When the half-finished Hard Rock Hotel collapsed in New Orleans on Oct. 12, 2019, concrete floors pancaked and steel rebar tore away, leaving a ragged heap of debris on the construction site. Nearby buildings were damaged, and parts of Rampart Street and Canal Street would be closed for the next year and a half.
Most tragically, three workers were killed. It took months to recover their bodies from the unstable wreckage of the building.
The Carnival cruise ship Glory, heads down the Mississippi River after two unstable construction cranes at the partially collapsed Hard Rock hotel building were imploded, foreground, at the corner of N. Rampart and Canal streets in New Orleans, La. Sunday, Oct. 20, 2019.
Lost in the mayhem was a relatively new addition to Rampart Street: the streetcar line, which ran from Elysian Fields Avenue down Rampart to the Union Passenger Terminal on Loyola Avenue.
The Rampart-St. Claude line glided to life in October 2016, welcomed in a celebration with then-Mayor Mitch Landrieu and the St. Augustine High School Marching 100 band.
The line was the second in a pair of streetcar expansion projects stretching from the downtown Union Passenger Terminal to Elysian Fields Avenue, built during Landrieu's administration.
The two projects cost $75 million and tied the Central Business District to Treme, St. Roch, Marigny and the French Quarter.
But four years after the Hard Rock site collapse, the streetcar line has now been closed longer than it was reopened.
Cars go past the closed streetcar stop at the intersection of Rampart street and Esplanade Ave. in New Orleans, Thursday, Dec. 22, 2022. (Photo by Sophia Germer, NOLA.com, The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)
A reader wonders
"Why is nobody telling us how come the Rampart line is not reopening? Why is there still a delay?" asked reader Daniel Wershow.
In fact, updates about the once-popular downtown line's status have come at fairly regular intervals. Unfortunately, so have delays caused by pandemic, storms and staffing changes at RTA.
Workers had to stabilize the wreckage as tropical storms threatened. While the hotel debris was being cleared by heavy machinery, Rampart Street was closed and covered with heavy mats to protect the surface.
Once it was reopened, workers began repairing and inspecting the overhead streetcar lines. Nearby pole foundations, damaged in the collapse, had to be rebuilt.
The RTA pegged the return of the Rampart-St. Claude line at late 2021, about two years after the collapse. But that didn't happen. The agency blamed supply-chain issues caused by the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, as well as internal staffing changes.
Later, the reopening date was rescheduled for late 2022. But that date also fell through, due to continuing supply-chain problems, along with damage to the city from Hurricane Ida, according to then-interim CEO Lona Edwards Hankins. The streetcar was then set to reopen in 2023.
Hankins, who was named permanent CEO in March, noted in December 2022 that in the absence of the streetcar, bus service has continued along Rampart Street and St. Claude Avenue.
As of Nov. 30, the Rampart-St. Claude tracks are still empty.
A hopeful update
However, for fans of the downtown streetcar, there's hope. A November update on the RTA website assures the public that the streetcar will return in January 2024.
Crewmen watch as a streetcar is towed behind a truck during a test of the new track on Rampart Street near the French Quarter on Wednesday, August 24, 2016. (Photo by Chris Granger, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune)
"Currently, construction is scheduled to be wrapped up by the end of December, weather permitting," an RTA spokesperson wrote in an email. "The scope of work included repairing the damaged poles adjacent to the Hard Rock hotel site as well as restoring the overhead wires that will provide power to the streetcars between Elysian Fields and Canal.
"During repairs, a water leak was located in one of the drainage lines which caused some unanticipated delays. Now that the water leak has been repaired, the contractor can resume the final foundational work that will close out the project."
Once construction is complete, there will be a six-week training cycle to ensure that at least a third of RTA's streetcar operators are trained on the Rampart line, the spokesperson said.
On a drive Thursday morning, from the Loyola Avenue train station, down Rampart Street and along St. Claude Avenue to the terminus at Elysian Fields, no work was underway on the line. There were cables strung between stanchions overhead from Elysian Fields toward Uptown. The cables stopped at Bienville Street across from the still-empty Hard Rock site.
Between repairs and training, it’s uncertain whether the line will be back for Mardi Gras 2024, which is Feb. 13.
"We are excited about the return of the Rampart streetcar line, for the many riders who are eager to get back on board and for the many businesses who will benefit from increased traffic along the corridor," the RTA spokesperson wrote.
At a City Council Transportation Committee meeting that began after press time on Thursday, RTA CEO Lona Hankins told council members that the Rampart line is expected to back in operation after Mardi Gras. Check back with NOLA.com for more updates.