New Orleans East (also referred to as N.O. East and The East) is the eastern section of New Orleans, Louisiana, the newest section of the city. This collection neighborhood sub divisions represents 65% of the city's total land area, but it is geographically isolated from the rest of the city by the Inner Harbor Navigational Canal (Industrial Canal). It is surrounded by water on all sides, bounded by the Industrial Canal, Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, Lake Pontchartrain, Lake Borgne, and the Rigolets, a long deep-water strait connecting the two lakes. Interstate 10 (I-10) splits the area nearly in half, and Chef Menteur Hwy, Downman Rd, Crowder Blvd, Dwyer Rd, Lake Forest Blvd, Read Blvd, Bullard Ave, Michoud Blvd, Hayne Blvd, Morrison Rd, Bundy Rd, and Almonaster Ave serve as major streets and corridors.
As of the 2020 census, the population of eastern New Orleans is 75,223, accounting for 20% of the city’s total population (Table 1). Housing ranges from low-income multifamily apartment complexes and working-class neighborhoods to middle-class single-family subdivisions and affluent, lake-centered gated communities.
Neighborhoods include Pines Village, Plum Orchard, Little Woods, West Lake Forest, Read Boulevard West, Read Boulevard East, Village de L’Est, Venetian Isles, and Lake Catherine (Fig. 2.). Economic drivers in this part of the city include the NASA Michoud Assembly Facility, New Orleans Lakefront Airport, Folgers Coffee Plant, Faubourg Brewing Co., Crescent Crown Distributing, the National Finance Center, and the New Orleans Regional Business Park. A notable characteristic of New Orleans East is its abundance of green spaces, including Bayou Sauvage Urban National Wildlife Refuge, Audubon Louisiana Nature Center, and Joe W. Brown Park.
Until the late 19th century, this area was outside of the city limits of New Orleans, although within Orleans Parish.
Eastern New Orleans' post-colonial history dates back to the early 1800s, with the construction of Fort Pike and Fort Macomb in what is now called the Lake Catherine neighborhood. [1] The two forts were constructed to serve as a defense for the navigational channels leading into New Orleans. Also built in the Lake Catherine neighborhood was the Rigolets Lighthouse. [1]
Other developments in the 1800s were the construction of the forerunner to Chef Menteur Highway in Village de L’Est and a sugar cane plantation and refinery in Venetian Isles. [1] With this road completed by mid-century, Chef Menteur Highway was, at the time, the only access road that connected the eastern area to the rest of the city. [2]
Much of the area being marshland, completion of the highway required damming, draining and filling remnants of a distributary known as Bayou Metairie. [2] There was little development other than in two areas. The first hugged the long, narrow ridge of higher ground along Gentilly Road/Chef Menteur Highway, which followed the natural levee of an old bayou. Various farms, plantations, and small villages such as Michoud were sited along this ridge. The other older area of development consisted of a linear strip of "camps", clusters of houses raised high on wooden stilts, in the shallows along the edge of Lake Pontchartrain, the largest and longest-lasting of these being at Little Woods.
In the early 20th century some residential development of the area began, at first as an extension of Gentilly. Construction of the Industrial Canal began in 1918 and was completed in 1923, creating the principal geographical barrier that would separate eastern New Orleans from the rest of city. Eastern New Orleans' present southern boundary was realized in 1944 with the completion of a re-routing of the Intracoastal Waterway, involving the excavation of a new segment stretching east from the Industrial Canal to the Rigolets, cut through the raw swampland south of the Gentilly Ridge and north of Bayou Bienvenue.
From the 1930s to the 1960s, Lincoln Beach, on the shore of Lake Pontchartrain, was the city's amusement park for the African-American community.
When Hurricane Betsy was bearing down on the city in 1965, eastern New Orleans was the only section for which an evacuation was called, as there was concern that this section of the city might suffer particularly extreme effects. However other than light flooding near the Morrison Canal, damage from Betsy was much more modest than had been feared. However, some of those who evacuated in advance of Betsy's arrival sought refuge in the Lower 9th Ward, which flooded disastrously.
