Transportation and Airport Committee.

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Transportation and Airport Committee

Steve Nelson

I am Steve Nelson, Director of Public Works, Deputy CAO for Infrastructure. Good morning. I'm Delicia Creighton, Ground Transportation Bureau Administrator. Good morning. I'm Yolanda Brownfield, Assistant Administrator, Ground Transportation Bureau. Thank you very much and let's make sure I can drive the presentation. So what I wanted to talk through today is around Ground Transportation Bureau, what it is a little bit that we do, the personnel that we have involved, some of our needs, and ways that we're working to reduce some wait times. So there has been change around GTB this year. Prior to May, I believe, Ground Transportation Bureau, including parking enforcement, was all under the purview of the Department of Public Works. Since May, parking enforcement and towing has moved to NOPD, but the components of GTB, the CPNC reviews, approvals, and renewals remains with the Department of Public Works for the moment. Looking at some year-to-date activity, and I want to start with thanking the ladies to my right and the limited staff that they have. They do a yeoman's effort putting together reviews, inspections, approvals, and managing this department, and they have done a lot of work, many of them under furlough, some of them recently off, but many of them under furlough for the better part of the year. Thus far, year-to-date, over 3,200 permits issued or renewed, over 2,000 driver and tour guide permits issued or renewed, a handful of special events permits that have been issued, and then 3,000 to 4,000 inspections that have been completed, as well as 71 tour guide tests taking place this year. With that said, my understanding is we have essentially worked through most of the backlog, so there should not be a significant delay in CPNC renewals at this time. If any of you receive questions, comments, or concerns about that, I would ask that anyone email gtb at NOLA.gov, that's gtb at NOLA.gov, and we would be happy to look into the status of their renewal, and if there are any questions outstanding, we'd be more than happy to coordinate that. There have been some staffing shortages, as with many, if not most, departments within the city. Currently, there are three office staff that process, review, and approve the driver permits, tour guide permits, the company licenses across the entire for hire industry. That includes about 3,400 drivers and 2,000 CPNCs, as well as, and that includes hundreds of school buses, which have to be inspected every six months. So school bus inspections in particular, that's one area. We've got around 400 school bus inspections that we have to complete at this time. Those require three investigators per inspection on the interior, the exterior, and inside of the building, and making sure that we're getting those inspections on a rolling basis is really important. We've heard this refrain a number of times, and I do want to make sure that it's clear that if there is, if we have a need, we've got to figure out with the budget that we're working into this year and next, how do we look at increasing revenues to be able to cover the cost of additional staff, or where can we cut? At this point, my understanding is the last time that any of these fees were investigated was 2019. So there is a significant need, and this is something the CAO's office is working on, in addition to looking at fees around cemeteries, I know we're talking about sanitation, some of these things that have not been addressed in five, ten plus years. So that's going to be a recurring theme through our discussion as well, and with that, being able to increase staff capacity so that we can keep our backlog to a relatively reasonable timeframe and we don't have folks waiting on their renewals. We do have some vacant positions. We have a vacant office assistant, administrative support supervisor, an investigator, and one investigator currently unavailable. So adding to that staff, if we can fill those positions, we could certainly use two additional office staff and three additional investigators, as I alluded to before. The investigations is a key part of this, and every school bus that we investigate requires three investigators, and it's a 30-minute timeframe. Being able to do that, putting some numbers to that, there's – and I'll show it here, I believe on a later slide – it's about $170,000 for those five new positions. So if we have somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 inspections, renewals, and updates, if we can update those fees 5 to 10 percent, that would cover the cost of the salary. So I think that's something that we should certainly include in our look at fee updates across the city. Councilmember Green. Okay. Thank you. These machines are weird. Steve, do you know if the CAO's office is looking at surrounding parishes to look at parity with their fees? That's certainly something that we'll be taking a look into, is regional – what is the regional impact. The other thing that you mentioned that I wanted to talk about as well, I know there have been some requests for new licenses. What we're talking about is renewals. We do want to be a little bit careful in terms of the number of new licenses that we issue so that we're not saturating the market. My understanding is that in the past, there's been market studies that are completed. We did issue 150 new limousine licenses this year, but before we go and open things up too much, we want to be sure that we're not imperiling those who already have a license. So in addition to looking at other parishes, we do also need to look at our market and how many do we have. Thank you. How many of those licenses? Yes. Good question. Thank you. All right. Current impact. We have 15 total staff. Eight of those, around half of those are furloughed. Those that are related to CPNC renewals are not currently under furlough. We really only have about three of those staff that are reviewing CPNC. So again, making sure to give a shout out to Ms.

