1. Skip to navigation
  2. Skip to content

One small ride forward

The Regional Transit Authority is pimping a new ride.
Best described as the love child of a budget taxi service and a traditional bus line, the Lil’ Easy is the first fruit of an effort to create a public transit system suited to the city’s shrunken post-Katrina population. Daily runs of the 14-seat van will be determined by reservations logged up to an hour before the desired pickup at one of 24 stops scattered between the Industrial Canal, the Orleans-St. Bernard line, Chartres Street and Florida Avenue. The service will operate from 5:15 am to 10 pm daily.
For the $1.25 cost of a ride on a traditional bus, passengers will be picked up and shuttled to St. Claude Avenue, where they can connect with other RTA routes, or one of three destinations: the post office on North Claiborne Avenue, a commercial district at Chef Menteur Highway and Desire Street, or the Orleans Parish line where bus service into St. Bernard Parish begins. Riders also have the option of hopping of at along the route’s meandering path. A map can be found on the RTA website.
Lil’ Easy is the first new program unveiled by the French company, Veolia Transportation, chosen in October to manage the system, an underfunded entity struggling to rebound since Katrina drowned 200 of its its buses, and exiled nearly all its riders. In the Lower Ninth Ward alone, the RTA lost more than 10,000 riders with the number of households shrinking from 14,000, many of them dependent on public transit, to 1,800. As of Katrina’s three-year anniversary in August, the number of riders was still down by 75 percent citywide from 124,000 daily riders to 31,000.
The as-needed basis of the new service combined with the vehicle’s smaller size makes it an affordable alternative to bringing full bus lines back to Hurricane Katrina-decimated neighborhoods. The RTA has said it plans to start Lil’ Easy service in Gentilly, Lakeview and other areas where the population is still not large enough to support more full bus lines.

COMMENTS

No comments have been posted yet.

SOMETHING TO ADD?

Name
Email (for validation purposes)


Your comments
Enter the words / numbers you see above (case sensitive)
Tags: , andrea chen, charles branas, gentilly, joyce montana, katrina cottages, office of recovery and development administration, river birch inc, wil jacobs, 200 carondelet streeet, 2010 mayoral race, aarp and hollygrove-carrollton, affordable housing, airport, alliance for affordable energy, andrew ward, architecture, army corps of engineers, art, ave our schools nola, banksy, barack obama, baty landis, bayou road, beacon of hope, bikes, blakely, blight, brad pitt, brentin mock, broad street, broadmoor improvement association, broken windows theory, bureau of governmental research, carrollton united, carrollton-hollygrove community development corporation, catholic charities, central city, chalmette, charity hospital, charter schools, citizen engagement, citizen participation, citizen-driven development, citizens for one greater new orleans, commerce, community development, community organizers, crescent city farmers market, crime, dan baum, david winkler-schmit, demolition, denise thornton, detroit, development, displacement, district b, diversity, downtown development district, eastern new orleans, economic development, ed buckner, ed murray, education, emeril, eminent domain, environmental justice, esplanade ridge, eve troeh, fear, fiscal stupidity, food justice, fortune development, frank gehry, fred johnson, freret street market, gambit, gambit weekly, gert town, glenn amedee, good work network, gov. jindal, government inefficiency, greater new orleans foundation, green coast enterprises, green jobs, greenway, gulf coast civic works act, health care, historic neighborhoods, hollygrove, hollygrove acorn, hollygrove neighbors, homelessness, housing, hurricane ike, inclusionary zoning, industry, innovation, james carter, jane jacobs, jane's walk, jeff schwartz, juan lafonta, june cross, karen gadbois, kurt weigle, lafitte corridor, lafitte greenway, lakeview, land use, lee zurick, leslie jacobs, liberty bank, lisa jackson, llt, local currency, local food, localism, louisiana recovery administration, lower 9th ward, lower mid-city, lower mid-city medical center, lower ninth ward, lsu, marcel wisznia, margery austin turner, marginy, market umbrella, mary rowe interconnectivity, master plan, media, metro disposal, michael vales, michelle icahan, money, nagin, neighborhood association, neighborhoods partnership network, neil abramson, new orleans adolescent hospital, new orleans affordable homeownership, new orleans food cooperative, new orleans redevelopment authority, new orleans speaks, new york times, next american city, noah, nopd, obama, oretha castle haley boulevard, parent's organizing network, parkinglots, phyllis cassidy, pittsburgh, planning, politics, predatory lenders, pres kabacoff, preservation, public art, public health, public input, public space, race, real estate, recent, recession, recovery, recovery school district, redevelopment, renovation, research, restaurant, revolution foods, road home, robert tannen, sb 75, school, school master plan, school privatization, second lines, seeclickfix, selective salvage, self-organization, seventh ward, shaw group, sidewalks, silence is violence, sixth ward, social aid and pleasure clubs, social entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs of new orleans, social entrepreneurship, squandered heritage, squatters, st.claude avenue, stacy head, street life, susan witt, sustainability, tamara jackson, taxes, teaching responsible earth education, the american prospect, the bilbao effect, the councils on aging and the greater new orleans broadcasters association, the earth, the modgun, the urban institute, trash, treme, trinity christian community, tulane city center, united way, unity, urban infill design, urban renewal, vacancy, veronica reed, video, violence, walker hines, warrent riley, washington university, wendell pierce, ya/ya, zeitgeist, zoning, 9thward, activism, awards, blakeley, blakley, book, broadmoor, civic, council, dea, debris, demolitions, eyes on the street, fema, fire, french quarter, green, holycross, ire, lakefront, lower 9, nora, open records, politics., private space, riley, speech, stimulus, va, veronica white, zurik