by Larry Lagarde

Jeff Ciabotti, Vice President of Trail Development for the Rails To Trails Conservancy (RTC), flew down from D.C. last weekend to pledge the full support of his national non-profit organization behind the Lafitte Trail. In a meeting Tuesday with representatives from the New Orleans Regional Planning Commission, the Governor's office, FOLC and other stake holders, Jeff made clear that the Lafitte Trail is of national importance and should be built without delay. (Photo: Bart Everson and Jeff Ciabotti on a dilapidated bridge over the last surviving remnant of the Carondolet Canal.)

I spent several hours bicycling around the corridor with Jeff, Billy Fields (also of the RTC) and Bart Everson (a fellow FOLC board member and the man behind "b.rox, Life in the Flood Zone"). We rode from Mid City to the French Quarter and back, stopping frequently to take in neighborhood features such as historical landmarks, locations of schools and the new motion picture production studio being built by the Louisiana Institute of Film Technology (LIFT).

Jeff was amazed by the level of devastation and the strange emptiness of once vibrant neighborhoods; yet, he acknowledged the corridor as an incredible opportunity to spur revitalization, unify neighborhoods and heal a great American city. He also noted that the Lafitte Corridor is one of the most significant urban greenways he's seen and that a portion of the trail could be in use almost immediately. (Photo: Bart Everson, Jeff Ciabotti & Billy Fields at the proposed Basin Street/Armstong Park trailhead for the Lafitte Corridor.)

Labels: bike touring, Hurricane Katrina, Lafitte Corridor, Lafitte Trail, LIFT, New Orleans, New Orleans Regional Planning Commission, Rails To Trails Conservancy

by Larry Lagarde

I bicycled through the New Orleans neighborhood of Gentilly today with Dr. Ed Blakely, the recovery czar selected last month by Mayor Nagin. A regular cyclist and internationally recognized urban planner, Dr. Blakely was recently called "the master of post-disaster" by the Los Angeles Times for his recovery work in California following the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989 and the Oakland Hills wildfire of 1991.

During our ride, Dr. Blakely saw areas where residents had returned and blocks where signs of activity were minimal if any. We visited the site of the levee breach at the London Canal. While there, a cyclist that had lived in the neighborhood before the flood pointed out the build date on the flood control structure that had failed; it had been built by the US Army Corps of Engineers just months before Katrina.



Both during and after our bike tour, Dr. Blakely voiced his support for pedestrian friendly, transit-accessible urban villages and expressed interest in identifying "trigger projects" to stir the pace of neighborhood recovery.

Of interest to Dr. Blakely are key areas in New Orleans where all the buildings could be rehabbed simultaneously via a pool of approved contractors. Dr. Blakely believes that quickly and completely rehabbing areas will inspire rebuilding by property owners in adjacent areas while simultaneously creating streets that are active, safe, functional & livable. If LRA (Louisiana Recovery Authority) money won't cover these endeavors, his goal is to secure a funding instrument similar to a reverse mortgage so a home owner's renovation costs could be paid after their death if necessary.

The Lafitte Corridor biking and walking path would certainly make a wonderful trigger project. Not only is the corridor itself historical, it runs through or beside historically significant neighborhoods like the French Quarter, Storyville (birthplace of Jazz), Treme, Tulane/Galvez and Mid City. The path is a critical connector to other biking/walking facilities such as the Jefferson Davis bikeway, the Marconi bike route, the Wisner Trail (now under construction) and even the multi-state long Mississippi River Trail. The greenway corridor would help fight diabetes, obesity, depression and provide New Orleans with another, family-friendly tourist attraction too. (Photo: After the bike tour, Dr. Blakely explained his plans at Dillard University's chapel.)

With Dr. Blakely also leading a study on how cities can adapt to global climate change, the environmental benefits of cycling as an emission free mode of transportation are hard to ignore. Since the Lafitte Corridor is already in the city's Unifed Plan for recovery, let's hope the corridor is selected as a trigger project.

Labels: bike touring, Edward J. Blakely, Gentilly, Hurricane Katrina, Lafitte Corridor, New Orleans, New Orleans Recovery Czar

Today, I had the great pleasure to ride 40 miles through the Western suburbs of New Orleans on the Montague MX suspended, full size, folding mountain bike.

The urge to ride has been building within me since my spill at Spanish Plaza about 2 weeks ago. I had ridden downtown to photograph the QE2 at dock on the Mississippi River. It was night time and the Plaza's polished marble pavement was wet with condensation. I went to make a turn but the bike wanted to go straight... Luckily, the fall resulted only in a nasty oozing knee. I shot some halfway decent night time photos of the QE2 and her guest queueing up for a steamboat jazz cruise on (see the 3 photos in this post), then proceeded to ride the 15 or so miles home.

The scab I earned from the fall kept me off the bike for a few days. Meanwhile, I got busy on a Hurricane Katrina repair project ripping out lots of 2x4's that had to be thrown out a window. Once the job was done, my lower back was sore for almost a week. Fast forward to today.

The weather was gorgeous: brilliant blue skies, temps in the mid 50's and a 5-10 mph breeze from the East. Frankly, I hadn't intended to ride 40 miles; however, once I hit the road, I just didn't want to stop riding.

Along the ride, I encountered a traffic accident scene, cruised past Destrehan Plantation, did some shopping at the new Dollar General in St. Rose (trail mix and sports drink), took a snack break at Rivertown, watched sheriff's deputies in 8 patrol cars meet & prep for a drug raid, watched the oil tanker Ficus sail round a riverbend on it's way to a terminal upriver and passed about 15 or so other cyclists on the Bill Kellor / Mississippi River Levee trail.

If you'd like to see the route of my ride, I charted it on Dave Ploch's 2wheeltech.com bike route mapping website.

Larry

Labels: bike touring, bike trail, cruises, cruising, Cunard, Destrehan Plantation, folding bicycle, folding bike, Louisiana, Mississippi River, New Orleans, plantation, QE2, Queen Elizabeth 2