Steve Nelson

Yolanda and her staff. They're doing a lot of work. 7,000 inspections and renewals completed this year, year to date. Again, that recommended solution of looking at the fee structure, updating things from 2019 to present, looking at surrounding parishes, and making sure that we, again, we all understand the impact of furloughs and being able to get past the budget issues that we have and get off of furlough is important. One other thing that we want to look at, and actually we have had bond funding for a project, is a centralized work location. Right now, we've got inspections in one location. We have some staff that are on the sixth floor of City Hall. There is currently a building, the former break tank station on Old Gentilly Road in New Orleans East. The building is ready for build out. There was bond funding, or there is a bond funded project. We have had to delay that project as a result of needing some of those bond funds on the front end. I think we've talked about that at length. So the longest we would have to wait would be 2028. I know we would rather do that this year, but that will be our next bond sale. If we have savings in the meantime, we can certainly look into that, but this is another area along with additional staff where I believe that we can increase efficiency and effectiveness in terms of turning around those CPNC renewals. This is a brief flow chart of how a CPNC is issued. Applicants submits their documents electronically, and this may be one of the issues, if you all are getting individual questions about required information that needs to get followed up on. So again, if folks have a question, if there are individual CPNC holders or those seeking those, please email gtb at nola.gov, and one of these two ladies with our staff will respond to those questions, and if you have them, please reach out directly. The staff searches multiple emails, they locate the matching documents, and there can be additional administrative workload and some processing delays. Again, those additional staff that we talked about with $170,000, five new positions, with the number of permits and renewals that we have issued, I think some modest adjustments in those fees would be warranted that could allow us to increase staffing and get us to a place where we can turn those requests around sooner. So again, summarizing this, the recommended solutions, it's not to beat a drum too many times, but reviewing a fee structure, adjusting accordingly will allow us to look at increasing staffing capacity, filling those two office and three investigator positions, as well as the furloughs. We're going to get off furloughs here as soon as humanly possible. The mayor's talked about it, none of us like it, none of us wants it, it's a tough place to be in. We are working to get through this year, but getting folks off of furlough is of course going to be important. Consolidating to a single centralized GTB, Ground Transportation Bureau, location will be important. And then ensuring that applicants are getting their documentation in place. Again, this is kind of where having one place to go will help our customers in this instance be more readily able to get through any questions that may come up. And then again, being able to process those inspections, getting those inspectors on board is going to help us with the school buses in particular. So that is the total of my presentation at this point. I would be happy to take any questions, comments, or concerns. Thank you members.

Delicia Creighton

Ground Transportation Bureau Administrator Delicia Creighton spoke about the GTB structure, recent changes (parking enforcement and towing moved to NOPD; CPNC reviews still under DPW), and year-to-date activity. She highlighted staff limitations and the need for fee updates to fund additional positions (two office staff and three investigators) and reduce furloughs. She also discussed a proposed centralized GTB location (Old Gentilly Road building) and the timeline (potentially 2028, with earlier possible if savings allow). She emphasized the need to review surrounding parishes for parity in fees and cautioned about market saturation when issuing new licenses. She described the ongoing backlogs and the goal to improve turnaround for CPNC renewals, inviting inquiries at gtb@nola.gov.

