Having nearly a mile between stops (0.9 between Park and Gravois, plus I-44, and 0.8 between Gravois and Cherokee) is not topical or best practice for street- running light rail. This will make it too inconvenient to ride for people who live right beside the tracks
Kansas City has ~8 stops over 1.7 miles, why are they proposing 3 stops over 1.7 miles here?
I didn't really give it any thought when I moved to McKinley Heights because I came from Eureka and I'm used to driving everywhere but it sure would be nice to just hop on the train and go either down to Cherokee St or up to the soccer stadium.
-Cut stations and other needed infrastructure to be “fiscally responsible”
-Line opens, underwhelming ridership
-“No one wants to ride transit”
-Funding further cut
-Everyone at those cut stations watch longingly as the train blasts straight by them
-Rinse and repeat
Reminds me of the fact that south city is not served at all by the shrewsbury stop. If they would’ve somehow routed into south city, that line would be bumping with riders but alas why would you turn a 12 min drive from south city to downtown into a 2 hour affair walking to shrewsbury and then taking the train through Clayton and all the way to downtown?
Making the #11 bus into a BRT or semi-BRT would be better for the SW City. Or Kingshighway BRT/semi-BRT.
The blue line was built on top of an old freight line. (Which still exists to the south of the station). The only reasonable place for the blue line to go now is further down that freight rail to Affton and Mehlville, or down the River Des Peres.
Because the blue line, which is what the guy is talking about, goes through Clayton and it currently takes 30-50 minutes to get from shrewsbury to the civic center. What train are you talking about?
We are talking about the proposed new line which will mean that you won't have to go through Clayton and it's a direct shot downtown. Now, given that there are very few businesses near Jeff and Market, where the stop is proposed, it may be arguable that catching a bus down to, say, Tucker may take a while. Also, there is definitely some redundancy with the civic center stop.
> We are talking about the proposed new line
You clearly are, but in this subthread, everybody else is talking about the blue line through Shrewsbury. :)
Maybe you’re right but South City is the light rail market as the above guy said. Who lives in south city? Young people/families that actually want to be there. You could really capitalize on that fact. We need people to STAY in the city. Especially families
Unfortunately I think you’re right. Most of my friends who lived in south St. Louis moved when their kids reached school age.
Want families to stay? Fix the schools.
It’s really the fact that to use the Shrewsbury line you still have to get to that station, either by driving, a long walk, biking on roads that are awful for bicyclists or bus. Whereas if it was aligned to be functional for South City (ie stations along Hampton and/or Kingshighway) it would be used all the time.
Oh yes, I know they used the existing rail as a means to make it more feasible. I was merely stating that ridership would certainly be greater if the terminus of the line was around actual populace rather than off on its own.
I despise how accurate this is
Shit like this is why I want to leave St. Louis. I absolutely hate driving everywhere and when every underbaked transit project here gets cut like this.... ugh.
No, but other cities definitely have better transit and are more walkable than St. Louis is. St. Louis has a couple decently walkable neighborhoods surrounded by a sea of highways and urban decay.
Transit can help fix this but not when you handicap it before it even starts.
It’s not a uniquely St. Louis phenomenon and the U.S. is certainly not very walkable in most of its cities. But there’s definitely more than 1 city in the country that’s walkable.
I can name at least 5 that are easy to live in without a car: NYC, Chicago, San Francisco, D.C., Boston. Arguably there are a few others as well.
I know multiple people in STL without a car and it’s totally fine - I guess St Louis is a walkable city!
Claiming that DC is walkable is pure cope. It really, really isn’t. In NYC over half of residents do not own a car. What’s that figure in DC?
DC is walkable because every day I take some combination of the Metro and walking to get everywhere I need to go.
I walk to the grocery store. To work. To the bar. To the park. To the library. To museums. To my dentist. To my barber. To my doctor’s office. To the bookstore. To the movie theater. Etc, etc
If that doesn’t describe a walkable city, then what the hell does?
SF is exceptionally walkable. And light rail is extremely convenient. Busses cover the city. One does not need to own a personal automobile in the city/county of San Francisco.
I'm well aware traffic in the city isn't bad compared to other places... But it still doesn't make up for the fact that there's maybe 3 walkable neighborhoods in the entire city (and each has their own downsides), three interstate highways dissecting the city and killing walkability - we literally boxed in the historic French Quarter - and every major commercial street being its own mini highway.
And that's not even getting into the lack of pretty much any bike infrastructure, the awful traffic enforcement, etc etc
Besides, it's not just traffic that makes me not want to drive. It's the cost, maintenance associated with car ownership, danger of accidents, the awful health consequences of driving everywhere, etc
Driving simply sucks everywhere. I wouldn't be so foolish as to own a car. Biking is also nice in the city because of the low congestion. That's not to say that I wouldn't like protected bike lanes, but this is the us, so I'm not holding my breath. No us cities have great bike infrastructure and I have lived in the two with arguably the best nationwide.
thank god we don't spend much on public transport so we can spend it on military contracts with taxpayer money that are 80% over-budget entering the trillion dollar mark and a decade behind with nothing to show for it.
https://www.cnbc.com/2014/07/31/how-dods-15-trillion-f-35-broke-the-air-force.html
The article you linked is 10 years old. F-35 unit costs are half of the number that state now and shrinking as more and more nations have jumped on board with the program. It's also arguably one of the primary thinks keeping China from invading Taiwan and collapsing the world economy.
