- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
Summary
New Orleans is installing new 10-mph-rated bollards on Bourbon Street to replace failing barriers ahead of the Feb. 9 Super Bowl, despite knowing they can’t stop moderate-to-high-speed vehicle attacks like the deadly New Year’s Day incident that killed 14.
The city prioritized ease of use over crash safety due to maintenance issues with older barriers.
Critics argue the new system leaves vulnerabilities, as the engineering report showed vehicles could still exceed the bollards’ speed rating.
Officials face scrutiny over balancing security and daily operations in the crowded tourist zone.
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Unlike some pedestrian-only zones, such as in New York City’s Times Square, Bourbon Street is open to regular vehicle traffic for much of the day, requiring city officials to block parts of it off from surrounding streets each evening.
Once again, driver convenience takes precedence over people’s lives. You want the shops and the tourism, then commit and make it pedestrian-only.
I feel like they could install the automatic ones that retract fully into the ground and they trigger at set times or has someone come around to activate them and put them away in the morning. Seen those ones stop cars in their tracks.
I feel like there are a lot of misunderstandings here and it makes sense as to why.
New Orleans (my former home) is complicated. It’s not as straightforward as bollards vs no bollards or vehicles vs pedestrians, etc.
NOLA has obviously been through a lot over the past 20 years - Katrina, Rita, and recently Ida in 2021 were all hard hitting storms.
The influx of visitors for Mardi Gras in 2020 is what made Covid especially devastating for the city.
It’s a poor city that relies on tourism to stay alive. The overall education system in Louisiana is abysmal and the politics are extremely dysfunctional. The rest of the state (conservative) despises NOLA (liberal), but they realize their livelihoods depend on its debauchery so they “allow” it (a whole other story).
So the city needs tourism to stay alive. The tourists mostly stick to the French Quarter - Bourbon Street is the famous one, right? There are a lot of businesses on Bourbon - mostly bars/clubs, tourist shops, restaurants, some hotels, etc.
Those places need to be able to receive regular deliveries, but there are also residences on Bourbon and in the FQ as a whole.
Could some system be put up to accommodate the delivery drivers, the employees, the residents, the tourists who park at hotels, taxis/Uber/Lyft and the safety of pedestrians? Let’s assume sure, why not.
Where does the money come from? The city itself is poor. The state hates the city so why do they need to direct money to the place of sin and majority poor Black residents? Louisiana infrastructure overall is shit, anyway. Federal? Okay, but that would mean the city talking to the state talking to the federal government and that’s fucked up in so many ways. And Trump is about to be inaugurated, so good luck with that.
My point is/TLDR - projects like this aren’t something that NOLA can do on its own. The state won’t help it and I don’t expect the Trump admin to, either.
It’s a difficult and complex situation and most Louisiana politicians have no incentive to do anything about it until it somehow begins to impact them directly. They’ll just get on TV during press conferences and point fingers at the failure of the liberal NOLA politicians while ignoring their own failure to act over the years.
It’s a fucking shitshow and it’s sad.
Right but installing larger bollards is not very expensive.
It’s not just about the size, it’s also about their weight and maneuverability due to the use cases I outlined above and that the article also goes into.
There are retractable bollards as well. More expensive but this is exactly why the exist.
Deliveries can be made by cargo bicycles, as they do in Europe.
The only reason a reinforced concrete barrier should be moved is to permit entry is for ambulances and fire trucks.
No supermarket can exist from deliveries by cargo bikes. That’s why cargo bikes supplying shops is a rare exception, even in Europe.
And if you have a viable idea how to move substatial concrete barriers that could prevent such an attack fast enough for emergency vehicles, please post.
Wouldn’t be the first time New Orleans has ignored engineering reports
If you’re referring to the levees that failed during Katrina, that was the fault of the Army Corps of Engineers.
They were redone and performed as intended during category 4 Hurricane Ida - the hurricane that hit the city in 2021. It was the first big test.
I highly recommend the book “The Storm: What Went Wrong and Why During Hurricane Katrina: The Inside Story from One Louisiana Scientist” by Ivor van Heerden.
The author was a cofounder of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center and lost his job after speaking out about the levee failures.
It’s not tinfoil hat stuff - I’m a degreed engineer and he goes into great detail about things like different soil compositions and what types of beams need to be used to work effectively.
It’s still not a difficult read though, and he also goes into social issues such as the poor Black community in New Orleans and corruption in Louisiana politics.
Highly, highly recommend.
It’s not to improve security it’s to boost sense of security.
OK, they might add a ‘10 mph’ traffic sign too.
Security theater raises its ugly head once again.
pedestrian-only zones, such as in New York City’s Times Square
Times Square isn’t pedestrian-only. Parts of Broadway have been turned into pedestrian-only areas but 7th Avenue and all the cross streets are open to cars and very busy. There are bollards and concrete barriers between the cars and the pedestrians.
My 30 year old grandma car can make it to 40 before I clear the entire intersection most of the time.
10mph is less than the indoor go-kart track barriers near me are rated for.
Security theater at its finest.
Vehicles ‘could’ exceed the speed rating? Man, even my fat ass at a brisk walk could topple these things over.
Frankly I’m shocked they didn’t have proper working barriers. They should’ve just put up some concrete blocks while the existing stuff was being renovated.
This type of attack is very, very common in Europe and the Middl-East, so this isn’t exactly an unprecedented method. But also: you’d want to have barriers anyway to guard against drunk drivers or drivers not paying attention. They should be high priority.
Amazing to me how internet comments just seem to ALWAYS have experts who know everything about any quirky topic and will state things as if it’s so simple and obvious.
What the fuck are they made of, cardboard?
Someone else in another thread said their city uses garbage trucks to block traffic when there is a street party. Just parking them permanently on Bourbon street makes more sense than this.
NYC does this on some streets on NYE. They’re also immediately movable for emergency vehicles.
Security theatre
How hard is it to put some of those plastic barriers up that are filled with water?