Yolanda Brownfield

I'm Yolanda Brownfield, Assistant Administrator, Ground Transportation Bureau. Thank you very much and let's make sure I can drive the presentation. So what I wanted to talk through today is around Ground Transportation Bureau, what it is a little bit that we do, the personnel that we have involved, some of our needs, and ways that we're working to reduce some wait times. [Note: The remainder of the GTB content is interwoven with the earlier presentation and backlog discussion.]

Evan Alford

My name is Evan Alford, and I own Need a Ride Pedicabs. Since 2011, we and the other licensed companies have invested countless hours and sweat equity into building a professional pedicab industry that now supports more than 250 jobs in the city. There are currently 45 licensed pedicabs between the three companies, and you really only only see all 45 working on the big weekends and major events like Saints Games concerts, Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest. Our drivers work all year for those opportunities and depend on those big events to make good money. But now, when those events come around, our drivers show up to a completely flooded market with illegal golf carts, taxis and unlicensed pedicabs. In some cases, the number of vehicles for hire doubles overnight. That is not sustainable, and it's not safe. It oversaturates a small niche market that we worked very hard to build. It adds dozens of unregulated, slow moving vehicles to already congested streets and directly threatens more than 250 legitimate jobs. Our drivers and companies have spent years following the rules and investing in the industry. We've made it through the pandemic, road closures and construction, ride share platforms entering the market, slow summers and countless other challenges while continuing to do things the right way. It is incredibly unfair to then have bad actors show up for the most profitable events, take business and income directly from licensed drivers and operate with virtually no consequences. We are asking the city to enforce the laws already on the books and protect the legitimate jobs, livelihoods and small businesses that have played by the rules. Thank you.

Tree (Pedicab Operator)

There's now advertisements on social media by a company that is aiming to hire dump truck, pedicab and golf cart drivers that does not possess a C. P. N. C. Number, which is illegal. If hired These operators will not have passed the written exam required by the GTB for a pedicab operator's permit, nor passed a physical, nor a drug test, nor a criminal background check of, or any of the steps that we have in place, have been in place and enforced for taxicab operators, limousine drivers, mule-drawn carriages, pedicab and tour bus operators, and I'm assuming probably the RTA as well, and the same goes for the growing golf carts.

PJ Lynch

I'm PJ Lynch, a pedicab manager and operator. The rogue operators are affecting our business. The licensing process is taking weeks; drivers who could start after two days now wait six weeks. We need faster processing and enforcement against illegal operators who recruit on social media with unqualified drivers. We also need a faster, fair licensing process and to address the saturation of the market.

Timothy Huft

Timothy Huft testifies about rogue pedicabs and the need for a market study; concerns about safety and congestion; urges proactive enforcement to prevent accidents; argues for data-driven policy and timely regulatory actions.

Rob Lynch

Rob Lynch. Right now it takes weeks for a legitimate driver to obtain a city permit. The bottleneck makes it incredibly difficult to hire. High quality applicants walk away. Please keep in mind there are two application reviews per driver. One happens quickly and the second can take weeks. So maybe we could just have one review. Also, legal operators are thriving. Unlicensed pedicabs and golf carts are running driver-for-hire services, actively recruiting on Facebook and Instagram. They operate without license plates, background checks, or commercial insurance, hiding behind the false pretense of offering free rides for tips. Furthermore, the rogue pedicabs are operating with electric motors that exceed 750 watts. I know you guys are going to talk about electric motors. You will find that over 750 watts violates the maximum wattage allowed for electric assist vehicles by the state of Louisiana. That is equal to one horsepower. One horsepower motor for a scooter will allow the scooter to go 40 miles an hour. Legitimate companies like mine remain human powered. Licensed companies pay fees, expensive insurance, and vet staff. Let's remember that a CPNC stands for Certificate of Public Necessity and Convenience. We need to be regulating public necessity by protecting the public from nuisances, safety hazards, and illegal activities. I recommend not expanding CPNCs until we can enforce baseline laws against illegal operators.

