However, remember that this is a city, so check with your hotel concierge or doorman to be sure before you set out walking in unfamiliar areas. In areas where there are crowds, such as the business areas of the French Quarter or the track between the Quarter and the convention center a few blocks away, you can be entirely comfortable on foot. The nation's oldest continuously operating streetcar system can provide a very pleasant ride uptown along oak-lined St. Charles Avenue, past the mansions of the Garden District. Another streetcar runs along the river-these cars are red rather than the dark green of the uptown line. A spur along Canal Street in downtown New Orleans is due to open during 1999.
Cabs are plentiful and widely used by visitors and locals alike.
There is a bus system, the RTA, which gives access to most of the city from downtown. You can read more about the RTA buses in this section. There are certain travel experiences in New Orleans that have more to do with the quality of the journey than with the destination. River boat rides and rides in mule drawn buggies usually end at the same place where they began, but you will see some interesting things along the way. The same can be said for tours in and around the city-bus tours of plantations or boat tours of the Louisiana swamps, for instance.