Pink elephants and white elephants.

Seen in City Park the other night.

I'm a bit discombobulated today and behind schedule.  Spent a few hours learning about Holy Cross, a neighborhood in the Lower 9th Ward.  Lowernine.org is an organization I ran into on my first preliminary visit to New Orleans.  I detailed it sometime in mid-May but it's too late in the day to link to that post beyond pointing you in the general direction.

Laura Paul tells me that the organization is putting on a second line celebration on December 19th.  My usual cursory scan of their website doesn't provide any ready information but I'll be checking in regularly and will post the details when I'm aware of them.

In other news, the Times-Picayune reported on how the RTA will be looking into building a line from Canal down South Rampart Street and St. Claude with a spur down Elysian Fields.  It doesn't appear on nola.com's front page and a search of "streetcar" yielded the most current result dated in June, 2009.  Nice work T-P!   For local news, a "hard freeze" on the North Shore is considered more interesting, featured front and center under "New Orleans news" than a neighborhood expansion of mass transit.

A line will be built along Loyola Avenue between the train station and Canal Street, a little over a mile long.  While I'm not one to criticize the current administration, this is the project that won federal funding.  While this line will be convenient for people going to the Superdome from Canal Street, saving them a fifteen minute walk, it will do little to knit the city any denser.

St. Claude may not be the prettiest street but it is picturesque.  Making it more accessible would spur more development than taking what pedestrians there are off Loyola's sidewalks.  A streetcar line down St. Claude would make the already attractive Treme, Faubourg Marigny and Bywater neighborhoods more attractive.  The proposed streetcar line will be a bit too far from my new home to hold too much appeal to me, but I am sure more people would benefit than from another line sequestered downtown.  I wish the RTA the best of luck pulling this off.  It's needed.

And with that gentle readers, I bid you good night and pleasant dreams.
WK