Solution Journalism Spring 2022: The uphill road for New Orleans

In March 2020, the entire state of the world shifted as people tried to accommodate and adapt to living through a pandemic. This resulted in businesses being shut down or forced to fire employees because they could not open or afford to pay workers. Roughly 9.6 million workers lost their jobs in the United States when COVID-19 began to shut the world down. Young adults aged 16-24 experienced the greatest increase in unemployment. The elevation in unemployment in turn created a growth of violent crime throughout the United States, as residents became desperate for both money and resources. This increase has not slowed, and continues to climb even 2 years after the pandemic began. In New York City murders were up from 350 a week in February 2021 to 474 during the same week in 2022. By February, Los Angeles had already reported 2,752 violent crimes so far in 2022, and in Chicago, there were already 74 murders in February 2022. Based on the data from Chicago police, this number is up 7% since February 2021, 40% since 2020, and 100% since 2019. In Houston there were 62 homicides by February 2022, a 32% increase from February 2021. In total, Houston reported 476 murders in 2021, up from 392 in 2020. These are just a few of the many cities across the United States that have reported growing crime rates since the pandemic began over 2 years ago.

Police at the crime scene.
Photo by: Kaliyah Richardson

Along with violent crimes, such as murders and muggings, carjacking has become a popular crime in low income areas throughout the United States. The surge of carjackings has been alarming, as Chicago had more than 1900 carjackings in 2021, and the reported carjackings in Philadelphia quadrupled from 2019 to 2021 (on track to double in 2022). There are some theories about how carjackings began to rapidly increase. Campbell Robertson with the New York Times reported that “push button ignitions make it harder to operate cars without getting the keys from the driver, supply chain problems boosted the price of used cars as millions found themselves in economic straits; and the pandemic ushered in an army of delivery workers, often stopping in unfamiliar neighborhoods, which led to them being summoned and robbed on arrival”. Many of these strategies carjackers have been employing became popular with the occurrence of the pandemic, with car prices increasing to an average of $33,412 in Louisiana. This is attributed to the fact that businesses were plummeting, and people both ordering more delivery in order to not leave their house and more people becoming delivery drivers to make easy money after losing other jobs.

There is another important aspect of carjacking to discuss, which is the age of the criminals. Robertson states that many of those who have been arrested are young teenagers. “Fourteen year olds, twelve year olds, even 11 year olds have been charged with armed carjacking or in some cases murder”. While there may be disproportionate arrest numbers due to the fact that adults are less likely to be caught, there are still young people out there committing this violent, sometimes fatal, crime. And with the many cities that have been affected by these crimes, New Orleans is no exception.

As a city with an extremely high poverty rate at 25.4% of residents reported living in poverty last year, many people in New Orleans have, out of desperation, turned to carjacking. On the 18th of January 2022, Kaitlin Rust with local New Orleans Fox News stated that the city had already reported 36 carjackings. There were 14 by that time in 2021 and 3 in 2019. On one Saturday in January there were 8 carjackings, and 5 of those occurred uptown. Overall, there were 288 carjackings in New Orleans in 2021, up 20% from 2020. Juveniles arrested for this outnumber adults arrested by more than two to one. “100 juveniles were arrested compared to 49 adults. And of the adults arrested, many were 18 to 21”. Residents of New Orleans are recommended to lock their doors as soon as they step out to pump gas, even when standing right next to their cars, hold their keys in their hand at all times, never leaving them in the car, and constantly observe their car to watch for anyone walking up to get inside their car. While these may seem extreme and paranoid to some, they can make or break a serious crime from occurring in New Orleans, and pumping gas makes people obvious targets for carjackers.

