Will New Orleans close Bourbon Street to traffic? Consultants will weigh in this week

For months, a crew of consultants has been pondering how and when to close off Bourbon Street to cars and thus ward against deadly attacks like the one that roiled the famed party strip on Jan. 1.

This week, they will make their recommendations public, just as a festival-laden spring in New Orleans kicks off.

Former New York Police Chief William Bratton and his team will present their suggestions for Bourbon Street pedestrianization and other key security measures on Monday to the New Orleans Police and Justice Foundation, the booster group that covered the cost of Bratton’s work, which will share the findings with New Orleans Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick, Mayor LaToya Cantrell and the City Council, said foundation chair Darrah Schaefer.

That report is meant to guide a city that must fend for itself in the coming months, as heightened federal security in place for Super Bowl and Mardi Gras is not expected to persist through French Quarter Festival, New Orleans Jazz Fest and any number of other spring and summer events that are sure to draw smaller, yet substantive crowds.

Teased in late January and February by the consultants and Kirkpatrick, who commissioned their work, the guidance has already revived a long-discussed and controversial debate. But Schaefer said the idea of imposing tighter restrictions on cars is just one of the options Bratton’s team will present to city leaders.

Their report will also touch on longer-term recommendations for deploying officers, new technology the city could use to detect threats, and equipment it could use to block streets. The team will advise the city on protections for crowds at April’s French Quarter Fest, and the consultants have also studied whether law enforcement responded appropriately to the New Year’s Day attack.

Some say the guidance is welcomed in a city that has no long-term plan of its own to keep Bourbon Street and other major arteries safe from similar attacks, without also creating major traffic jams, or challenges for locals trying to access their homes and businesses.

“There are things that need to happen to make the French Quarter safer in the future, and we as a community have to figure out what level of security were comfortable with,” said Walt Leger, III, president of New Orleans & Co.

But many still question if such an option would divert too much traffic to surrounding streets, among other concerns, and be too burdensome on area businesses that rely on delivery trucks and other vehicles.

“We want Bourbon Street to be safe, and in the next breath, there has to be a balance between safety and accessibility,” said Melvin Rodrigue, president and CEO of Galatoire’s Restaurants.

Bratton, the Cantrell’s administration, and the council’s two at-large members, Helena Moreno and JP Morrell, did not respond to a request for comment.

Bratton’s group is also expected to detail its recommendations at a public town hall on Wednesday, hosted by the Vieux Carré Property Owners and Residents Association.

Pedestrian-only zone?

Consultants have floated the logistics of shutting the strip to cars at recent community meetings, seven people who attended those meetings said.

In a Feb. 24 meeting with French Quarter neighborhood leaders, representatives from Teneo, the global consulting firm from which Bratton hails, offered an option for a “pedestrian-only zone for Bourbon Street” that would block vehicle access from Canal Street to Dumaine Street, using barriers placed on Bourbon Street and on every side street.

The barriers would be staggered to allow residents and businesses to access driveways on side streets – a bid to address a major concern that closing off the busy strip to vehicles would impede deliveries and travel.

Photos of the consultants’ presentation, obtained by the Times-Picayune, show examples of bollards and barriers from other cities that “can be deployed to align with the architecture and aesthetic of the French Quarter.”

At those meetings, the proposal prompted the same concerns and questions that have emerged in response to past attempts to “pedestrianize” Bourbon Street over the years.

In interviews this week, some business owners said they worried that strict limitations on vehicle access to Bourbon Street would create traffic jams on streets that are open to vehicles nearby that would deter visitors from coming to the area at all.

“Imagine the traffic you have for Mardi Gras, but 365 days a year,” said Rodrigue.

Erin Holmes, with Vieux Carré Property Owners, said traffic circulation is “going to have to be ironed out,” as will the impacts of the plan on residents.

John Casbon, co-founder of the Police and Justice Foundation, said that the consultants’ report will likely recommend a “compromise” that integrates feedback from neighborhood leaders by allowing designated vehicles like delivery trucks to access Bourbon Street for most of the day before shutting it and side streets off to all vehicles in the late afternoon.

Israel Duplessis, who works the door at Tropical Isle on Bourbon Street, said that closing Bourbon Street to cars would be an inconvenience to workers like him who drive to work, not just business owners.

“Workers out there still have to get to work,” said Duplessis.

Kim Alexander, who operates a henna tattoo business out of a few camping chairs on Bourbon Street, said she supports closing Bourbon Street to cars as much as possible, as long as the city also comes up with a plan for a designated parking lot where workers can park nearby.

“That would solve a lot of problems,” said Alexander. “Not only would it help the police monitor Bourbon even better, it would help the tourists feel a little more safe.”

Years-long debate

It’s hardly the first time that proposals to restrict traffic on Bourbon Street have met resistance. A push by then-mayor Mitch Landrieu in 2016 for additional limits on vehicle access as part of a broader French Quarter safety initiative following a mass shooting on Canal Street after the Bayou Classic was ditched after pushback from business owners and residents.

Instead, a $40 million safety plan in 2017 added safety bollards along Bourbon Street designed to deter acts of terrorism using vehicles, along with new crime cameras and more police.

A 2020 proposal by Cantrell’s administration that called for expanding pedestrian malls, restricting vehicular traffic, and lowering the speed limit gained some traction, but after pandemic-era restrictions ended, the plan fizzled.

Casbon said that whatever plan city officials decide on is only as good as its implementation and enforcement.

“If you don’t have people owning this, it’s not going to work,” said Casbon. “Somebody’s job has got to be putting all the barriers out, making sure everything is battened down.”