December 18, 2020 By Frank McCormack
While 2020 and the fear of COVID-19 brought, for a time, the unforgettable sight of empty streetcars rumbling down the streets of New Orleans, the year ended on a high note for another of the city’s modes of public transportation: its passenger ferries.
The New Orleans Regional Transit Authority (RTA) put a pair of catamaran passenger ferries into service during the fourth quarter of 2020, with RTA2 coming online October 10 and the identical RTA1 put into service December 15.
Both ferries, built by Louisiana shipbuilder Metal Shark at its Franklin, La., yard, measure 105 feet long and can carry 150 passengers. To date, Metal Shark has built 36 passenger ferries for the U.S. market, including 22 for New York City.
Transit systems say they have done all they can
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Transit officials around the country warn of service cuts and layoffs
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Rally Transcript:
Patrick J. Foye, Chairman and CEO, MTA:
My colleagues and I have come together again today to discuss an issue critical to our survival federal relief for mass transit.
I repeat, there will be no economic recovery regionally or nationally without significant investment in mass transit. This is not a red or blue issue. It’s a jobs issue. Mass transit systems across the country carried the United States throughout the pandemic, and we will carry it out of this crisis. The immediate need is this in order to ensure the health care workers, grocery workers, first responders and other essential personnel can continue to get to work and beat this pandemic, we need substantial federal funding now. If relief doesn’t come soon, these deep cuts at the MTA and other agencies will take effect and they will fall disproportionately on the backs of working people, low-income customers, people of color and low-income communities. We’re all following with intense interest o