urbanSTL

Amazing, autos found a way to access this low-productivity land use without the convenience of a walkability-deminishing curb cut.

Looks like they were putting up overhead copper wire outside the 6105 Delmar (Clayco) construction site on Monday.

Can't help to think that extending the loop trolley to Zoo's Forest Park Hospital development/dogtown and or a Forest Park Community College/Highland Park via Wise Ave with a stop at the zoo would be beneficial going forward. Adds a major attraction in the zoo to trolley as well as another transit option/direct connection to metrolink on the south side of I64/hwy 40

dredger wrote:Can't help to think that extending the loop trolley to Zoo's Forest Park Hospital development/dogtown and or a Forest Park Community College/Highland Park via Wise Ave with a stop at the zoo would be beneficial going forward. Adds a major attraction in the zoo to trolley as well as another transit option/direct connection to metrolink on the south side of I64/hwy 40

run in through the park?

Alex Ihnen wrote:I see the appeal as far as tourist/attractions, but the park obviously couldn't be any less dense in terms of residential/office - and that's what makes transit work.

Can understand point but I can't consider loop trolley strictly a transit investment If so, it is probably one of the top ten in the nation for worst transit investments out there.

However, I put this more in line with Tampa's original trolley investment into Ybor City/Entertainment District. The loop clearly has a tourist component to it and the idea of connecting one it to one of the states top destination in the zoo is a no-brainer IMO. Second, in terms of transit. The next stop after Forest Metrolink station is History museum, at that point anyone using loop for transit has missed the station for all intents and purposes & anyone getting on History museum is their for tourism, entertainment.

^ I can see an extension to the Zoo being pretty popular with tourists but the problem is how to make financial sense out of it.... feds likely would be out of the picture, there is no effective special tax district that could be created to capture increased sales or property taxes like for Loop Trolley, and any attempt by the ZMD institutions to put general $$ towards it would be met with a huge backlash, so likely funding would have to come from a big Forest Park Forever private fundraising effort. I suppose it's possible but it seems like an extreme challenge.

^^ Exactly. How many miles of track would be needed just to get through the park? Using google maps if the trolley went by way of the art museum on Fine Arts Dr, it's already 1.3 miles just to the Zoo entrance. Then you have logistical nightmare to get the streetcar out the Hampton exit.

This is all assuming that a trolley in the park is a good idea. Forest Park was originally built to provide a respite from urban living. I'm all for streetcars/trolleys/trains running down most St. Louis streets but I don't think Forest Park is appropriate. Does anyone have a good example of dedicated public transport in a major urban park?

the zoo already has plans to implement a monorail across 40 from the expansion site to the zoo. in my opinion it makes more sense to loop the monorail among the museum district institutions ( moving above the treeline and mwith stops at ground level at the museums/places of interest) than have a streetcar move throughout the park

RuskiSTL wrote:I'm all for streetcars/trolleys/trains running down most St. Louis streets but I don't think Forest Park is appropriate. Does anyone have a good example of dedicated public transport in a major urban park?

It depends a little on how you define things, but sure. The DC Metro runs right under the middle of the Mall. Millennium Park in Chicago is built almost entirely above the old Illinois Central right of way that currently serves Chicago's the Metra Electric and South Shore lines: orange and brown respectively. (In fact, one of their major terminals is beneath the park. Putting a roof over the station tracks created the space for the park. And that same line wanders south through the center of the museum campus and along the edges of several other parks.) But that's really more of passenger rail line and it was there long before the park. Most of the examples that come to mind are along those lines. In fact, there is already a transit line through Forest Park . . . though like that above it predated the park. (And likewise there's a rail line through Carondolet Park that folks have been coveting on this board and elsewhere for potential Metrolink expansion.) But in the larger sense of public transportation there are highways through several parks, including Balboa Park in San Diego . . . and Forest Park, technically. (Though it/they really just cut corners of Forest Park.) While highways and roads aren't likely what you mean by "dedicated public transport" (since I believe you mean urban rail transit of one sort or another), I very much believe they have as negative an impact on utility. A streetcar shouldn't have any more of a detrimental effect on a park than a public road running through it. And I'd say less than your typical highway or rail right of way. (That northeast corner of Forest Park is pretty well widowed by Forest Park Parkway and the old Wabash line . . . or Metrolink if you insist.) And stuff burried under, a la the DC Metro or Chicago Metra obviously has no notable negative impact at all. (Some noise if you're near a ventilation shaft, but then there's some degree of traffic noise in pretty much any urban park.) It's a bit apples and oranges, to say the least, but I don't really see a streetcar doing harm. And if it's a tourist draw in the Loop . . . well . . . I think the park is a bigger tourist attraction still.