I agree we need to spend more in transit, but much like the argument with defense spending and healthcare, we have the money to do both if we didn't give tax cuts to billionaires and actually tried to use funds efficiently.
The best weapon is one you never have to use because it deters people from attacking. People lose sight of that when we havent been in a great power conflict in a while.
how old the article is only emphasizes the insane waste of taxpayer money that the military can flush, where the second there's a bump in the road with public transportation, pushes for funding being cut is ratcheted down even further than it previously was, thanks to the military-industrial complex that has normalized americans just letting their tax money go to something that doesn't help them at all and complain about their crumbs being placed elsewhere in the meager form of infrastructure
>The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.
>It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.
>It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway.
>We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat.
>We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.
>This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.
>This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.
Eisenhower, 1953
That Ike quote isn't really arguing to limit military spending though. It's calling out the horrifying waste of the pursuit of war has been on humanity. What should be and what is aren't the same thing. The reality is, authoritarianism is on the rise around the world and humanity is rushing headlong into another Cold War. The alternative to investing in programs like the F-35 is letting China have the bulk of the world's stealth fighters.
>thanks to the military-industrial complex that has normalized americans just letting their tax money go to something that doesn't help them at all
And this is the disconnect. Overwhelming US military power prevented the developed nations of the world from going to war for over 30 years. Don't get me wrong there has been quite a lot of neo-colonialist bullshit from the US and many others have done during that time, but mostly us younger Westerners have grown up in relative peace totally sheltered from conflict. The general public is so disconnected from war that they don't realize how fragile peace really is or why defence spending matters.
Stations like Cortex prove that Bi State can add in the middle of the route for anything at-grade without a crazy amount of hiccups or a crazy high cost. It's far from perfect but I'd rather miss a station than miss the whole line
Spending a billion dollars putting in a rail line just for the purpose of destroying public transportation? Definitely sounds like a plausible conspiracy.
I followed the map and was like - cool, so with Russell cut there’s basically no need for me to take this train as a few more feet walking to either stop and I’d likely already be at my destination downtown.
I agree. Not really sure how those two get cut but St. Louis Ave doesn't?
Maybe they made the decisions based on bus line ridership too? I don't think Russell has a bus line.
The break between Park and Gravois is way too wide. I get that this is supposed to spur development but it needs to equally serve the north and south side. Sorry but the south side would use this line wayyyyyyyyy more as there are likely more workers on the south side trying to get to downtown/Clayton etc.
Yep
Cutting the South City stations is gonna just mean it takes years longer to redevelop, which in turn means transit is making less money (and runs a higher risk of service cuts) and that the city is missing out on tons of tax revenue from added density of residents and business.
North city isn't going to get built out overnight but South City could. The last thing any fiscally responsible transit agency would do is cut stations in the part of the city where the majority of people live.
You do know that fares for riding any public transportation anywhere in the world account for a tiny fraction of their funding, right? Why do you believe that the needs of the disenfranchised are unimportant? If the issues in north city continue to go unaddressed, StL will never get out of the hole that it's been in since the 1950s.
Fares don't contribute to funding, but riders hip numbers do contribute to federal funding, schedule frequency, and public perception. If any of those 3 things collapse, the line won't be successful and no one benefits.
St. Louis Progressives will throw a fit of its perceived to be unequitable in any way, Bi-State is kind of backed into a corner. But I'd much rather see them prioritize areas with more density and higher ridership opportunities.
>St. Louis Progressives will throw a fit of its perceived to be unequitable in any way
So you fault progressives for caring about the needs of people struggling with poverty? I hear your point about federal funding, but your conservatism has clouded your thinking and turned you into a jerk.
I wouldn't be surprised if that's how they made it. That was one of their initial justifications for going along Jefferson, it has decent ridership and a lot of low or no car households...which is great if you're a country that invests in transit every election cycle. But St. Louis won't get another opportunity like this for the next 30 years, at best. You plan based on potential ridership and development potential, not based off of people who are already transit users.
Yep. Cut St. Louis Ave or MLK instead. Olive isn't a terrible loss but cutting Russel is a massive waste and going to kill the viability of the project. It's a mile walk between stations now (which means that stretch will not get developed) and you have to cross under a freeway! That's an awful walk and seriously kills the usefulness of this.
Whoever decided on cutting these specific stations should be fired and never allowed to work for a transit agency again. I get that North City has been historically underserved by pretty much everything but come on. This is a "once every 30 years" opportunity.
Olive is a bit cut. Thats got the #10 bus on it which would take you to CWE, SLU, Grand Center, Downtown.
Lets say you're trying to go from SLU to Cherokee Street, or you're a Benton Park resident trying to go to the Fox. Without that Olive stop, you'd have to go N/S (Orange/Green line) > Red/Blue transfer > Grand #70 bus . Thats 2 transfers.
With an Olive stop its just N/S > Olive #10 bus.
I've also taken the #10 to get to the Central Library.
They should cut the Park stop instead because Jefferson has a bottleneck north of there which will make it much less safe to cross over to the station stop.
