Inside City Hall

Outside City Hall

by M.D. Dupuy

Driving downtown has become a bit of a quandary with all of the road closures and disgruntled cabbies blocking traffic, but city officials held a press conference today to assure us that it’s all for a good cause: the Super Bowl. New Orleans is only 100 days away from the big event, and unfinished projects like the Loyola streetcar and Armstrong airport renovations are making everyone wonder if they'll get it all done in time. 

According to Mayor Mitch, Justin Augustine of the RTA, Deputy Mayor of Operations Michelle Thomas, and Chief Ronal Serpas, we’re well on our way to being presentable for guests.

“We want to have tourists, people visiting from other parts of Louisiana, and New Orleans residents step out onto a clean concourse that has been newly renovated, eat food at newly constructed restaurants, get into a cab that’s clean and safe, and move on to a highway that is newly minted,” said Landrieu. 

The renovations - which include lots of repairs to French Quarter streets - have been at a steep cost, but various officials assured the public that the millions poured into renovations will pay back in the end, with a $400 million projected economic return from the event.

According to Director of Aviation Iftikhar Ahmed, “the airport is 90 percent completed and will be ready for the Super Bowl,” after the $356 million renovation.

The Big Easy Roller Girls are part of the city's new anti-littering campaign, with a poster of three tough ladies looking threatening in their gear and the words, "Oh no you didn't," posted next to them.

Thomas said the infrastructure will be bright and shiny by January, and said that 400 out of the 1551 taxicabs in the city are already in compliance with the new regulations.

A spokesman for the taxicab industry showed up at the presser, and he had a couple of questions for Mayor Mitch, who seemed confident about the upcoming Super Bowl's ground transport. "Are you confident that you will have enough cabs on the ground?" the spokesman asked, implying that many drivers would strike or find themselves unable to comply with recent regulations.

Minutes before the press conference began, cabbies were lined up outside of the Superdome, protesting the new regulations that Mayor Mitch referred to as “reasonable and thoughtful.” About 250 taxi teetotalers lined up, making it the biggest of the protests that have taken place over the last three weeks.

As we gathered from the posters and mega-phoned speakers at last week's protest, cab drivers estimate the 20 new regulations will cost them upwards of $3,000, and they are not permitted to raise fares to compensate. Included in the list of new additions are seatbelts for every passenger, required credit card machines that many claim will charge them 10 percent of the cost of each fare, GPS systems, and no cars older than 10 years old can be used. After January of 2014, no cabs older than seven years can be used for transport. 

Monroe Coleman, owner of Coleman Cab Company, acted as a spokesperson for the taxicab industry today at the protest.
 

“The mayor and some of the city council members have put too many regulations without giving us time to make the changes,” said Coleman. “We’re asking for sympathy and empathy from them so that they’re not taking the guys to jail, harassing them or writing out tickets.”
 

According to Coleman, many cab drivers are torn between making a living and getting up to date with the regulations. The cab company president said many drivers who have the necessary funds to get their vehicles up to snuff would comply if they could, but New Orleans lacks the resources necessary to get the new technology put in place in a timely fashion.
 

“The city can regulate business, but we want a level playing field. We service the general public 24/7, and it’s dangerous for us like it is for the police, but we do not have the protection the police have," said Coleman.
 

“We apologize for the inconvenience of our demonstration, but the bottom line is, we gotta get the message out, they have to support our efforts because we support them all the time,” said Coleman.