Rapid growth east of the Industrial Canal commenced in the 1960s, during the administration of Mayor Vic Schiro (1961–1970). Many new subdivisions were developed in the 1960s and 1970s, to cater to those who preferred a more suburban lifestyle but were open to remaining within the city limits of New Orleans. Eastern New Orleans grew in a comparatively well-planned and neatly zoned fashion. Some care was taken to avoid placing major thoroughfares along the rights-of-way of unsightly drainage canals, as had frequently occurred in suburban Jefferson Parish. Instead, major roads (e.g., Mayo, Crowder, Bundy, Read, Bullard, etc.) were located equidistant from parallel canals and were outfitted with landscaped medians (neutral grounds in the local vernacular).
Numerous subdivisions were developed with large lakes at their centers, providing both an assist to neighborhood drainage and a scenic backdrop for the backyards of homes. From the late 1960s onwards, buried utilities were required, lending to new development in eastern New Orleans a pleasingly uncluttered visual appearance quite distinct from the wire-hung stoplight signals, tangled webs of power lines, and forests of leaning utility poles common to suburban New Orleans. Though modern-day eastern New Orleans was never segregated, the area originally grew to prominence as a majority-white "suburb-within-the-city". By 1980, the area had also received significant commercial office and retail investment, epitomized by the regional mall The Plaza at Lake Forest , the largest in Greater New Orleans at the time of its completion in 1974.
However, the 1980s witnessed a sea-change in demographics, as New Orleans' growing African American middle class began moving into eastern New Orleans in sizable numbers. More importantly, in the wake of the 1986 Oil Bust significant poverty was introduced into eastern New Orleans, as many of the sprawling garden apartment complexes built in the 1960s and 1970s along I-10 to house upwardly mobile young singles began to accept large, poor, female-headed households as tenants. With increased poverty came increased crime rates, and both non-violent and violent crime became far more common than had been the case in the 1960s or 1970s. These changes were enough to induce a swift exodus of most of the white population, resulting in an eastern New Orleans that was overwhelmingly African-American by 2005.
Much more development further east was envisioned during the oil boom of the 1970s, including a huge planned community called, in successive iterations "New Orleans East", "Pontchartrain", "Orlandia", and, finally, "New Orleans East" once more. This "new-town-in-town" was to have resembled Reston, Virginia or the Woodlands north of Houston, but only a few small portions were built in several bursts of activity in the twenty years prior to the Oil Bust. Both the Village de L'Est and Oak Island neighborhoods were phases of "New Orleans East". The new town development would have occupied almost all of New Orleans lying east of the present-day route of I-510.
Three identical interchanges along I-10 east of Paris Road were constructed in anticipation of the new town. The Michoud Boulevard exit uses one of these interchanges, but two of the three were never used. The prominent "New Orleans East" cast-concrete sign just west of the Michoud Boulevard exit was fabricated circa 1980 during the final attempt at developing this huge tract. Much of this land later became the Bayou Sauvage National Wildlife Refuge, the largest urban wildlife refuge in the United States. Though the "New Orleans East" new town development was never realized, by the 1970s its name had been adopted by many New Orleanians to refer to all of eastern New Orleans of the Industrial Canal.
A new international airport for New Orleans was also envisioned for the far eastern portion of area on several occasions. In the late 1960s, formal government-sponsored studies were undertaken to evaluate the feasibility of relocating New Orleans International Airport to a new site, contemporaneous with similar efforts that were ultimately successful in Houston (George Bush Intercontinental Airport) and Dallas (Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport). This attempt got as far as recommending a specific runway configuration and site in eastern New Orleans; a man-made island was to be created south of I-10 and north of U.S. Route 90 in a bay of Lake Pontchartrain. However, in the early 1970s it was decided that the current airport should be expanded instead. New Orleans Mayor Sidney Barthelemy, in office from 1986 to 1994, later reintroduced the idea of building a new international airport for the city, with consideration given to other sites in eastern New Orleans, as well as on the Northshore in suburban St. Tammany Parish. Facing strong opposition from environmentalists, the Times-Picayune and many residents of eastern New Orleans, Barthelemy's idea came to nothing.
