Transportation

New Orleans Transit Never Recovered After Katrina

New Orleans' population has rebounded since the devastating 2005 hurricane, but public transportation is still a mess—especially for the poor.
Sean Gardner/Reuters

Getting around New Orleans ain't what it used to be. This sounds like the complaint of any grizzled old-timer, but it is a cold, hard fact according to a new study on transit in the Crescent City since Hurricane Katrina.

Today, New Orleans residents enjoy just 36 percent of the transit service they had before Hurricane Katrina. The authors of the report, Ride New Orleans, compared bus and streetcar service in 2005 with service in 2012 and discovered "severe declines" in convenience and reliability. Worse, this decline has disproportionately affected the poorer residents and people of color who rely on public transit most.