Bicycling With New Orleans' Recovery Czar

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.