French Quarter streets where cars aren’t welcome. Sidewalks converted to outdoor patios. And lower speed limits for the cars that do travel through.

Those are just some of the ways New Orleans officials are considering transforming the French Quarter and surrounding areas, according to documents released by the city Tuesday. The draft plans are all aimed at making the city's most important tourist areas more pedestrian friendly, though some critics worry about the effect on residents and necessary vehicle traffic.

The seven recommendations that a team of city employees and neighborhood representatives have been working on for weeks could be combined or taken in part. A final decision is likely weeks away, as officials, neighborhood businesses and residents continue to tweak the plans. The City Council will need to approve many of the changes. 

City officials view the effort as one that will put New Orleans on a par with Paris, the town of Vicchio in Florence, Italy, and other cities that have prioritized pedestrians in tourist-heavy corridors and enjoyed increased tourism as a result, Deputy Chief Administrative Officer Ramsey Green said. He argued that the push is all the more critical now, as the city grapples with a sharp drop-off in tourists and the sales-tax dollars they bring, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic and to local restrictions on French Quarter businesses.

"Our small businesses, our restaurants, our places that people want to visit, how do we give them more space than perhaps fits in their four walls? And that's kind of what this is," Green said. 

The city's famed strip of restaurants, bars and adult entertainment, Bourbon Street, has operated as a nightly pedestrian mall since the 1970s, while a portion of Royal Street also functions as a mall in daylight hours. Jackson Square is also permanently off-limits to cars.

Plans to restrict more traffic in the French Quarter have been floated before, only to be killed after critics accused the city of trying to make the half square-mile area more palatable to tourists and said the changes would make things harder for residents.

Mayor Mitch Landrieu backed down from a 2017 plan to permanently bar cars on Bourbon Street.

But the potential this time around to recoup revenues lost to the coronavirus contagion has apparently sold many bars, restaurants and businesses on the idea after Mayor LaToya Cantrell first floated it in May.

Representatives from groups including the French Quarter Business Association, the French Quarter Management District, and Vieux Carré Property Owners, Residents and Associates have huddled with city leaders in recent weeks to brainstorm just how the new plans should work, a broad-tent approach that has given city officials not only new ideas to consider, but identified problems with the ones currently on the table.

The proposals, detailed in documents the city released this week, offer various approaches to making the French Quarter more pedestrian friendly: 

  • A "slow car" plan that would see cars on the half square-mile's interior streets go no faster than 15 miles per hour. They would travel 20 miles per hour on exterior streets. 
  • A "Safer Rampart" plan that would see more pedestrian signals, safety bollards and highly visible crosswalks on North Rampart Street. 
  • A plan that would give pedestrians free reign down a five-block stretch of Orleans Avenue from North Rampart to Jackson Square.
  • A plan that would close French Market Place to motorized vehicles, giving French Market vendors more space to spread out and allow for more seating
  • A plan that would close Frenchman Street in the Marigny to cars each night 
  • A plan that would close off Chartres, Conti and Iberville to vehicles after 5 p.m., along with Bourbon and Royal streets.
  • A plan that would see restaurants and bars along Decatur and North Peters streets seat more customers outside on expanded sidewalks.

The plan for Orleans Avenue has given the nonprofit VCPORA some pause. While the pedestrian artery would connect Armstrong Park to the historic St. Louis Cathedral and block off some cross streets to let pedestrians better access the main strip, that street has few businesses, which raises questions about why it was was chosen, Executive Director Erin Holmes said. 

She said the change could make it tougher for residents who live along Orleans to access their homes. "The impact that it would have on traffic circulation, mostly for the residents and businesses, might not yield the results that it's being designed for."

But Holmes said the French Market plan makes sense, and that the idea of curbing traffic in the French Quarter in general is great one, given the number of cars that compete for parking.

Brittany Mulla McGovern of the French Quarter Business Association said closing Chartres, Conti, Iberville and other streets to traffic in the afternoons as people are leaving work could cause "significant congestion" in the area.

"We would also have questions about hotel passenger zones, and how would those be accessed. We can’t drop off guests four blocks away and expect them to bring their luggage four blocks," McGovern said.

The city is working through the concerns raised by the business association and other groups, said Sarah McLaughlin Porteous, the director of the city's Special Projects & Strategic Engagement Office. The city could move ahead with one or more concepts, or all of them. Though some sidewalk modifications and erecting of bollards could occur in the coming weeks, the council will need to approve laws formally shutting down specific portions of French Quarter streets before the city can move ahead with those plans, Green said. 

At least one councilwoman has expressed support for the idea of limiting area traffic. Councilwoman Kristin Giselson Palmer, who represents the Quarter, said she is pushing for a shuttle that would bring French Quarter workers from a lot outside the Vieux Carre to their jobs, something that could alleviate at least some of the parking concerns if the other ideas are approved. 

She said the historic neighborhood has long needed a facelift. 

“Now’s the time to look at everything with fresh eyes,” Palmer said.

Staff writer Jeff Adelson contributed to this story.