(Illustration by Owen Courreges)
Owen Courrèges
Boys and girls, ladies and germs – please sit down and let me regale you with the tale of Sebastian the Streetcar, second cousin twice-removed to Thomas the Tank Engine.™ Sebastian was a custom-built streetcar in New Orleans operating on the Loyola and Canal lines, but more than anything Sebastian wanted to help forge the new streetcar line down the other end of the French Quarter.
One day, Sebastian journeyed down Loyola to City Hall, where the leader of the city performed his business – Mayor Needum Toupee. Clad in his dark black suit, the resolute chief executive trod out to meet the plucky little streetcar.
“Hello, Sir,” Sebastian muttered timidly.
“You can call me Mitch, Sebastian,” Mayor Needum Toupee responded. “What do you need this fine day?”
“Sir, er, Mitch… Well, I was wondering if I could be one of the streetcars to run down the new Rampart Line that just opened today. I want to be really useful.”
“You’re plenty useful where you are right now, Sebastian,” the mayor responded.
“Yes,” Sebastian pleaded. “But I could be more useful.”
“Oh alright, Sebastian,” the mayor said while squeezing Sebastian’s rosy cheek. “I suppose I can put you on the Rampart line for now.”
Sebastian was giddy. He promptly took up residence on the Rampart tracks, ferrying riders from Canal Street all the way to Elysian Fields. Life was good.
Alas, two days after Sebastian began working on the Rampart line, he became too excited as he followed his daily route and derailed while trying to make the switch onto Canal Street. The entire line faced delays as Sebastian blocked the tracks. Sebastian listened despondently as riders voiced their displeasure.
“What is it we’re paying for, huh?” one man asked rhetorically.
“We should have paid for more buses instead!” a distraught woman exclaimed.
Sebastian felt terrible. Even after he was put back on the tracks, he felt terrible about what he’d done. Later, he went back to visit Mayor Needum Toupee to apologize and seek guidance to assuage his guilt.
“I feel simply awful,” Sebastian told the mayor. “I just wanted to be really useful.”
The mayor shrugged, put his hand softly on Sebastian’s metal plating, and began to speak. “I’m sorry, Sebastian, but you’ll never be really useful, at least not in a practical sense, because this is all just for the benefit of tourists. If the goal were to improve public transportation, well, I’d have invested in better bus service.”
“But don’t worry,” the mayor continued. “That means that it doesn’t really matter whether you derail, or run off-schedule, or otherwise provide terrible service.”
“Really?” Sebastian asked. “I thought I’d really made a blunder.”
“No, you’re just here for the atmosphere. So long as you resemble a vintage streetcar so gaggles of tourists can feel like something out of Tennessee Williams, all at the expense of the interests of working-class New Orleanians, you’re really useful to my political supporters and other entrenched interests. That’s pretty darn useful to me!”
The mayor’s words made Sebastian feel relieved. “Thank you, Mitch!” Sebastian shouted enthusiastically. “I won’t let you down!”
“Just don’t stop being all pretty and vintage-looking,” the mayor said with a familiar twinkle in his eye. “Otherwise, I’ll wall you up in the streetcar barn forever and pull up your tracks.”
Sebastian returned to the Rampart streetcar line, where he continues to operate today. He and his tracks may have cost a fortune, and bus service in New Orleans may be pathetic, but tourists are pleased with the atmosphere he provides, albeit with the occasional derailment.
If you see Sebastian rolling along the tracks, give him a holler. He might even stop to talk to you. After all, he does his real job all the time – even when he’s standing still. Mayor Needum Toupee could not be more proud.
Owen Courrèges, a New Orleans attorney and resident of the Garden District, offers his opinions for UptownMessenger.com on Mondays. He has previously written for the Reason Public Policy Foundation.
When is Mitch the Weasel’s term up?
Really? “Mayor Needum Toupee”? Is it necessary to resort to body shaming him over his lack of hair?
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Funny that writers such as yourself only become bus advocates when streetcars are mentioned, otherwise you probably wouldn’t even think about public transit, or anything beyond how rough these streets are on your poor Lexus’ suspension. If you were really concerned about the efficiency and quality of public transit maybe you’d advocate for dedicated lanes and the full realization of the RTD plan with more modern streetcars. But you aren’t. Basically this is being miserly on principle and dressing it up as concern for the working class.
Whats particularly sad is that since most of the money comes from federal grants, it is mostly just a reflexively cruel way of looking at public investment that animates your glib article (i.e. more money for something I don’t use means less for me and thus is a bad investment). Doesn’t matter that this is coming from federal dollars that would otherwise have gone to another city, Courreges has his axe to grind. Heaven forbid New Orleans cultivate a unique transit system or cater to tourism (which last I checked is a 5 billion dollar a year industry for the city).
But this article is a particularly lazy reprisal of the constant refrain of all those who don’t care a whit about the quality of public transit in this city, “No need to invest too much, just put more money in roads and highways and let those people ride the bus or whatever.”
No issue with you expressing your opinion, but at least do so honestly and without the concern trolling and bad attempts at political satire.