The Oldest Streetcar

Where can you find the oldest streetcar in the world? New Orleans, Louisiana! And yes, it’s still running. This streetcar is green and it runs along the famed Canal Street (near the French Quarter) and on St. Charles street. I had the opportunity to ride this streetcar a good amount of times in New Orleans and all I can say is that it’s a good way to get around New Orleans.

Of course, you might not really need to make use of the streetcar or any other form of transportation should you be content with walking from one place to another but the streetcar can be your go to form of transportation while in New Orleans. And it should be your form of transportation if you’re trying to get out and about during the evening.

The downside of the streetcar is that their app (RTA’s LePass) isn’t accurate. You supposedly can track the streetcar as well as see when the next streetcar is coming. This sounds like a good feature and it would be if only it worked accurately. I found Google Maps to be accurate when it came to finding out what time the streetcar was to arrive. Unfortunately, I’d recommend anyone wanting to use the streetcar to arrive at their desired stop at least 10 minutes prior to its expected departure time since it might come on the dot, or worse, a lot earlier, which honestly happened to me a decent amount of times. (In these situations, I ended up having to wait for the next one or opting to walk to my desired destination instead.)

I also want to mention how some stops might not be noticeable. If you’re waiting where a streetcar sign isn’t visible, you might want to walk to a stop that actually has a streetcar sign just in case. Also, just because a stop indicates specific cross streets, it doesn’t mean that the streetcar will stop at that exact spot which is why I mentioned waiting where a stop actually has a streetcar sign. This might seem like a no-brainer but it needs to be said because when we are traveling, we aren’t always of sound mind (ex. Lack of sleep) and even if we are of sound mind, we are in a different environment which means what is common sense might not be common sense to you right away.

If you want to see bougie homes, the oldest streetcar is the streetcar you want to be on. It’ll take you from Canal Street to the Lower Garden District, Garden District and Uptown. If you like your homes big, you will want to see the homes in Uptown because they are much grander than the homes in the Garden District.

Honestly, I think there are already nice looking homes in the Lower Garden District however you do see an increase in upscale-ness once you enter into the Garden District and onwards into Uptown.

If you don’t care for architecture, you can ride the other streetcars that roam about along Canal Street. Unfortunately, I believe these streetcars while similar in look to the green St. Charles streetcars are not old in any way. So, if you want to ride the oldest streetcar in the world, you’ll have to catch a ride on the green St. Charles streetcar.

Since the streetcars won’t stop at every stop, it’s necessary for you to pull a string before your desired stop so that you can actually get off. On the St. Charles streetcars, the rear exit is supposedly meant for “bodybuilders” so it might be best for you to exit in the front which means that you may have to prepare to get off in advance, if you can. (I fortunately never had to fumble with the rear exit of the St. Charles streetcar but I’ve seen and heard passengers struggling with this specific streetcar’s rear exit.)

Because passengers are always a mixed bag of locals and tourists, you may have difficulty trying to get off at your desired stop should the streetcar be full and should you have a person (most likely a fellow person from somewhere else) sitting next to you that just doesn’t want to budge for you for whatever reason. (I’ll write more about this another time but my take on passengers like this is that they are used to whatever environment they are originally from, which means they have some form of difficulty interacting with someone “different” from them. Yes, I’m talking about race right now.) My advice here is to try to sit in the front although this can be difficult since the front is mainly reserved for the elderly. It can also be difficult if the streetcar is rather full and you are just glad to have been able to get a seat.

As mentioned earlier, the LePass app is basically pointless to have however it can be a good app to have should you want to pay for tickets online. If you don’t have exact cash on you, you don’t exactly have to resort to paying for the streetcar on the app since the streetcar will actually give you a balance card. As long as you keep that balance card and make use of it, you’ll be fine. It’s about what your preferences are. The app can be handy but if the app glitches or your phone’s battery goes kerplunk, you might be in a bit of a conundrum.

Overall, my experience with New Orleans’ streetcars was good. There may have been a couple of hiccups here and there, such as when one streetcar decided not to pick up any passengers but I was able to get to so many places thanks to the streetcar. Anyone visiting New Orleans should really give the streetcar a try.