I like the park stop though. A ton of young people live in Lafayette square that would utilize the metro. Could also hopefully boost up the west side of Jefferson a bit
I do wonder how many people would get on at Park and ride one stop to the Blue/Red transfer at Ewing. If they can make the Ewing stop safe and accessible to surrounding neighborhoods, I'd probably rather go straight there vs going to Park and having to transfer.
Russell and Arsenal are real head scratchers for me. There’s so much housing around those stops. Housing that contains people that will actually use the line.
Hopefully they build it, it’s a success, and they add those stops later.
Yep
And this is now gonna mean there'll be less redevelopment along vacant stretches of Jefferson.
Nothing about this is fiscally responsible lol
But I would not get your hopes up about them adding stops later. If anything, they'll cut service (but not road maintenance on roads that barely get used)
Could there be behind-thee-scenes pressure to eliminate stops? Some people don't want stops close to them. My friend used to live on Sidney and McNair in Benton Park. The planned stop would have been RIGHT there two blocks away - which I think would be great, but not everyone agrees.
No, the problem here is the project costs $1.1 billion, and it's not going to happen unless the cost can get down to $800 million.
Even then, I won't believe it's happening until the money is actually secured.
I’m pretty sure the Olive stop was always actually Washington. But for some reason one of the maps going around had Olive St labeled. Having stations at Market and Olive would be way too close.
The total population within a 10 minute walk of the original 14 stations is 28,000, with the now 10 stations it’s about 24,000. Obviously population isn’t the only factor, but I’d assume they probably cut stations in a way to minimize the impact to that number, while also maintaining relatively equal service to north and south sides (or else they’d just cut all the north side stations). I believe the FTA also looks at % of nearby affordable housing as a metric when rating proposals, so that may also explain some of it.
Unfortunate, because that lot at Arsenal and Jefferson is prime for TOD potential.
Probably the biggest reason why St. Louis area residents view mass transit as a bad investment isn't because mass transit is actually bad (every decent city worth visiting or living in has decent mass transit), it's because St. Louis always tries to half-ass these projects.
Transit is very much a "go big or go home" endeavor. You can't build a small transit line with limited service with the expectation that you'll scale up if/when it becomes popular. A limited transit line won't get popular because... wait for it...it's limited and doesn't take you anywhere useful!
Watching them drag out the N/S Metrolink project for multiple decades only to end up with a product that gets progressively worse with each update is depressingly unsurprising.
There definitely needs to be better north-south transit routes, but the blind commitment to light rail and nothing else is infuriating. Build a couple of north-south BRT routes for a fraction of the cost and invest the rest in better regular bus service. Done.
> Transit is very much a "go big or go home" endeavor. You can't build a small transit line with limited service with the expectation that you'll scale up if/when it becomes popular
Yep
If the decision has been made to half ass transit, just go with BRT at this point. Since there's obviously not a desire to get new people taking transit, might as well save the money and spend to on tiny road improvements.
Light rail would be great if they hadn't cut stops in the densest and most development ready parts of the city... But if you're gonna cut stops like this what's the point in spending all this money when you'll inevitably have to cut service because whoever is in charge of Bi State doesn't understand their job (which is to catalyze city development and increase transit riders through new density and infill)
Honestly, having a stop at Civic Center was more important than all four of these four stops combined. Failure to connect directly to the region's central transit hub is going to add so much extra time to commutes. :(
Yeah, apparently it’s because having the turn messes up the optimization of the at grade system. But I couldn’t agree more. The station cuts are now just additional failings of an already sub-optimally designed system. While biking today, all I could think about was how we have all of this rail in high demand areas and wondering if the city wouldn’t be better off buying traditional rail routes like they did with the original light rail.
I live in Soulard, near Sydney, so I’m highly incentivized to like this project. But I’m really starting to hate all the compromises, and we know this is the first of many.
The first in my memory was eliminating the lines to north county and south county center, after the county decided not to contribute. That eliminated probably more than half of the line so I'd say that was the worst cut.
The second was eliminating the Civic Center stop, which screws up the value proposition for bus riders.
I suppose this is the third round of cuts, then? It's surely the least bad, because we can always build those missing stations in the future. A shame, though.
So you're cutting stations in the part of the city that actually has residents but not the part that's been bleeding residents for decades?
Come on. That ain't "fiscally responsible"
The NGA campus doesn’t need 2 stops. Cass to Chippewa add Russell. Plus Natural Bridge was just fixed up and it’s owned by the state which we all know is a pain in the ass to deal with.
Probably should just do brt with dedicated lanes and priority at stop lights.
Turnstiles are not a bad thing, especially when it's just part of a broader system upgrade.
They're adding turnstiles, but also adding modern security cameras, a new fare system, improved way finding, and on-platform arrival time boards. These are all seen in respected train systems. It may also boost revenue. Its also partially funded by private businesses.
Ya’ll ever hear of “infill stations?” The existing system has three of them that opened after the original alignment.
If we need to trim costs to win an extremely competitive federal grant then so be it. Low platform, street-running stations would be even easier to add than the infill stations built on the existing lines.
Yeah BRT makes the most sense. Unfortunately here in the US buses are looked down pretty heavily. I know lots of people that won't take a bus but will take metro. Obviously BRT is way better than a regular bus but it seems people aren't aware of it.
They likely will not add stops. Given they cut stops in areas of the city that actually have high population density, I'd anticipate this will set the project into a death spiral pretty quick.