On August 29, 2005, the majority of eastern New Orleans flooded severely from Hurricane Katrina and associated levee failures (see: Effect of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans). Recovery initially unfolded slowly. By early 2006, only a handful of businesses had reopened, mostly those sited along the historic Gentilly Ridge (i.e., the Chef Menteur Highway corridor). Utility service was fully restored to the area during the course of 2006. As of January 2007, still less than half of the pre-Katrina residential population had returned, and many were living in FEMA trailers as they gutted and repaired their flood-devastated homes. Some residents returned on weekends to repair their property, while others gave up and abandoned the area. [3]
By November 2006 only 40,000 residents had returned to eastern New Orleans, compared to the 95,000 that had inhabited the area before the levee failures. However, consistent with the ongoing recovery in New Orleans' population from its post-Katrina trough, eastern New Orleans' population likewise continued to increase. By 2010, more than half of eastern New Orleans' pre-Katrina population had returned. The returning population was more affluent: determined to permanently reduce the neighborhood's quantity of multi-family housing, eastern New Orleans homeowners lobbied against many rental developments proposed in the post-Katrina era. [3]
As a consequence considerably less multi-family rental housing is available now in eastern New Orleans than existed pre-Katrina. Essential neighborhood services became scarcer as well after 2005. Only one grocery store reopened, post-Katrina, and the national retailers who had flocked to eastern New Orleans in the 1960s and 1970s, and even into the 1980s and 1990s, were slow to return. Furthermore, neither Methodist nor Lakeland hospitals reopened after Katrina, leaving eastern New Orleans without a general hospital and bereft of ER care for many years. New Orleans East Hospital (NOEH), sited within the rehabilitated former Methodist Hospital, opened in 2014, making it the first hospital to operate in the area since Katrina. [3]
In the years following Hurricane Katrina, the pace of recovery in eastern New Orleans has accelerated, though the area still faces challenges. Many retail shops have opened, with a particular concentration emerging at the intersection of I-10 and Bullard Avenue. This commercial node, largely populated by family-owned businesses, is now enjoying the long-awaited return of national retailers, with Big Lots and Wal-Mart leading the way. Consistent with eastern New Orleans' eve-of-Katrina concentration of African-American entrepreneurship, black-owned franchises, such as the USA Neighborhood Market, have also appeared. To the west of Bullard, along the Read Boulevard corridor, a new CVS Pharmacy has opened across Lake Forest Boulevard from the recently completed Daughters of Charity Health Center and New Orleans East Hospital.
Significant public investment has lately transpired in eastern New Orleans as well, including NOEH, the new regional public library, ongoing improvements to Joe Brown Memorial Park, and the construction of half-a-dozen new public school buildings. Efforts to secure high-quality private investment on the site of the former Plaza regional mall continue, and the city in late 2020 issued a Request For Proposals ("RFP") addressing the shuttered Six Flags/Jazzland amusement park, located prominently at the intersection of I-10 and I-510. The amusement park was closed as a precautionary measure in advance of Hurricane Katrina's landfall, but Six Flags opted not to re-open it, post-Katrina.
On February 7, 2017, an EF3 wedge tornado damaged or destroyed several buildings in eastern New Orleans. There were 33 injuries, six of which were serious. [4]
Eastern New Orleans encompasses an enormous area, though most of this part of town remains undeveloped wetlands. Within the developed portion, numerous distinct neighborhoods may be found, including Pines Village, Plum Orchard, West Lake Forest, Read Boulevard West, Little Woods, Read Boulevard East, Village de L’Est, Lake Catherine and Venetian Isles. [1]
Pines Village, the area closest to Chef Menteur Highway and the Industrial Canal was one of the first neighborhoods to be developed in eastern New Orleans. [2] The neighborhood's namesake, Sigmund Pines, purchased and developed it with residences in the 1950s. [2] Developing the neighborhood included leveeing the marshy area and lowering the water table by pumping, raising the level of construction sites by use of hydraulic fill and finally, building a drainage system consisting of a series of lakes and canals. [2]
Today, eastern New Orleans also includes many smaller neighborhoods named after lakes, streets, and subdivisions such as Lake Willow, Spring Lake, Kenilworth, Seabrook, Melia, Edgelake, Bonita Park, Donna Villa, Willowbrook, Cerise-Evangeline Oaks and Castle Manor.
Originally named Lake Forest, as development first centered along the easternmost segment of Lake Forest Boulevard, the Read Boulevard East area began growing in the 1970s and continues to develop.[ dubious – discuss ] By the late 1990s, the neighborhoods of Read Blvd East were no longer majority white, but were particularly favored as the preferred place of residence for New Orleans' upwardly mobile African-American white-collar professional and entrepreneurial classes.[ citation needed ]
Little development exists east of I-510, although this vast tract still lies within the city limits of New Orleans. It includes the Bayou Sauvage National Wildlife Refuge, Chef Menteur Pass, Fort Macomb, historic Fort Pike on the Rigolets, and scattered areas of essentially rural character, like Venetian Isles, Irish Bayou and Lake Saint Catherine.