Police motorcycle. Photo by: Emilia Pop

Carjacking is harmful to any city, but New Orleans already has major problems with cars and driving throughout the city. Due to the damage from consistent storms there are potholes everywhere, causing easy damage to cars. Jeff Adelson, a writer for nola.com reported that “nearly two-thirds of the streets are in poor or worse condition”. It is also estimated that it would cost $3.6 billion to “bring the streets to a level of ‘fair’ over the next 10 years – and to do that the city would need to do all that work immediately”. It would be impossible to implement this at one time without shutting the entire city down. There is also the issue of speeding tickets in New Orleans. Driving 1-9 mph above the speed limit results in a $157.50 fine. Many of these tickets result from traffic cameras that mail the ticket, not just police that pull drivers over. In 2019, there was an incident where drivers inaccurately received speeding tickets in the mail because Louisiana Avenue between St. Charles Avenue and Claiborne Avenue because it was accidentally marked as a school zone when there is no school there. Over 3,500 tickets were issued due to this mistake. Getting around by car in New Orleans has proven itself to be difficult due to frequent potholes and traffic camera issues, and adding the prevalent danger of being carjacked in New Orleans gives people all the more reason to avoid driving and need to rely on some other form of transportation.

Relying on cars for transportation is an almost automatic need for those living in the United States. Cars are the major way to get around whether it is in a rural or urban area. The streets are polluted and constant traffic noise becomes more of a white noise. However, Venice, Italy has demonstrated that transportation does not need to rely on wheels. In Venice, there are no cars, motorcycles, bikes, etc. Elena Pasiakou wrote about her experiences living in Venice and having no cars. She wrote, “Not having to hear the annoying horns and car sounds is more priceless than I could ever imagine. The air quality is so much better and the paces of the city are so much quieter and relaxed. The whole thing reduces a significant amount of stress out of everyday life”. She describes that Venice is built with many staired bridges over canals, so even bikes and motorcycles are not allowed. Absolutely no wheels. Venice is not a made up fairytale, it is still a city that tourists and residents need to get around. Pasiakou explains that there are boat buses called the “vaporetti” that take people around the main canals and connect with other islands. A more expensive option is the water taxi, which she compares to taking a limo in another city. Finally, there is the gondola. A very traditional, also expensive, way to get around for families but especially couples, as there is a romantic connotation to a gondola ride.

Pasiakou illustrates that the environment of a city that, besides boat rides, relies solely on walking has changed her perspective on cars. Not only does walking promote health as “walking several kilometers on a daily basis becomes a habit even for the most unathletic ones”, but the pace of the city is unaffected by traffic. “When there is no need to be cautious of how to cross the street, or to hurry and catch the green light, everyone walks around in a more careless, relaxed way”. Those who live in the United States are probably asking how this is possible? Highways are so necessary to get around in other cities, so there has to be efficient ways to get around. But in Venice, “this highway is made of water”. Traveling by water has been made routine in Venice, and has become as applicable as cars in other cities. “Whether it’s the delivery of your online order or the deliveries to supermarkets and other stores everything has to go by boat and, incredibly, it all works extremely well. People head to work by public transport (the water boats) or take their own boat into the office”.

David Dudley describes his feelings when he arrived in a city and was shocked by the environment of no cars. “All the stuff, good and bad, that one takes for granted in American cities – from car infrastructure like parking lots and beltways to shiny downtown office towers and parks – is just not there”. In his experience, after a few days getting used to transportation through walking or by water, it felt like he even forgot how cars and highways exist. He adapted to the environment that operates by “438 bridges, 183 canals, and narrow streets”.Taken for granted, is the absence of noise in places with no cars. “The ever-present roar of traffic – the Great American Background Noise – is nonexistent, and the city is so hushed that even streets thronged with pedestrians are basically peaceful”. It is a feeling unlike one that exists in any city in America. There are, however, some limitations to this lifestyle. Dudley adds that his mother, who went along with him for the trip, is a wheelchair user. The way Venice is designed makes disability access “basically nonexistent”. Taking his mother out to dinner in the neighborhood “required threading a labyrinth of narrow alleys in order to avoid a bridge that was only accessible by stairs”. A city that is basically impossible to transport by wheels sounds and is really cool to experience – a world without cars, bikes, or motorcycles –but wheelchair users are faced with extreme accessibility challenges. As other cities become more progressive and accessible and Venice stays frozen in pre modern architecture.

