re: Meetings for Nicholson Tram scheduled this week.

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It's hard to envision, though, how long it could possibly take for a two mile or so stretch of town that is now basically a dead zone to have enough population to justify the huge expense of and realistically support such an endeavor.

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I'm sure it's going to take twice as long as investors say it's going to take right now. However, I think this is an important stretch for the city to "get right".

The one thing that Baton Rouge does at a "world class" level is host college football games/tailgating. Every year I meet people who have no association with LSU or even the visiting school who are just trying to check an SEC game/tailgate off of their bucket list. They've just read on some national publication that LSU is the best in the business.

It's in the city's best interest to make that experience (even if it is only 7 Saturday's per year) the best it can be. This includes quick connectivity to/from downtown. A tourist stuck in traffic or waiting for an uber is a tourist that's not spending money. Downtown is fairly quiet after the games, even if the hotels are at 80%+ capacity.

Benefit to the locals would come immediately on park/ride situations on gameday, LSU students looking for a night on the town, park/ride situations for major downtown events, etc.

All of this is probably not enough to justify the cost of the tram. The cost of the tram gets justified when enough gentrification/infilling occurs on that corridor that we have 10k+ people that can perform a good deal of their daily activities not tying up roadways, thus reducing the need for extra highway mileage and lanes.

That, however, is probably a long time off....