Courtney Jackson

Courtney Jackson. Executive Director of Ride New Orleans. My name is Courtney Jackson. I'm the Executive Director of Ride New Orleans. My name is Bob Danton. I'm the Policy Manager with Ride New Orleans. And I'm Ciara Gaines. I'm a Youth Transit Ambassador at Ride New Orleans. So today we're going to be talking to you guys about something you already know, but for the audience, just going to do a quick overview. So the Opportunity Path Pilot Program is free transit for Orleans Parachute between the ages of 16 to 24 on all regional transit, authority, bus, streetcars, and ferries. Through outreach and our collaboration with our friends at the Children and Youth Planning Board, Ride New Orleans was able to hear what young people needed for public transportation. And ultimately what we heard was they need more than just reliability and a bus that comes on time and frequently, but also free public transportation, which in 2023 pushed Ride New Orleans to do a data paper, a zero-fares data paper that ultimately we brought to City Council, presented to you, and thankfully you all agreed it was an important issue. And we were able to get $2.5 million of American Rescue Plan funding for the pilot program, a one-time fund. We launched the Opportunity Path in September of 2024 and we've been going strong ever since. So one of the biggest questions folks have about why free public transportation and why it's important, and the biggest thing we came to hear was that it's how we keep young people here in New Orleans. It's how we build the workforce, how we strengthen our economy, and how we prepare our next generation of civic leaders here in New Orleans. Because opportunity is ultimately the answer, but access to said opportunity is absolutely vital. Alongside being a youth transit ambassador, I work with, I'm employed with three other youth serving organizations. I'm also a native young person to New Orleans and I use the Opportunity Path myself. I will be doing myself, the young people I work with, the more than 11,500 young people who signed up for the Opportunity Path, a true disservice if I didn't sit up here and tell y'all what I bore witness to and the experiences that those young people have. I first do want to thank you, the City Council Transportation Committee, for supporting the program and our work with the resolution. We have young people who live, we have a young person who lives in the East right now who has found her career field job across the city and she literally has to use transit to get it, to get home and to the opportunity every evening. We also have young people whose schools don't have enough funding to provide transit home after school programs. Transit is what allows them to stay, participate, and enjoy experience outside of their home. We also have youth who stay right here in New Orleans and attend college but can't afford to live on campus. Every day they depend on transit to get to and from schools and these aren't short trips y'all. These are like West Bank to Lakeview, Michoud to Garden District, Hollow Grove to Gentilly. Young people live, learn, work, experience joy and have families throughout this entire city. Sometimes the only thing standing between them an opportunity or even a community and their families is being able to get there. Our young people already know how they want to get there. We just need to make the way. Thank y'all for supporting the dreams and goals of New Orleans Futures.

Bob Danton

Bob Danton. Policy Manager with Ride New Orleans. Courtney presented the program and I want to add the data: the Opportunity Path Pilot Program is free transit for Orleans Parish youth aged 16-24 on all regional transit, bus, streetcars, and ferries. Through outreach and collaboration with the Children and Youth Planning Board, we heard that youth need more than just reliability; they need free public transportation. In 2023 we produced a zero-fares data paper that helped secure $2.5 million in ARPA funding for the pilot. We launched in Sept 2024 and have enrolled over 11,500 young people. The data shows 24-hour digital passes, high weekday usage for school/work, and weekend usage for community access. Funding ends in 2026; moving forward, Ride New Orleans will seek other funding sources. The estimated annual operating cost is $850,000, including admin. With demand growth, more resources will be needed to sustain the program.

Ciara Gaines

Ciara Gaines. I'm a Youth Transit Ambassador at Ride New Orleans. The Opportunity Path empowers youth with free transit across the city. The program helps youth access school, work, and opportunities across the city; the data shows high engagement and significant reach. Our QR code provides access to the data we’ve collected and demonstrates the program’s impact. We urge continued support and funding to expand access and opportunities for our youth.

