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City releases new information on street car plan

7 years 9 months 2 weeks ago Tuesday, June 07 2016 Jun 7, 2016 June 07, 2016 3:49 PM June 07, 2016 in News
Source: WBRZ

BATON ROUGE - The city has selected a proposed route design and more specific stops for the proposed street car that would connect downtown and LSU.

Information released by the mayor's office Tuesday shows a line built around a three mile, two-way tram route traveling north and south in a relatively direct line inside existing public right of way. The line would be between just south of N. Stadium Drive near Tiger Stadium and downtown Baton Rouge just north of

North Street. The train would share lanes with automobiles along the entire route.

In a newly released report, the train line runs along Nicholson from LSU toward downtown and jumps to St. Ferdinand via Europe Street and continues toward the capitol on 4th Street once it passes city government buildings. Planners envision stops possibly at North Street, Florida, North Boulevard, Spain Street, Europe Street, two stops around the Water Campus in Old South Baton Rouge, Van Buren, W. McKinley, Aster and two stops around Tiger Stadium and LSU.

Trains would run in 15 or 20-minute intervals between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. on Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesday and until midnight on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.

More specific information is part of a 147-page report released Tuesday. The city plans to hold a meeting about the latest developments in its TramLink BR proposal on Tuesday, June 21st from 5:00 to 7:30 p.m. in Meeting Rooms 9 and 10 of the River Center.

The city said Tuesday, it anticipates the cost to be about $170 million but only $34 million would come from local sources.  A city spokesperson said the remaining money would come from other entities, potentially the federal government.  The city said in a news release, specifics about funding will be discussed at the meeting later in June. A city official with knowledge of the current estimates and details on how the project could be funded was unavailable for questions Tuesday.

The city argues a street car is needed to spur economic development between downtown and LSU and can provided needed transportation services to an area of the city lacking transportation. 

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Follow the publisher of this post on Twitter: @treyschmaltz

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