Streetcar Success in New Orleans

"The New Orleans experience also helps answer a common question among transit planners and cash-strapped municipalities: Why streetcars? Why not just expand bus routes? They're cheaper, more flexible to route, and far quicker to implement.

The short answer: because where streetcars go, people follow. People simply like streetcars better than buses-studies suggest that ridership typically increases by about one-third when streetcars replace a bus route. They're smooth. There's less lurching. And there's less uncertainty about where they end up."

Other cities are already looking to New Orleans as a model for streetcar development.