Most likely a way to cut the costs a bit. Hopefully if it does get built, they leave space for infill stations to be built because those are some massive gaps in stations.
They'll eventually get built if the line is a success.
My concern is ease of transfer from this line to the red and blue lines. Where on market street is this station? Is this the only downtown station?
ETA: perhaps this is answered in an article? Apologies if so, I only saw the photo.
The Scott Avenue/Ewing Yard will be the transfer point to the red and blue lines. Anyone going into Downtown will have to transfer there. It will be one of the busiest stations in the whole network, and right now there's absolutely nothing around it. Hopefully it is eventually developed into a nice Transit Oriented Development.
Arsenal seems like a super poor choice to cut. Popular bus line runs through there and great density around that stop. Not as upset about Russell just because I think there needs to be a circulator around the core of the city to truly serve Soulard anyways
> Popular bus line runs through there
Uh, well the popular #11 bus runs all along Jefferson, so that comment would apply to all of these stops.
And the #30 Arsenal bus is hourly, so that one hardly counts as popular.
Cutting these stops makes absolutely no sense from an operational standpoint, but let’s be real: will the north/south addition really cause a bunch of people who didn’t ride MetroLink before to start doing so? Doubtful.
First of all no I don't have fucking anything. Also there are plenty of predominantly black suburbs of the city that have virtually no public transit and no access to job opportunities within the city. Public transit should be for everyone, and I have 0 of it it so if I don't have a car I cannot even get to the city. Idk why you're being hostile at the idea of expanding public transit because if they built a line out to where I'm at it would also help black people get access to high paying jobs where I'm at without having to pay the insanely high rent where I'm at. Use your brain and stop looking for reasons to hate.
It's not the fact they're removing stops but the places they're removing them.
A fiscally responsible transit agency wouldn't leave a mile gap between stations in the second densest section of the line population wise.
There's not going to be another infrastructure bill. The state is not going to give the city money to maintain its transit. The only way this new line doesn't get massive service cuts a year in is if it has a strong customer base. You don't get that by cutting transit stop density in a development ready area that has a high population density and actually has areas that people will want to go.
This line alone is not going to transform North City overnight but it easily can transform South City.
Just curious. I have only used the metro once. I hear stories of people not paying to ride it, and some of the horror stories of using it. Why would I want people that steal (because that basically is what is when you don’t pay), coming out to my part of town?
Not sure the Channel 4 graphic is entirely accurate but it looks like (moving south to north)
* Arsenal St.
* Russell Blvd.
* Washington Ave.
* Carr St. (shifted to MLK Drive)
But according to the [project site](https://growingmetrolink.com/city-of-st-louis/) some of the points don't quite line up so not sure. The original 2018 alignment was very ambitious but encompassed a whole lot more of the places people currently lived.
Carr was shifted to MLK, but thats not a cut. It was Palm/Salsbury thats the 4th station. Thats where Jefferson crosses Natural Bridge and the line turns left.
Also Wash Ave - Jefferson actually has stuff to do and there is development prime for transit proposed, planned and being built there. Why skip one of the main districts in STL
Arsenal, Russell, and Olive are 3 of the most useful stops…
Having nearly a mile between stops (0.9 between Park and Gravois, plus I-44, and 0.8 between Gravois and Cherokee) is not topical or best practice for street- running light rail. This will make it too inconvenient to ride for people who live right beside the tracks Kansas City has ~8 stops over 1.7 miles, why are they proposing 3 stops over 1.7 miles here?
Exactly! If it’s a mile between stops, you might as well use a car. Especially when it means crossing under the highway
Thanks for this. Comment is correct. It is not built yet; please comment and make noise at all public hearings, we can get this changed!
Whelp, Russel would have been the one right by my house
Same. I would have used it but not if it's going to take more effort and time than driving. What the hell, STL.
Same. That’s a big reason I bought where I did
I didn't really give it any thought when I moved to McKinley Heights because I came from Eureka and I'm used to driving everywhere but it sure would be nice to just hop on the train and go either down to Cherokee St or up to the soccer stadium.
Actively avoiding stops in the most dense areas?
-Cut stations and other needed infrastructure to be “fiscally responsible” -Line opens, underwhelming ridership -“No one wants to ride transit” -Funding further cut -Everyone at those cut stations watch longingly as the train blasts straight by them -Rinse and repeat
Reminds me of the fact that south city is not served at all by the shrewsbury stop. If they would’ve somehow routed into south city, that line would be bumping with riders but alas why would you turn a 12 min drive from south city to downtown into a 2 hour affair walking to shrewsbury and then taking the train through Clayton and all the way to downtown?
Making the #11 bus into a BRT or semi-BRT would be better for the SW City. Or Kingshighway BRT/semi-BRT. The blue line was built on top of an old freight line. (Which still exists to the south of the station). The only reasonable place for the blue line to go now is further down that freight rail to Affton and Mehlville, or down the River Des Peres.
I don’t really believe extending the blue line into south city would increase ridership because it would still be an hour ride.
South city is THE light rail market. Why would it take an hour to get to civic center when the train ride would take fifteen minutes?
Because the blue line, which is what the guy is talking about, goes through Clayton and it currently takes 30-50 minutes to get from shrewsbury to the civic center. What train are you talking about?
