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BumRushDaShow

(145,066 posts) Sun Jan 5, 2025, 05:22 AM Sunday

Exclusive: New Orleans' planned new Bourbon Street barriers only crash-rated to 10 mph

Source: Reuters

January 4, 2025 7:56 PM EST Updated 3 hours ago

NEW ORLEANS, Jan 4 (Reuters) - Months before the deadly New Orleans vehicle attack on New Year’s Day, the city modeled scenarios for how an attacker could enter Bourbon Street at various intersections in a crew-cab Ford F-150 similar to the one used to kill 14 people and injure dozens more.

Engineers found such a pickup could enter the crowded tourist strip at speeds ranging from 12 to 70 mph - and yet city officials are now installing new street barriers that can only withstand 10-mph impacts, according to an April city-contracted engineering analysis and city bid documents reviewed by Reuters. Those new barriers, known as “bollards,” had not yet been installed on Bourbon Street on New Year's but are planned to be completed by the Feb. 9 NFL Super Bowl in New Orleans.

The documents reviewed by Reuters, which have not been previously reported, make clear that the system won't be able to prevent vehicle attacks at moderate-to-high speeds. In selecting the new bollard system, the city prioritized ease of operation over crashworthiness of the new bollard system because of chronic problems in operating the old one, according to the documents and a source with direct knowledge of the city's Bourbon Street security planning.

Unlike some pedestrian-only zones, such as in New York City’s Times Square, Bourbon Street is open to regular vehicle traffic for much of the day, requiring city officials to block parts of it off from surrounding streets each evening. Since the New Year’s Day attack, New Orleans officials have faced scrutiny over whether they left citizens vulnerable as crews were removing old bollards and installing new ones. But neither barrier system would have prevented the deadly attack, according to the source and a Reuters review of the city documents.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/new-orleans-planned-new-bourbon-street-barriers-only-crash-rated-10-mph-2025-01-04/

5 replies

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Highlight:

Exclusive: New Orleans' planned new Bourbon Street barriers only crash-rated to 10 mph (Original Post) BumRushDaShow Sunday OP

The article is very much worth a read -- it is scandalous. They knew full well that it was worthless progree Sunday #1

It may "slow" a vehicle down purr-rat beauty Sunday #2

They will, if the perpetrator shoots at them. N.O. solution is to dress them like kids Wonder Why Sunday #3

That is ridiculous. And criminal. Old Crank Sunday #4

New Orleans and crap infrastructure SouthBayDem Tuesday #5

progree

(11,493 posts)

1. The article is very much worth a read -- it is scandalous. They knew full well that it was worthless

Reply to BumRushDaShow (Original post)

Sun Jan 5, 2025, 10:57 AM

Sunday

(with the 10 mph crash rating) for the purpose it was intended -- which was to stop a vehicle attack on pedestrians, exactly as occurred.

Cities were pressured by federal officials in 2017 after the 2016 vehicle attack in Nice, France that killed 86 people, and a string of other such attacks globally (so the threat is not some "new" thing in the past year or two).

So this is how they responded -- install something just to install something knowing full well the something was worth nothing. It was mostly chosen for cost and especially that it only took one person to move it out and back in, whereas higher mph-rated ones would need a special vehicle and equipment to do that (Bourbon street has the barriers removed during the day time when the street is used for vehicular traffic, and then put back in early in the evening when it is pedestrian-only).

A case of resisting them thar woke Federals' regulations by going thru the motions. Hah hah, we owned the libs, they snickered gleefully, as they approved the 10 mph design.

Another scandalous thing is that they didn't guard against a vehicle driving on the 8 foot wide sidewalk -

Attack suspect Shamsud-Din Jabbar, ..., exploited another vulnerability in the city’s security planning: He squeezed his seven-foot-wide pickup onto an eight-foot-wide sidewalk between a drugstore wall and the police vehicle, .. . . The city’s security modeling, in an engineering study conducted to help choose a new barrier system, had only considered scenarios where a vehicle entered Bourbon Street on the roadway - not the sidewalk.

Edit - Clarification - the old bollard system wasn't in place the night of the attack because it was removed and scheduled to be replaced by the new 10mph bollard system by February 9. So on the night of the attack, a police vehicle was acting as the bollard at the location the attacker used. The attacker squeezed his vehicle onto the sidewalk between the police vehicle and a drug store.

The article doesn't say what the crash resistance of the old bollard system was (FWIW), other than it wouldn't have protected against this attack either.

purr-rat beauty

(607 posts)

2. It may "slow" a vehicle down

Reply to BumRushDaShow (Original post)

Sun Jan 5, 2025, 11:13 AM

Sunday

but bollards won't stop bullets

Wonder Why

(4,807 posts)

3. They will, if the perpetrator shoots at them. N.O. solution is to dress them like kids

Reply to purr-rat beauty (Reply #2)

Sun Jan 5, 2025, 01:36 PM

Sunday

to encourage the perpetrator to do so. They are the right height.

Old Crank

(5,082 posts)

4. That is ridiculous. And criminal.

Reply to BumRushDaShow (Original post)

Sun Jan 5, 2025, 04:06 PM

Sunday

I just looked up a couple of portable barrier systems that they use here in Munich. None will stop a vehicle dead in it's tracks but both will stop vehicles from going very far. They all stop 20mph, minimum and higher depending on vehicle weight.

I also looked at German permanent bollards, fixed and lowering. They test at a minimum of 48kph, 30 mph, and 7.5 tons vehicle. up to 80 kph for that vehicle and 30 tons, 60,000 lb vehicle.

For some stills from testing go here. Scroll to Crash Test impressions. and click on a picture. They change from time to time. Bollards installed are pretty impressive for stopping things. They have avideo but I can't see it.

https://www.tescon-security.de/security.html

SouthBayDem

(32,492 posts)

5. New Orleans and crap infrastructure

Reply to BumRushDaShow (Original post)

Tue Jan 7, 2025, 12:05 AM

Tuesday

Sounds familiar.

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