Water in Venice, Italy. Photo by: Kenny Teo

When evaluating how a city with no cars affects people, the crime rates truly speak for themselves. Safety walking alone during the day has been described as very high and walking alone at night remains at high safety. Worrying about getting items stolen from cars or physical cars being stolen is basically nonexistent (for obvious reasons), and even worries about being attacked, mugged or robbed, or being subject to violent crimes such as assault or armed robbery are rated as low. There is overall a very low level of crime rate for the city of Venice, rated at 27.04 on a scale 0-100. Even though this is once again obvious, there are 0 carjackings.

Old school forms of transportation are not unusual to New Orleans. Unlike a lot of other places that have completely switched to more modern transportation such as train stations, New Orleans has had operating streetcars for over 150 years, according to neworleans.com. In fact, “the dark green St. Charles streetcar is the oldest continuously operating streetcar line in the world”. The streetcars run from Canal Street in the Central Business District through the uptown area of New Orleans, around the Riverbend, to Carrollton at Claiborne Avenue. A total of around 6 miles. There are other lines such as the Canal Street line from the Central Business District to the Mid-City area, the Riverfront line, and the Loyola/Union Passenger Terminal line.

The availability of the streetcar in New Orleans drastically decreases the need for residents to own a car. For a fare of just $1.25, there is a much safer and more public option to get from place to place. While streetcars are a symbol of old school charm, they are a modern solution to the problems New Orleans faces. As the 1.6 mile Loyola/Union Passenger Terminal loop did not even open until 2013, there are many locations in New Orleans that could still have new streetcar lines created in the areas that are still less accessible. Creating more accessible streetcar lines would lead to more residents and tourists in New Orleans taking the streetcar as a main form of transportation, as it is a cheap way to get around, and people would not have to rely on cars as much. However, for many reasons New Orleans is not going to have as easy a time as Venice becoming an anti car city.

New Orleans is a large city compared to Venice. There are over 387,000 residents of New Orleans, not including the tourists the city attracts. Venice has 258,000 residents, also with a considerable tourist attraction. The larger population alone makes it difficult to switch to a walking/streetcar city because people are already so used to driving their cars. Another difficulty the city would face would be finding the funds to make streetcars more accessible around the city. New Orleans is considered a “sinkhole” city, without enough assets to cover its debt. There is only $741 million in assets to cover a total of bills of $2.8 billion. This means the city is in a $2.1 billion financial hole. It would be extremely difficult to find the funding to pay for creating new streetcar lines, especially since there is not even enough money to cover fixing the damaged roads throughout the city. However, the infrastructure bill that was passed by the Biden administration is meant to have money for the purpose of rebuilding roads, bridges, and rails. There is a high investment in passenger rail with this bill, and money for New Orleans could go toward expanding streetcar lines and constructing safer ways to get around.

Streetcar. (Photo by: Madison White)

If New Orleans can somehow move enough money around to cover the cost of expanding streetcar lines, or creating a way for people to get around by a form other than cars, it would fix a lot of the city’s issues. Public transit would significantly reduce the risk of facing a violent crime such as carjacking or mugging. The streetcars do not operate on gasoline, which is why costs can remain so low to ride. Also, streetcar companies say that each car lasts around 30 years, much longer than most vehicles. Because they have their own dedicated lane, they move faster than traffic from cars. More permanence would end up saving the city money in the end. Not to mention the reduction in car crimes police have to put energy and money towards solving now. Venice has illustrated for the city of New Orleans that what can be considered pre modern and outdated can truly change a city’s daily life, and, as if New Orleans does not have enough already, gives it a unique signature.

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