Talk:Canal Street Ferry

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[edit] Why is the ferry needed?

I've never been to New Orleans but the question I have -- which this article did not answer -- is this: why is the Canal Street Ferry considered necessary when there is a major bridge (the Crescent City Connection) less than a mile away according to this map? If you have a car, wouldn't it be faster to just drive across the bridge rather than take your car onto the ferry? --Mathew5000 19:55, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

There is a sizable number of service workers who live on the West Bank and work in the hotels and restaurants of the CBD and the French Quarter. Many of these people either don't own cars or find it more affordable and convenient to take the ferry due to the high priced and limited parking in the CBD. The ferry also allows tourists to access Mardi Gras World and the Jazz Walk area along the West Bank riverfront. If you check out the Louisiana DOTD website, the Canal Ferry transports over 50,000 pedestrians a month and almost 10,000 cars. VerruckteDan 23:20, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
I take both the bridge and the ferry fairly regularly. Which is more convenient depends on where one is going from and to. As the aproaches to the bridge are a good distance from the riverfront, it is a good bit more than a mile away drive even if that's the distance along the river on a map. And when there is heavy traffic on the bridge, it is not necessarily faster. -- Infrogmation 00:59, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
Thanks both of you. That stuff should go in the article. Of course I understand that not everyone has cars, but as a public transit measure for off-peak hours I would think it would be less costly, better for the environment, and probably more convenient for users, to run buses over the bridge, rather than the ferry. --Mathew5000 04:38, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
As to the convenince point, it was a serious inconveninece for those of us returned to the city when the Ferry was out of commission for a while during the filming of "Deja Vu", despite the film company paying for buses over the bridge, which took significantly longer. I guess you're assuming that ferries are inherently less practical than bridges. Personally, I don't know. It would be interesting to know the comparative fuel of all the vehicles crossing the bridge verses the ferry boat. I think a major reason why ferries are still an important means of transit in places like New Orleans is the fact that it is a long established city where more bridges can't easily be built without tearing down major parts of the city, and existing bridges are filled to capacity during rush hour. -- Infrogmation 04:57, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
Right, during rush hour that makes a lot of sense but I'm not convinced the logic applies to the post-8:45pm period. --Mathew5000 05:41, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
A belated answer to Mathew5000's original question, which is a reasonable question. Quite honestly, many of us simply "like" the ferry because it's "cool", and there are indeed small businesses which are adversely affected when ferry service is down. But a major argument in favor of retaining the ferry as an asset is that it can serve as back-up in the event that the Crescent City Connection bridge site is "down". There are few instances when this occurs -- such as every 12 years or so when it snows, or when there's a massive or unfortunately located vehicle accident or a spill on the bridge surface, or, yes, when a terrorist targets the bridges. These may seem like once-in-a-blue-moon eventualities, but a civil defense or homeland security perspective would be that it's good to have a back-up means of getting public safety vehicles, and significant numbers of pedestrians, across the river.--Muffuletta 19:20, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
There was also another crossing located between the Crescent City Connection and Canal Street Ferry. It was the Mississippi Aerial River Transit which operated during the 1984 World's Fair. It was supposed to be a permanent operating structure (ala Seattle Center Monorail) after the World's Fair ended but it only operated for a few months before permanently shutting down. The terminals, towers and cables were finally removed in 1994. If it had remained and the fare per crossing was adjusted to be comparable to the Canal Street Ferry, then it would probably would still be in operation today. Jungworld.com (talk) 18:06, 26 March 2008 (UTC)