NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Officials held a groundbreaking for a new streetcar line being built on the edge of the French Quarter.
On Wednesday, officials welcomed the new 1.6-mile line that will run from Canal Street to Elysian Fields.
A lawsuit filed on Jan. 12 had sought to stop the work from moving forward, but last week U.S. District Judge Nannette Jolivette Brown shot down a request by residents and a group of streetcar enthusiasts for a preliminary injunction.
Brown found that the plaintiffs did not show that they would suffer "irreparable injury" from the construction of the streetcar line.
The suit claims the necessary environmental and historic preservation studies were not done on construction options and examining potential damage to historic structures. The suit stems from a dispute over the decision to place new streetcar tracks in roadways instead of using the old "neutral grounds," the grassy avenue medians where the city's once-ubiquitous trolley fleet ran before they were removed by mid-20th century.
Mayor Mitch Landrieu and City Council members attended the groundbreaking.
The mayor called the city's streetcar system "the envy of the world" and said the new line would add to this "great tradition." He called New Orleans a "perfect example of a truly multi-modal, integrated transit system."
The suit was filed against the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Federal Transit Administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Regional Transit Authority, Veolia Transportation Services Inc. and Transdev Services Inc. Veolia, and its successor, Transdev, have run the city's public transportation system since 2009. In dismissing the preliminary injunction, RTA, Veolia and Transdev were removed from the suit, said Gordon Wilson, a lawyer handling the suit against the new line. He said the plaintiffs would seek to get the federal government to do the environmental and historic reviews he said need to be done.
In court filings, the federal agencies argue that federal money is not going into the project and therefore the reviews are not necessary.
