Terminal. Before the collapse, Bowling described how customers “would say ‘Hey, I saw this place when we rode the streetcar, I just had to come to check it out.’”
Repairs to the streetcar line first began in 2021 after Rampart Street itself was reopened. But then “we had COVID happen,” said RTA CEO Lona Edwards Hankins, “that then caused some supply chain issues, then we had some labor shortages… and unfortunately, we had an incident with the City and DPW, and Entergy needed to do some work on Canal Street that delayed us from getting started.”
The RTA pushed back the reopening date for the streetcar first by months, then years. In early 2024, more than four years after the Hard Rock collapse, it announced final tests were being performed and the streetcar was about to start running again.
Bowling is looking forward to the big day after years of “decreased visibility and decreased foot traffic,” which “affected everybody financially.” Hankins described it as “exciting,” and said after an adjustment period she expects drivers and pedestrians will grow accustomed to once again yielding to streetcars on the line.
The bus route that has run along the Rampart-Loyola line will stay in place, an RTA spokesman said.
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