Jeannie Donovan

Jeannie Donovan, Director of Public Health and Policy at the New Orleans Health Department. Before we dive into the details of e-bikes and e-motos, I want to step back for a minute and provide an update on our larger Safe Streets for All action plan. The mayor issued an executive order establishing the Safe Partnership Task Force, adopting our fatality reduction goal to eliminate fatalities on New Orleans roadways by 2041 and to cut fatalities and serious injuries in half by 2031. We applied for a $30 million federal implementation grant to turn our safety action plan into reality and to implement many projects. The task force had its first meeting and identified four priority projects. We are seeing a downward trend in fatal crashes over the last five years, with 19 fatalities in 2026 to date. However, there have been four e-bike/e-moto fatalities in the first half of 2026, and our crash reporting does not always capture the exact vehicle type due to rapidly evolving e-vehicle technology. Will will discuss the classifications and policy considerations next.

Will Johnson

Will Johnson, Injury Prevention Manager with the New Orleans Health Department, outlines that in Louisiana an e-bike must meet criteria: a seat, qualifying wheels, pedals, motor under 750 watts, and classification into Class 1, 2, or 3. Class 1 provides pedal assist up to 20 mph, Class 2 includes throttle up to 20 mph, and Class 3 is pedal assist up to 28 mph. State policy currently treats e-bikes as bicycles, with helmet requirements for children under 16 or 18 depending on class; local ordinances lag behind since 2019, creating gaps especially for Class 2 and 3. He emphasizes policy alignment, enforcement, and education for riders and retailers.

Jennifer Ruhle

Jennifer Ruhle, Mobility and Safety Division Manager, Department of Public Works. We want to ensure e-bikes are used safely; signage and education are critical as micro-mobility expands. We have two major grants: an e-bike rebate program to roll out later this year and Blue Bike expansion to roughly 2,000 bikes by next Mardi Gras. We plan to provide helmets and safety gear at hubs, and consider safety training tied to vouchers. We'll coordinate safety education with Ride New Orleans and Health Department partners to maximize impact and reduce crashes.

Andrew Logan

Andrew Logan. I do communications and community outreach for the Safety and Mobility Team. Today we provide an update on DPW 780, Connecting New Orleans East. This is a grant from the Federal Department of Transportation. In 2024 the city was awarded $62 million to create connected paths along the I-10 service roads in New Orleans East. Unfortunately, last year 95% of that money was rescinded, leaving $2.2 million for preliminary design and community engagement. The project aims to create shared used paths for 11 miles along the I-10 service roads with lighting and canal-crossing infrastructure. Engagement included four stakeholder meetings and two large public meetings; 300 survey responses and 150 attendees. The priority areas are Crowder Boulevard and Bullard Avenue, with Morrison Road interchanges needing further DOTD review before pedestrian facilities can be introduced. A canal crossing near Bullard is proposed, along with lighting and sidewalk improvements. The Phase I project is planned for TIP funding in 2030, with roughly $5 million federal and $1.25 million city match, totaling $6.25 million. We are exploring how to phase the project to maintain momentum and engagement while awaiting funds.

Virginia Brisley

Virginia Brisley. Project manager for Connecting New Orleans East. Today we share an update on DPW 780, Connecting New Orleans East. Our engagement included four stakeholder meetings and two large public meetings, with 25 stakeholders and 300 survey responses. The prioritization map shows Crowder Boulevard and interconnectors as high priority, with Morrison Road needing additional DOTD input before pedestrian facilities can be introduced. We propose shared-use paths, canal crossings, and lighting. Costs by feature: $12.3 million for shared-use paths, $5 million for lighting, $2.5 million for landscaping, and $600,000 per canal crossing (six crossings). Phase I funding is planned for 2030 with $5 million federal and $1.25 million city match ($6.25 million total). We will use bond funding and ongoing engagement to advance near-term improvements.

Transportation and Airport Committee.

Summary