Village de L'Est, one of the few densely-developed neighborhoods east of I-510, is known for its Vietnamese community. The Vietnamese community is also known as Versailles, as the earliest migrants to the area,[ citation needed ] arriving in the years after 1975, settled first in the Versailles Arms apartment complex. The commercial hub for this community extends along Alcee Fortier Boulevard, within Village de L'Est. Sometimes known as "Little Vietnam", the area hosts a number of Vietnamese restaurants, including Dong Phuong Restaurant & Bakery. On the corner of Dwyer Blvd and Willowbrook Dr. is the Mary Queen of Vietnam Church which serves as at hub for Vietnamese people whether christian or not to celebrate community and bring unity within the children and families all around.
Eastern New Orleans institutions and landmarks include the Lakefront Airport, Joe Brown Memorial Park, the Audubon Louisiana Nature Center, Lincoln Beach,[ dubious – discuss ] and NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility, located within the New Orleans Regional Business Park.
Also present is the Lafon Nursing Facility, one of the oldest nursing homes in the United States.
The New Orleans Power Station and former Michoud Power Station are located at the foot of the Paris Road Bridge in eastern New Orleans.
Notably, eastern New Orleans is the only extensive suburban or suburban-style region of Greater New Orleans where, since the late 1960s, all installed utilities have been buried below ground. Like the downtown New Orleans/French Quarter central core and the Garden City-inspired Lakefront neighborhoods of Lake Vista, Lakeshore, Lake Terrace and Lake Oaks, eastern New Orleans consequently possesses a uniquely uncluttered visual aspect,[ dubious – discuss ] in contrast to the omnipresent wooden utility poles and spider's web of power lines found along most of the major thoroughfares of suburban Jefferson and St. Tammany parishes.[ dubious – discuss ] Greater resilience to power outages is another, not inconsiderable benefit to having buried power lines.
Because eastern New Orleans, and particularly Michoud, rests on the edge of a fault line, the land and the levees protecting it are sinking. Recent geological studies project the rate of sinking to be around two inches per year.
NOEEDF is a Development fund in New Orleans that provides economic growth, job creation , and community development all over New Orleans and especially in the East. [5]
The NOEEDF has been around since 1995 and was created due to voter-approved propositions. The propositions authorized the use of dedicated tax to support the economic development of New Orleans. The fund has been used to support local businesses and infrastructure projects located in New Orleans East, with the intention of profiting economically in the East. Some of the efforts include supporting the New Orleans Business Regional Park and helping the growth in the Lake Forest [1] Boulevard Business Association. The NOEEDF has made significant advancements. Over 160 new permanent job locations were made in the East due to the NOEEDF, jobs ranging from Dixie Brewery to LM Wind Power. However, due to the New Orleans East high Crime rate [6] the production of these economic changes have been slow but that have not been forgotten. The NOEEDF still plan on bolstering the area's economic prospects and hope this will decrease the crime rate there as well.
The New Orleans Public Schools system, now composed exclusively of charter schools, provides administrative oversight to numerous public charter schools in eastern New Orleans.
The New Orleans Public Library operates eastern New Orleans New Orleans Branch. [14] The current branch building, a striking contemporary structure with a price tag of $7.6 million, opened in 2012. [15] The 27,000-square-foot (2,500 m2) building was designed by Gould Evans Affiliates of Kansas City, Missouri, and built by Gibbs Construction. [16] Gould Evans worked with New Orleans firm Lee Ledbetter & Associates to design this library and four others. [17] It is similar to, though somewhat smaller than the Algiers Regional Library, completed around the same time. [16]
Lake Pontchartrain is an estuary located in southeastern Louisiana in the United States. It covers an area of 630 square miles (1,600 km2) with an average depth of 12 to 14 feet. Some shipping channels are kept deeper through dredging. It is roughly oval in shape, about 40 miles (64 km) from west to east and 24 miles (39 km) from south to north.
