NEW ORLEANS — Some holiday travelers may miss out on riding a historic New Orleans streetcar.
Two streetcar lines in the city remain shuttered for emergency repairs.
The Riverfront line carries riders through the heart of the French Quarter along the Mississippi River.
“We went shopping and decided, let’s take a trolley back, but apparently this trolley’s not running, at least the red line isn’t,” visitor Gary Ford said. “So, we’re back to hoofing it.”
Ford and his family from central Illinois were disappointed when they learned the streetcars aren’t running along the river.
According to the New Orleans Regional Transit Authority, vandals stripped copper ground wires from the tracks, causing about $150,000 in damages.
“It essentially rendered our system not safe,” NORTA CEO Lona Edwards Hankins said. “So, we’ve had to shut the system down. We have a contractor on site now, and it’s going to take them approximately 15 days to do their work.”
Brian and Jody King from Milwaukee also enjoy riding the streetcar when they’re in New Orleans. They called the vandalism discouraging.
“We love taking the streetcars all over the place,” Brian King said. “It’s just stupid. It’s just stupid, and the thing is you’re getting pennies on the dollar for the copper, and it just destroys a historic landmark like the streetcars.”
Adding to the transit troubles, the Rampart Canal streetcar line is also offline indefinitely. Crews doing work near the Hard Rock demolition site damaged wiring to the streetcar's traffic signals.
“A streetcar can’t really navigate a four-way stop,” Edwards Hankins said. “That’s essentially what’s there.”
Both lines are expected to remain out of service during the Sugar Bowl but should resume operations before the Super Bowl, according to RTA officials. Meanwhile, the transit authority has deployed replacement bus service along the affected routes.