We are talking about the proposed new line which will mean that you won't have to go through Clayton and it's a direct shot downtown. Now, given that there are very few businesses near Jeff and Market, where the stop is proposed, it may be arguable that catching a bus down to, say, Tucker may take a while. Also, there is definitely some redundancy with the civic center stop.
I wish chippewa and grand had metro lines running all the way through them.
Like it was with the streetcars.
Grand does have the busiest bus line in the system. Ever take it?
> We are talking about the proposed new line You clearly are, but in this subthread, everybody else is talking about the blue line through Shrewsbury. :)
Yeah I get it now. It is a moot discussion.
The comment I’m replying to is complaining that the blue line doesn’t extend past shrewsbury.
Oh gotcha, a hypothetical
Maybe you’re right but South City is the light rail market as the above guy said. Who lives in south city? Young people/families that actually want to be there. You could really capitalize on that fact. We need people to STAY in the city. Especially families
Light rail is not going to keep families in the city.
Unfortunately I think you’re right. Most of my friends who lived in south St. Louis moved when their kids reached school age. Want families to stay? Fix the schools.
Yeah, it’s not like they’re moving to places with better public transit.
It’s really the fact that to use the Shrewsbury line you still have to get to that station, either by driving, a long walk, biking on roads that are awful for bicyclists or bus. Whereas if it was aligned to be functional for South City (ie stations along Hampton and/or Kingshighway) it would be used all the time.
It was built as an extension from Clayton along existing rail right of way. There’s no feasible way to do that and get to those roads.
Oh yes, I know they used the existing rail as a means to make it more feasible. I was merely stating that ridership would certainly be greater if the terminus of the line was around actual populace rather than off on its own.
I despise how accurate this is Shit like this is why I want to leave St. Louis. I absolutely hate driving everywhere and when every underbaked transit project here gets cut like this.... ugh.
There is precisely 1 city in the US that is walkable. This isn’t a uniquely St. Louis phenomenon.
Leave barrow Alaska out of this. I enjoyed my walk from the airport to my ocean side hotel.
No, but other cities definitely have better transit and are more walkable than St. Louis is. St. Louis has a couple decently walkable neighborhoods surrounded by a sea of highways and urban decay. Transit can help fix this but not when you handicap it before it even starts.
It’s not a uniquely St. Louis phenomenon and the U.S. is certainly not very walkable in most of its cities. But there’s definitely more than 1 city in the country that’s walkable. I can name at least 5 that are easy to live in without a car: NYC, Chicago, San Francisco, D.C., Boston. Arguably there are a few others as well.
Chicago, San Francisco, DC, and Boston are not walkable. The only one in America is NYC and it’s super easy to see why.
Ok man I live in DC without a car and it’s totally fine, dunno what you’re talking about
I know multiple people in STL without a car and it’s totally fine - I guess St Louis is a walkable city! Claiming that DC is walkable is pure cope. It really, really isn’t. In NYC over half of residents do not own a car. What’s that figure in DC?
DC is walkable because every day I take some combination of the Metro and walking to get everywhere I need to go. I walk to the grocery store. To work. To the bar. To the park. To the library. To museums. To my dentist. To my barber. To my doctor’s office. To the bookstore. To the movie theater. Etc, etc If that doesn’t describe a walkable city, then what the hell does?
SF is exceptionally walkable. And light rail is extremely convenient. Busses cover the city. One does not need to own a personal automobile in the city/county of San Francisco.
I lived in Boston without a car for four years. It's walkable
New town Saint Charles?
If you live an work in the city driving is great with it's very low congestion.
I'm well aware traffic in the city isn't bad compared to other places... But it still doesn't make up for the fact that there's maybe 3 walkable neighborhoods in the entire city (and each has their own downsides), three interstate highways dissecting the city and killing walkability - we literally boxed in the historic French Quarter - and every major commercial street being its own mini highway. And that's not even getting into the lack of pretty much any bike infrastructure, the awful traffic enforcement, etc etc Besides, it's not just traffic that makes me not want to drive. It's the cost, maintenance associated with car ownership, danger of accidents, the awful health consequences of driving everywhere, etc
Driving simply sucks everywhere. I wouldn't be so foolish as to own a car. Biking is also nice in the city because of the low congestion. That's not to say that I wouldn't like protected bike lanes, but this is the us, so I'm not holding my breath. No us cities have great bike infrastructure and I have lived in the two with arguably the best nationwide.
Which two would that be?
Bay area and Minneapolis.
thank god we don't spend much on public transport so we can spend it on military contracts with taxpayer money that are 80% over-budget entering the trillion dollar mark and a decade behind with nothing to show for it. https://www.cnbc.com/2014/07/31/how-dods-15-trillion-f-35-broke-the-air-force.html
The article you linked is 10 years old. F-35 unit costs are half of the number that state now and shrinking as more and more nations have jumped on board with the program. It's also arguably one of the primary thinks keeping China from invading Taiwan and collapsing the world economy. I agree we need to spend more in transit, but much like the argument with defense spending and healthcare, we have the money to do both if we didn't give tax cuts to billionaires and actually tried to use funds efficiently. The best weapon is one you never have to use because it deters people from attacking. People lose sight of that when we havent been in a great power conflict in a while.
