‘Bus Rapid Transit’ plan that would limit Mississippi River bridge HOV lanes to busses advances

A mass transit plan that would bar everyday commuters from using the Crescent City Connection’s high occupancy vehicle lanes advanced this week.

The Regional Transit Authority on Tuesday (Nov. 18) awarded a contract valued at no more than $5.7 million a consulting firm, AECOM, to finish preliminary engineering  and designing for the “bus rapid transit” project, or BRT.

Though BRT, the RTA plans a 15.4-mile transit system stretching from Algiers to New Orleans East. It will be be designed to quickly carry mass transit riders to the Central Business District and French Quarter, where the heart of the region’s jobs are located.

About 70 percent of the 15.4-mile system would have travel lanes dedicated for use exclusively by buses, with the remaining 30 percent being mixed travel lanes, according to an RTA document. Click here to read the RTA’s request for qualifications.

On the Algiers end, the RTA’s “Park & Ride” facility on Gen. de Gaulle Drive at Wall Boulevard will be pressed into service again. The facility has been shuttered since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Perhaps most controversial to motorists across the West Bank, the BRT plan calls for the HOV  lanes being used exclusively by the BRT buses. RTA officials have said that emergency vehicles also could use the HOV lanes.

Closing the HOV lanes to everyday commuters would add to the traffic motorists already experience in the bridge’s main travel lanes.

The BRT plan revives a decades-old dispute over the HOV lanes. As conceived in the 1980s,  the HOV lanes were intended to be used by vehicles carrying seven or more passengers. Through the ensuing political and social dispute, the minimum number of riders per vehicle on the HOV was relived to two. Click here to read Our Street’s look back at the dispute.

Through dedicated bus lanes, the BRT will “deliver a high-capacity, reliable, and accessible transit service that will improve travel times, reliability, access to jobs and services, and the overall rider experience,” the agency said.

The selling point is to provide faster commute times to existing users while courting new riders.

The numbers favor motorists, according to available data.

In October 2021, according to the RTA, about 1,800 individual bus riders cross from Algiers to downtown New Orleans on RTA buses each weekday morning.

During the same month, almost 81,400 vehicles crossed from Algiers to the east bank on the CCC’s main travel lanes. About 4,890 vehicles used the HOV lanes during the same timeframe.

Restricting the HOV lanes to buses would add almost 5,000 vehicles to the main span during the morning commute, the numbers show.

The federally funded contract calls on AECOM to perform everything from assessing the routes to designing stations to working with RTA’s communications staff in developing community outreach programs.

AECOM was the only firm to respond to the RTA’s request for qualifications. Click here to read RTA documents associated with the contract.

The RTA hopes to have the BRT line operable in 2027. It could cost upwards of $350 million, paid for by a mix of local and federal funds.