jstriebel wrote:So with the points made by Alderman Ogilvie, is there serious interest here in forming an advocacy group to fill the gap. To organize pressure on our state representatives?
I don't really know how that starts, but I'm up for giving it a try. Thoughts?
I will qualify it up front that I am in no position to lead it, time and commitment wise, but I'd be down to participate & contribute if this was started.
I reached out to the STL Transit Union to see if they were still active and haven't heard anything back.
I'm not sure I'm in a position to lead this either as my time is iffy, and I'm... well, not exactly sure how to get started. That said... I'm willing to give it a go to see if we can get something off the ground.
Is there any one else interested in taking part?
Basically, the goals would be to campaign (for lack of a better word) for a vision for a transit connected urban center (which is more or less STL City) and for funding from the state to go towards public transit. There's certainly more to it, but those are basically the primary concerns.
Cars and roads are good and have a purpose but its possible to have way way way too much of a good thing. The time may soon come in our state when we face the awkward proposition of having roads that we can't afford to maintain but not have an adequate public transportation infrastructure to give people any alternatives. What then?
I doubt even the most ardent libertarians of our region would be ok with having the cost of maintaining interstates thrust upon them...
I'd say the answer in urban areas is to double down on public transit. Remove unnecessary stretches of highway (I-70/44 whatever downtown). And place toll highways when necessary so that we can at least get an income stream from all the out of state truckers rolling down I-70.
Cars and roads are good and have a purpose but its possible to have way way way too much of a good thing.
If you want a perfect example of way too much of a good thing, and something that is likely, in my estimation, to be repeated all over the state with this proposed new highway tax, take US highway 54 in Osage Beach. It is a completely overbuilt project that was supposed to solve traffic issues. Highway 54 used to be a 5-lane thoroughfare through town, now it is a divided freeway with crazy u-turn moves and backtracking to get to places along the highway.
The businesses on this stretch of now divided highway say they're suffering, losing 30-40% of their previous business. I can see why, too. I've driven it a few times and the highway is a complete clusterf***. The businesses say there is a naming problem, but just changing the name to "Business 54" is not going to solve anything.
Best quote from one of the articles: “If we make it more visitor friendly and enticing it will be a boom for all of us,” a local business owner said. “That is the whole concept of having freeway through here,” Lynch [A MoDot engineer] said.
No, the petition by itself doesn't really do anything. But there's a critical need to get people to understand where transit funding comes from, and the state's non-participation. In the event that a ton of people sign it, it becomes a tool to use to talk to state reps and senators about the broad support for transit funding (at least modest funding) across the state. So sign it, and promote it!
Scott, disregarding the chances, what are your thoughts on a new city transit authority to promote and develop urban oriented transit for the City of St. Louis? Yes, we need state funding to actually build more transit. But in your opinion can the city handle something like this and would current leadership/residents even be open to it?
^ Scott addressed that a little on page one of this thread.
... Rather than creating another, city focused transit agency, Metro would be fully capable of operating better City service and potentially building a modest streetcar network if they had reasonable funding from the state. Another tier transit agency would have all of the same limitations of Metro and none of the economics of scale. ...
^ I agree with Scott on the fact that you don't need another agency. It won't be helpful and will suck up resources when Metro planning and engineering resources are most likely underutilized as it is now. I think Metro helping out the Loop Trolley is evident enough.
What I don't agree with is that you need state involvement. Yes, it would be nice and obviously could add a few more miles of fixed transit or bigger buses but the city should first and foremost recognize the huge benefit from and continue its efforts on the state level in keeping the Historical Tax Credit intact. GOP is going to get some type of state tax cut across and Nixon is going to wheel and deal not necessarily for the betterment of St. Louis.
As far as a streetcar network, or even a BRT, the city and civic leadership needs to do is follow the lead of KC and Cinci to get the central corridor streetcar as well as work towards TOD on existing transit infrastructure off the planning sheets. This is even more pressing now that Congress approved another round of TIGER funding and kept federal transit intact, even slight increase, in its first true budget in years. Their is federal funding out there for cities who are ready to take advantage. Right now St Louis is not even competitive to get funding for a single streetcar line. Don't blame the state or even Metro for that one.
I had a couple of you respond earlier, but I wanted to post again. Heading Alderman Ogilvie's call, I really do want to start an organization tasked in large part with encouraging our leaders to make transit a priority (at the city but especially the state level).
In the next couple of weeks I'd like to really begin organizing some things. This is all new to me, so it may be rough, but I want to do it.
I'll PM those of you who expressed interest already, but I'd encourage others to join in as well.
jstriebel wrote:I had a couple of you respond earlier, but I wanted to post again. Heading Alderman Ogilvie's call, I really do want to start an organization tasked in large part with encouraging our leaders to make transit a priority (at the city but especially the state level).
In the next couple of weeks I'd like to really begin organizing some things. This is all new to me, so it may be rough, but I want to do it.
I'll PM those of you who expressed interest already, but I'd encourage others to join in as well.
Thanks.
I been thinking about this too. We the people could actually make this happen it would be hard but you have to start somewhere. We need to from petitions and protest I am not kidding.
A few of us interested in starting a grassroots movement to find spur and/or find new ways to get transit moving forward in the urban core are meeting at 5:30 PM Wednesday at the Schlafly Tap Room in downtown west.
If you're interested, please join. For more details, PM me with your email address.
btw, you may want to take a look at the excellent article below in the KC Star today about the effort to expand the streetcar district there. Lots of stuff going on from concern from the underserved East Side about whether the streetcar reaching them would actually improve their situation relative to the higher sales and property tax that would be paid within the district to the interaction with the state sales tax proposal. (If both the KC streetcar tax and state sales tax pass, the tax within the district boundaries would go up 1.75c!)