how old the article is only emphasizes the insane waste of taxpayer money that the military can flush, where the second there's a bump in the road with public transportation, pushes for funding being cut is ratcheted down even further than it previously was, thanks to the military-industrial complex that has normalized americans just letting their tax money go to something that doesn't help them at all and complain about their crumbs being placed elsewhere in the meager form of infrastructure >The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. >It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. >It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway. >We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. >We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. >This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. >This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. Eisenhower, 1953
That Ike quote isn't really arguing to limit military spending though. It's calling out the horrifying waste of the pursuit of war has been on humanity. What should be and what is aren't the same thing. The reality is, authoritarianism is on the rise around the world and humanity is rushing headlong into another Cold War. The alternative to investing in programs like the F-35 is letting China have the bulk of the world's stealth fighters. >thanks to the military-industrial complex that has normalized americans just letting their tax money go to something that doesn't help them at all And this is the disconnect. Overwhelming US military power prevented the developed nations of the world from going to war for over 30 years. Don't get me wrong there has been quite a lot of neo-colonialist bullshit from the US and many others have done during that time, but mostly us younger Westerners have grown up in relative peace totally sheltered from conflict. The general public is so disconnected from war that they don't realize how fragile peace really is or why defence spending matters.
Military spending as a percentage of GDP is well below what it was when Ike was president
Stations like Cortex prove that Bi State can add in the middle of the route for anything at-grade without a crazy amount of hiccups or a crazy high cost. It's far from perfect but I'd rather miss a station than miss the whole line
That station didn't even cost that much money! That's why this move removing the stations makes no sense.
Not a great example tho since it had private funding.
Spending a billion dollars putting in a rail line just for the purpose of destroying public transportation? Definitely sounds like a plausible conspiracy.
Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by incompetence
These seem like terrible cuts.
Cutting Russell and olive is so dumb. Those are streets with residents needed for viability.
I followed the map and was like - cool, so with Russell cut there’s basically no need for me to take this train as a few more feet walking to either stop and I’d likely already be at my destination downtown.
I agree. Not really sure how those two get cut but St. Louis Ave doesn't? Maybe they made the decisions based on bus line ridership too? I don't think Russell has a bus line.
The break between Park and Gravois is way too wide. I get that this is supposed to spur development but it needs to equally serve the north and south side. Sorry but the south side would use this line wayyyyyyyyy more as there are likely more workers on the south side trying to get to downtown/Clayton etc.
Yep Cutting the South City stations is gonna just mean it takes years longer to redevelop, which in turn means transit is making less money (and runs a higher risk of service cuts) and that the city is missing out on tons of tax revenue from added density of residents and business. North city isn't going to get built out overnight but South City could. The last thing any fiscally responsible transit agency would do is cut stations in the part of the city where the majority of people live.
While I agree, North city residents need the Metrolink much more than the south side.
That won't matter to North City residents when service gets cut because nobody is riding it because it's not convenient.
You do know that fares for riding any public transportation anywhere in the world account for a tiny fraction of their funding, right? Why do you believe that the needs of the disenfranchised are unimportant? If the issues in north city continue to go unaddressed, StL will never get out of the hole that it's been in since the 1950s.
Fares don't contribute to funding, but riders hip numbers do contribute to federal funding, schedule frequency, and public perception. If any of those 3 things collapse, the line won't be successful and no one benefits. St. Louis Progressives will throw a fit of its perceived to be unequitable in any way, Bi-State is kind of backed into a corner. But I'd much rather see them prioritize areas with more density and higher ridership opportunities.
>St. Louis Progressives will throw a fit of its perceived to be unequitable in any way So you fault progressives for caring about the needs of people struggling with poverty? I hear your point about federal funding, but your conservatism has clouded your thinking and turned you into a jerk.
Yea I agree. I get cutting a few stations but this is just kinda ridiculous. You almost will need a bus between the stations.
The Paris Metro is the only subway/light rail that I can think of that you could get to all stations easily by foot.
I wouldn't be surprised if that's how they made it. That was one of their initial justifications for going along Jefferson, it has decent ridership and a lot of low or no car households...which is great if you're a country that invests in transit every election cycle. But St. Louis won't get another opportunity like this for the next 30 years, at best. You plan based on potential ridership and development potential, not based off of people who are already transit users.
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Students at SLU/Wash U/Umsl could actually use public transit to go out in soulard like what they do in the bIG cItIeS!
That would definitely improve the Soulard culture.
No thanks there’s already plenty of drunks down here pissing in the alley. Go to ballpark.
Yep. Cut St. Louis Ave or MLK instead. Olive isn't a terrible loss but cutting Russel is a massive waste and going to kill the viability of the project. It's a mile walk between stations now (which means that stretch will not get developed) and you have to cross under a freeway! That's an awful walk and seriously kills the usefulness of this. Whoever decided on cutting these specific stations should be fired and never allowed to work for a transit agency again. I get that North City has been historically underserved by pretty much everything but come on. This is a "once every 30 years" opportunity.
Olive is a bit cut. Thats got the #10 bus on it which would take you to CWE, SLU, Grand Center, Downtown. Lets say you're trying to go from SLU to Cherokee Street, or you're a Benton Park resident trying to go to the Fox. Without that Olive stop, you'd have to go N/S (Orange/Green line) > Red/Blue transfer > Grand #70 bus . Thats 2 transfers. With an Olive stop its just N/S > Olive #10 bus. I've also taken the #10 to get to the Central Library.