The Ninth Ward or 9th Ward is a distinctive region of New Orleans, Louisiana, which is located in the easternmost downriver portion of the city. It is geographically the largest of the 17 Wards of New Orleans. On the south, the Ninth Ward is bounded by the Mississippi River. On the western or "upriver" side, the Ninth Ward is bounded by Franklin Avenue, then Almonaster Avenue, then People's Avenue. From the north end of People's Avenue the boundary continues on a straight line north to Lake Pontchartrain; this line is the boundary between the Ninth and the city's Eighth Ward. The Lake forms the north and northeastern end of the ward. St. Bernard Parish is the boundary to the southeast, Lake Borgne farther southeast and east, and the end of Orleans Parish to the east at the Rigolets.
Lake St. Catherine is a brackish-water lake that is located in eastern Orleans Parish, within the city limits of New Orleans, between Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Borgne in Louisiana. Between Lake St. Catherine and Lake Borgne was the original Town of Lake Catherine. Established between Unknown Pass and Miller's Ditch, it was settled for railroad workers, trappers, hunters and fishermen.
Rigolets is a 12.9-kilometre-long (8.0 mi) deepwater strait in Louisiana. "Rigolets" comes from the word rigole, French for 'trench' or 'gutter'. The name is now locally pronounced "RIG-uh-leez".
The Industrial Canal is a 5.5-mile (8.9 km) waterway in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. The waterway's proper name, as used by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and on NOAA nautical charts, is Inner Harbor Navigation Canal (IHNC). The more common "Industrial Canal" name is used locally, both by commercial mariners and by landside residents.
The London Avenue Canal is a drainage canal in New Orleans, Louisiana, used for pumping rain water into Lake Pontchartrain. The canal runs through the 7th Ward of New Orleans from the Gentilly area to the Lakefront. It is one of the three main drainage canals responsible for draining rainwater from the main basin of New Orleans. The London Avenue Canal's flood walls built atop earthen levees breached on both sides during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
The Chef Menteur Pass is a narrow natural waterway which, along with the Rigolets, connects Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Borgne in New Orleans, Louisiana. It begins at 30°5′45″N89°48′52″W and follows a generally southeastward course. In the days of sailing ships, much commerce from the Gulf of Mexico sailed through the pass and the Rigolets into Lake Pontchartrain to New Orleans and surrounding communities. The Lake Catherine neighborhood of New Orleans is to the east side of the pass. The Venetian Isles neighborhood of New Orleans is to the west of the pass.
The 7th Ward is a legally defined voting ward and a neighborhood of the city of New Orleans. A sub-district of the Mid-City District Area, its boundaries as defined by the New Orleans City Planning Commission are: A.P. Tureaud Avenue, Agriculture, Allen, Industry, St. Anthony, Duels, Frenchmen and Hope Streets to the north, Elysian Fields Avenue to the east, St. Claude and St. Bernard Avenues, North Rampart Street and Esplanade Avenue to the south, and North Broad Street to the west.
The city planning commission for New Orleans divided the city into 13 planning districts and 73 distinct neighborhoods in 1980. Although initially in the study 68 neighborhoods were designated, and later increased by the City Planning Commission to 76 in October 2001 based in census data, most planners, neighborhood associations, researchers, and journalists have since widely adopted the 73 as the number and can even trace the number back to the early 1900s. While most of these assigned boundaries match with traditional local designations, some others differ from common traditional use. This is a result of the city planning commission's wish to divide the city into sections for governmental planning and zoning purposes without crossing United States census tract boundaries. While most of the listed names have been in common use by New Orleanians for generations, some designated names are rarely heard outside the planning commission's usage.
Gentilly is a broad, predominantly middle-class and racially diverse section of New Orleans, Louisiana. The Gentilly neighborhood is bounded by Lake Pontchartrain to the north, France Road to the east, Bayou St. John to the west, and CSX Transportation railroad tracks to the south.
Lakeview is a neighborhood of the city of New Orleans. A subdistrict of the Lakeview District Area, its boundaries as defined by the City Planning Commission are: Robert E Lee Boulevard to the north, Orleans Avenue to the east, Florida Boulevard, Canal Boulevard and I-610 to the south and Pontchartrain Boulevard to the west. Lakeview is sometimes used to describe the entire area bounded by Lake Pontchartrain to the north, the Orleans Avenue Canal to the east, City Park Avenue to the south and the 17th Street Canal to the west. This larger definition includes the West End, Lakewood and Navarre neighborhoods, as well as the Lakefront neighborhoods of Lakeshore and Lake Vista.
