The mostly white Republicans in the southeast portion of East Baton Rouge Parish and the mostly African-American Democrats in north Baton Rouge finally agree on something, Business Report Editor Stephanie Riegel says.
“It’s disdain for the proposed 3.4-mile tram that would link LSU to downtown along Nicholson Drive,” Riegel writes in her latest column. “Mayor Sharon Weston Broome’s recent decision to postpone for at least another year—and, perhaps, forever—applying for $67.5 million in federal funds to help develop the project was, arguably, the most popular move of her eight months in office.”
Broome, however, insists she’s not pulling the plug on the tram, which as Riegel notes has been more than four years in the works and has an estimated price tag of $150 million.
The mayor says she merely wants more time to study the proposed tram project and to explore ways to expand it into north Baton Rouge or incorporate it into a larger transportation master plan, Riegel writes.
“The consensus among some of the key players who have been following the project since its inception is that TramLink BR, if not dead, is on life support,” she says.
After all, Broome’s administration has never really embraced the project. It’s the brainchild of the Baton Rouge Area Foundation and was championed by Broome’s predecessor, Mayor Kip Holden, who shared BRAF’s New Urbanist vision.
Broome doesn’t share that vision and neither does a good chunk of Baton Rouge’s conservative, suburban white taxpayers, who view the project as an example of the arrogance of the downtown elite and as government waste, Riegel says.
“Broome isn’t putting the brakes on the tram to appease those voters, who supported her opponent in last fall’s election anyway. Rather, she’s doing it to satisfy her supporters in north Baton Rouge,” she writes. “They, too, dislike the tram because it would be a huge investment of public dollars in south Baton Rouge at a time when there is so much need in economically depressed north Baton Rouge.”
Read the full column. Send your comments to editors@businessreport.com.
