The New Orleans Regional Transit Authority (RTA or NORTA as it is called by some residents) is a body established by the Louisiana State Legislature in 1979; since 1983 it has controlled bus and streetcar service in the City of New Orleans.
Previously, public mass transit, electric, and natural gas were all controlled by a private utility company, New Orleans Public Service Incorporated (NOPSI), now known as Entergy New Orleans. The switch to a public operation was motivated by lack of profitability and the desire to be eligible for federal funding.
NORTA has one of the largest fleets of buses in the nation and it also has the reputation for being one of the cleanest and safest systems.
Read more about New Orleans Regional Transit Authority: Hurricane Katrina, Post-disaster Recovery, Bus & Streetcar Route List, New Orleans Streetcar Expansion
Famous quotes containing the words transit and/or authority:
“My esoteric doctrine, is that if you entertain any doubt, it is safest to take the unpopular side in the first instance. Transit from the unpopular, is easy ... but from the popular to the unpopular is so steep and rugged that it is impossible to maintain it.”
—William Lamb Melbourne, 2nd Viscount (1779–1848)
“The great problem of American life [is] the riddle of authority: the difficulty of finding a way, within a liberal and individualistic social order, of living in harmonious and consecrated submission to something larger than oneself.... A yearning for self-transcendence and submission to authority [is] as deeply rooted as the lure of individual liberation.”
—Wilfred M. McClay, educator, author. The Masterless: Self and Society in Modern America, p. 4, University of North Carolina Press (1994)