More than eight years after the first interested residents began hiking along the abandoned railroad tracks running from the back of the French Quarter through Mid-City, imagining what this unused seam of open space in a crowded city might become, construction crews are finally poised to begin transforming what’s known as the Lafitte Corridor into the Lafitte Greenway.
Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s administration signed a contract with Durr Heavy Construction in January, and the company will start work in the next few weeks, installing a 12-foot-wide, 2.6-mile-long path for walking and biking, while also laying out ball fields, improving drainage and planting more than 500 trees.