The experience of rebuilding a streetcar line in New Orleans and the subsequent neighborhood growth that followed offers lessons to other cities considering streetcar plans, according to this piece from Architect Magazine.
"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.
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