U.S. Highway 90 (US 90), one of the major east–west U.S. Highways in the Southern United States, runs through southern Louisiana for 297.6 miles (478.9 km), serving Lake Charles, Lafayette, New Iberia, Morgan City, and New Orleans. Much of it west of Lafayette and east of New Orleans has been supplanted by Interstate 10 (I-10) for all but local traffic, but the section between Lafayette and New Orleans runs a good deal south of I-10.
Louisiana Highway 47 (LA 47) is a state highway located in southeastern Louisiana. It runs 15.91 miles (25.60 km) in a general southeast to northwest direction from the Mississippi River levee in Chalmette to the intersection of Hayne Boulevard and Downman Road in New Orleans.
West End is a neighborhood of the city of New Orleans. A subdistrict of the Lakeview District Area, its boundaries as defined by the City Planning Commission are: Lake Pontchartrain to the north, the New Basin Canal and Pontchartrain Boulevard to the east, Veterans Boulevard to the south, and the 17th Street Canal to the west. The area was largely built on land reclaimed from Lake Pontchartrain. It is a commercial seafood and recreational boating hub for the city and has been known for its seafood restaurants. In recent years, the area has seen large condominium-complex developments built which overlook the Lake, marinas, and centrally located 30-acre (120,000 m2) West End Park.
The Fort Pike Bridge, named after nearby Fort Pike, carries U.S. Route 90 across the Rigolets on the eastern side of Lake Pontchartrain between New Orleans and Slidell in Louisiana. It is owned and operated by Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development The bridge opened on June 9, 1930, and along with the Chef Menteur Bridge provided a free route between New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast. This was the site of Jayne Mansfield's death in June 1967. A new span was constructed just to the north of the old span.
Lakeshore/Lake Vista is a neighborhood of the city of New Orleans, Louisiana. A subdistrict of the Lakeview District Area, its boundaries as defined by the City Planning Commission are: Lake Pontchartrain to the north, Bayou St. John to the east, Allen Toussaint Boulevard to the south and Pontchartrain Boulevard and the New Basin Canal to the west. The neighborhood is composed of the Lakeshore and Lake Vista subdivisions, built on land reclaimed from Lake Pontchartrain. The Lakefront is a term sometimes used to name the larger neighborhood created by the Orleans Levee Board's land reclamation initiative in early 20th century New Orleans; it includes Lakeshore and Lake Vista, as well as Lakeshore Drive and the lakefront park system, the University of New Orleans, Lake Terrace, and Lake Oaks.
Lake Terrace/Lake Oaks is a neighborhood of the city of New Orleans, Louisiana. A sub-district of the city's Gentilly District, its boundaries as defined by the City Planning Commission are: Lake Pontchartrain to the north; the Industrial Canal to the east; Leon C. Simon Drive, Elysian Fields Avenue, New York Street, the London Avenue Canal, and Allen Toussaint Boulevard to the south; and Bayou St. John to the west. The neighborhood comprises the Lake Terrace and Lake Oaks subdivisions, the principal campus of the University of New Orleans, and the University of New Orleans Research & Technology Park — all built on land reclaimed from Lake Pontchartrain.
Pines Village is a neighborhood in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. A subdistrict of the New Orleans East area, its boundaries as defined by the City Planning Commission are: Downman Road and Interstate 10 to the east, Chef Menteur Highway to the south, Lake Pontchartrain and Morrison Road to the north, and the Industrial Canal to the west.
U.S. Highway 11 (US 11) is a part of the United States Numbered Highway System that spans 1,645 miles (2,647 km) from New Orleans, Louisiana, to Rouses Point, New York. Within the state of Louisiana, the highway travels 31 miles (50 km) from the national southern terminus at US 90 in New Orleans to the Mississippi state line south of Picayune.
There are three outfall canals in New Orleans, Louisiana – the 17th Street, Orleans Avenue and London Avenue canals. These canals are a critical element of New Orleans’ flood control system, serving as drainage conduits for much of the city. There are 13 miles (21 km) of levees and floodwalls that line the sides of the canals. The 17th Street Canal is the largest and most important drainage canal and is capable of conveying more water than the Orleans Avenue and London Avenue Canals combined.