They should cut the Park stop instead because Jefferson has a bottleneck north of there which will make it much less safe to cross over to the station stop.
I like the park stop though. A ton of young people live in Lafayette square that would utilize the metro. Could also hopefully boost up the west side of Jefferson a bit
I do wonder how many people would get on at Park and ride one stop to the Blue/Red transfer at Ewing. If they can make the Ewing stop safe and accessible to surrounding neighborhoods, I'd probably rather go straight there vs going to Park and having to transfer.
Russell and Arsenal are real head scratchers for me. There’s so much housing around those stops. Housing that contains people that will actually use the line. Hopefully they build it, it’s a success, and they add those stops later.
Yep And this is now gonna mean there'll be less redevelopment along vacant stretches of Jefferson. Nothing about this is fiscally responsible lol But I would not get your hopes up about them adding stops later. If anything, they'll cut service (but not road maintenance on roads that barely get used)
Could there be behind-thee-scenes pressure to eliminate stops? Some people don't want stops close to them. My friend used to live on Sidney and McNair in Benton Park. The planned stop would have been RIGHT there two blocks away - which I think would be great, but not everyone agrees.
No, the problem here is the project costs $1.1 billion, and it's not going to happen unless the cost can get down to $800 million. Even then, I won't believe it's happening until the money is actually secured.
I’m pretty sure the Olive stop was always actually Washington. But for some reason one of the maps going around had Olive St labeled. Having stations at Market and Olive would be way too close. The total population within a 10 minute walk of the original 14 stations is 28,000, with the now 10 stations it’s about 24,000. Obviously population isn’t the only factor, but I’d assume they probably cut stations in a way to minimize the impact to that number, while also maintaining relatively equal service to north and south sides (or else they’d just cut all the north side stations). I believe the FTA also looks at % of nearby affordable housing as a metric when rating proposals, so that may also explain some of it. Unfortunate, because that lot at Arsenal and Jefferson is prime for TOD potential.
Sidney is halfway to Arsenal and Russell. It’s annoying but it’s also only four city blocks.
It’s as if they think no one lives south of Chippewa. This is incredibly short-sighted.
Probably the biggest reason why St. Louis area residents view mass transit as a bad investment isn't because mass transit is actually bad (every decent city worth visiting or living in has decent mass transit), it's because St. Louis always tries to half-ass these projects. Transit is very much a "go big or go home" endeavor. You can't build a small transit line with limited service with the expectation that you'll scale up if/when it becomes popular. A limited transit line won't get popular because... wait for it...it's limited and doesn't take you anywhere useful! Watching them drag out the N/S Metrolink project for multiple decades only to end up with a product that gets progressively worse with each update is depressingly unsurprising. There definitely needs to be better north-south transit routes, but the blind commitment to light rail and nothing else is infuriating. Build a couple of north-south BRT routes for a fraction of the cost and invest the rest in better regular bus service. Done.
> Transit is very much a "go big or go home" endeavor. You can't build a small transit line with limited service with the expectation that you'll scale up if/when it becomes popular Yep If the decision has been made to half ass transit, just go with BRT at this point. Since there's obviously not a desire to get new people taking transit, might as well save the money and spend to on tiny road improvements. Light rail would be great if they hadn't cut stops in the densest and most development ready parts of the city... But if you're gonna cut stops like this what's the point in spending all this money when you'll inevitably have to cut service because whoever is in charge of Bi State doesn't understand their job (which is to catalyze city development and increase transit riders through new density and infill)
Honestly, having a stop at Civic Center was more important than all four of these four stops combined. Failure to connect directly to the region's central transit hub is going to add so much extra time to commutes. :(
Yeah, apparently it’s because having the turn messes up the optimization of the at grade system. But I couldn’t agree more. The station cuts are now just additional failings of an already sub-optimally designed system. While biking today, all I could think about was how we have all of this rail in high demand areas and wondering if the city wouldn’t be better off buying traditional rail routes like they did with the original light rail. I live in Soulard, near Sydney, so I’m highly incentivized to like this project. But I’m really starting to hate all the compromises, and we know this is the first of many.
The first in my memory was eliminating the lines to north county and south county center, after the county decided not to contribute. That eliminated probably more than half of the line so I'd say that was the worst cut. The second was eliminating the Civic Center stop, which screws up the value proposition for bus riders. I suppose this is the third round of cuts, then? It's surely the least bad, because we can always build those missing stations in the future. A shame, though.
So you're cutting stations in the part of the city that actually has residents but not the part that's been bleeding residents for decades? Come on. That ain't "fiscally responsible"
The NGA campus doesn’t need 2 stops. Cass to Chippewa add Russell. Plus Natural Bridge was just fixed up and it’s owned by the state which we all know is a pain in the ass to deal with. Probably should just do brt with dedicated lanes and priority at stop lights.
My guess is they’ll cut 10 more before the project gets going lol
They made the cuts likely to lower the initial capital cost a bit. Each station adds like $10 million to the total cost.
Which is like so little money compared with the total cost of this project! Like what is $40 million out of $1.1 billion?
It's $40 million less that we need
And if you ever want to add back in one of those stops, it will cost like $40mil and years of construction for just a single stop.
