Safer St. Claude

INTRODUCTION

Linking seven historic New Orleans neighborhoods, and home to dozens of restaurants, venues, galleries, schools, medical facilities, and community-serving businesses, St. Claude Avenue provides a key connection for people and freight for the whole region. A portion of the corridor is also a designated Louisiana Main Street. One of the city’s most vital corridors, it is also one of the most dangerous and unwelcoming for people biking and walking, even though many who travel through this area lack access to a vehicle.

The New Orleans Complete Streets Coalition calls for improved safety and accessibility for walking and biking along the St. Claude Avenue corridor in New Orleans, bringing St. Claude in line with the City’s best practices as laid out in the City’s Complete Streets Policy. With the passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the funding available for active transportation, such as walking, biking, and rolling, has never been greater. 

BACKGROUND

St. Claude Avenue plays a vital role in regional multimodal access and connectivity for thousands of New Orleanians and visitors. Over 10,000 people live in the census tracts adjacent to St. Claude Avenue (see left). Of these, 23% of households in the St Claude corridor lack access to a vehicle, compared to 18% citywide. 

This means more people rely on walking, bicycling, and transit to get around. However, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, there were nine fatal traffic crashes on St. Claude from 2017 – 2021 alone.

Because of lack of connectivity due to boundaries created by the railway and the industrial canal, St. Claude is the only direct option for people traveling to many destinations to and from the Ninth Ward.

MULTIMODAL TRAFFIC COUNTS

UNOTI has conducted short counts of walking and bicycling activity on St. Claude since 2010, finding robust volumes of both, and particularly rapid growth in bicycling in the first several years after the bike lane was completed. User counts dropped during the pandemic, but are now increasing again, with an estimated 341 bicyclists per day in 2023.