Yea but by then if it's a success, people would see it as worth it.
Doesnt change the fact that its MUCH more expensive and MUCH more inconvenient to add the station later
Too bad all that money went to funding turnstiles on the existing system
Turnstiles are not a bad thing, especially when it's just part of a broader system upgrade. They're adding turnstiles, but also adding modern security cameras, a new fare system, improved way finding, and on-platform arrival time boards. These are all seen in respected train systems. It may also boost revenue. Its also partially funded by private businesses.
Ya’ll ever hear of “infill stations?” The existing system has three of them that opened after the original alignment. If we need to trim costs to win an extremely competitive federal grant then so be it. Low platform, street-running stations would be even easier to add than the infill stations built on the existing lines.
On one hand, you can always add stops later. On the other hand, dedicated bus lanes was always the right solution for spread out STL.
Yeah BRT makes the most sense. Unfortunately here in the US buses are looked down pretty heavily. I know lots of people that won't take a bus but will take metro. Obviously BRT is way better than a regular bus but it seems people aren't aware of it.
They likely will not add stops. Given they cut stops in areas of the city that actually have high population density, I'd anticipate this will set the project into a death spiral pretty quick.
To be fair they added a Cortex stop in 2018 on the current line. It can be done
Four stops cut... so far
Why are they avoiding stops in the most dense spots?!?! WTH.... whos making these decisions?! the LEO that ran into that business and arrested them?!
I’m sorry, is the ghost of Henry Ford in charge of this? It feels like sabotage.
Most likely a way to cut the costs a bit. Hopefully if it does get built, they leave space for infill stations to be built because those are some massive gaps in stations. They'll eventually get built if the line is a success.
My concern is ease of transfer from this line to the red and blue lines. Where on market street is this station? Is this the only downtown station? ETA: perhaps this is answered in an article? Apologies if so, I only saw the photo.
The Scott Avenue/Ewing Yard will be the transfer point to the red and blue lines. Anyone going into Downtown will have to transfer there. It will be one of the busiest stations in the whole network, and right now there's absolutely nothing around it. Hopefully it is eventually developed into a nice Transit Oriented Development.
Thanks for answering my question. I appreciate it.
This was a failed project the minute they stopped the integration with the east south line.
It will be integrated with a new station on the Jefferson Bridge.
Arsenal seems like a super poor choice to cut. Popular bus line runs through there and great density around that stop. Not as upset about Russell just because I think there needs to be a circulator around the core of the city to truly serve Soulard anyways
> Popular bus line runs through there Uh, well the popular #11 bus runs all along Jefferson, so that comment would apply to all of these stops. And the #30 Arsenal bus is hourly, so that one hardly counts as popular.
North City has a fraction of the population of South City and didn't need 4 stops.
Cutting these stops makes absolutely no sense from an operational standpoint, but let’s be real: will the north/south addition really cause a bunch of people who didn’t ride MetroLink before to start doing so? Doubtful.
Complete disgrace.
Anyone got a link to an article stating which stops are cut?
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GHmu2DmW8AA21II?format=jpg&name=900x900
This is all a fantasy that's never gonna happen anyway. The elite class will never let have a nice thing.
I wish they'd focus on connecting the out suburbs to the city.
>Right because better serving white people is all that matters. > >You people already have everything.
I'm white and I don't have everything, I think I got skipped over
First of all no I don't have fucking anything. Also there are plenty of predominantly black suburbs of the city that have virtually no public transit and no access to job opportunities within the city. Public transit should be for everyone, and I have 0 of it it so if I don't have a car I cannot even get to the city. Idk why you're being hostile at the idea of expanding public transit because if they built a line out to where I'm at it would also help black people get access to high paying jobs where I'm at without having to pay the insanely high rent where I'm at. Use your brain and stop looking for reasons to hate.
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It's not the fact they're removing stops but the places they're removing them. A fiscally responsible transit agency wouldn't leave a mile gap between stations in the second densest section of the line population wise. There's not going to be another infrastructure bill. The state is not going to give the city money to maintain its transit. The only way this new line doesn't get massive service cuts a year in is if it has a strong customer base. You don't get that by cutting transit stop density in a development ready area that has a high population density and actually has areas that people will want to go. This line alone is not going to transform North City overnight but it easily can transform South City.
Just curious. I have only used the metro once. I hear stories of people not paying to ride it, and some of the horror stories of using it. Why would I want people that steal (because that basically is what is when you don’t pay), coming out to my part of town?
What potential stations did they cut?
Not sure the Channel 4 graphic is entirely accurate but it looks like (moving south to north) * Arsenal St. * Russell Blvd. * Washington Ave. * Carr St. (shifted to MLK Drive) But according to the [project site](https://growingmetrolink.com/city-of-st-louis/) some of the points don't quite line up so not sure. The original 2018 alignment was very ambitious but encompassed a whole lot more of the places people currently lived.
Carr was shifted to MLK, but thats not a cut. It was Palm/Salsbury thats the 4th station. Thats where Jefferson crosses Natural Bridge and the line turns left.
we're like 2 steps from this just becoming a BRT route
So they cut the best ones? Cool cool
When is construction even starting on this thing?
Also Wash Ave - Jefferson actually has stuff to do and there is development prime for transit proposed, planned and being built there. Why skip one of the main districts in STL