I feel like it would make more sense to run something south from CWE or BJ and around the SE corner toward Dogtown. Then you're connecting actual urban places to the Metrolink and the Zoo monorail.

^Or make CWE the other end point. Extend the trolley through Forest Park weaving around the Muny, Jewel box, fields, and Science Center. Take it up Clayton under Kingshighway around BJC and have it terminate at the CWE Metrolink.

RuskiSTL wrote:^^ Exactly. How many miles of track would be needed just to get through the park? Using google maps if the trolley went by way of the art museum on Fine Arts Dr, it's already 1.3 miles just to the Zoo entrance. Then you have logistical nightmare to get the streetcar out the Hampton exit.

This is all assuming that a trolley in the park is a good idea. Forest Park was originally built to provide a respite from urban living. I'm all for streetcars/trolleys/trains running down most St. Louis streets but I don't think Forest Park is appropriate. Does anyone have a good example of dedicated public transport in a major urban park?

Assuming Zoo paid for an internal system for efficiently getting folks across from South Campus (and major parking zone) to the main North Campus, something that theoretically could be freaking fantastic is something of an internal park streetcar proceeding down Government Dr. away from the Zoo and Fine Arts Dr. with stops at World's Fair Pavilion, Boat House and Muny before looping around the beautiful Pagoda Dr. The entire length from the Mo History would be 2.1 miles. You possibly could even have this as a car-restricted zone to address some of those "urban respite" concerns.

Again, theoretically a blast but likely a difficult challenge to pull off.... for one, a big issue likely would be the Cincinnati Streetcar Too Much Success Challenge... it unexpectedly has been extremely popular on weekends but they only have limited service during that period with two cars running (versus I think 4 running on weekdays) and are having to pass customers by as they are too full. (Hopefully the internal in-fighting will be overcome soon.) Having enough small-capacity, old-timey trolleys to run with decent headways to handle peak times may be difficult, especially balancing against the other times that would be pretty quiet. Anyway, fun to imagine things.

Don't we already have a trolley in Forest Park?

I don't understand the point of calling the forest park and downtown buses trolleys. Everyone knows they are buses. If you got actual trolleys way more people would ride them because they're distinctive and have way less of a stigma.

mjbais1489 wrote:I don't understand the point of calling the forest park and downtown buses trolleys. Everyone knows they are buses. If you got actual trolleys way more people would ride them because they're distinctive and have way less of a stigma.

In STL busses are viewed by many as a means of transportation for only elderly and poor people. By calling it trolley it lessens the stigma and attempts to change that image.


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mjbais1489 wrote:I don't understand the point of calling the forest park and downtown buses trolleys. Everyone knows they are buses. If you got actual trolleys way more people would ride them because they're distinctive and have way less of a stigma.

Lots of trolleys are buses.

I don't see the point of laying rail all over FP when people can just use a bus. It's obviously not a poor-person commuter vehicle so what's the stigma?

Oh I fully agree I don't want actual tracks on the ground. Not sure why you can't just use a trolley that has wheels. Not sure how to embed pictures but the first couple pictures you get when you google trolleys are they types of trolleys I imagine would get way more use.

I guess I see the stigma like you do. But I don't see the point of using these "trolleys" downtown and in forest park as ways of de stigmatizing the system. In my experience people just don't use them. I lived downtown for 2 years and I nor any of my roommates used them, and I spend a lot of time in forest park and don't know anyone whose used them.

IMO making them distinctive and look like actual trolleys would lead to them being used way more and take off of some of the stigma. Could even have a metro card required to use them (once gateway cards get off the ground) so way more people would have gateway cards. Maybe I'm wrong, they just don't seem successuful the way they are currently set up from my POV

pat wrote:^Or make CWE the other end point. Extend the trolley through Forest Park weaving around the Muny, Jewel box, fields, and Science Center. Take it up Clayton under Kingshighway around BJC and have it terminate at the CWE Metrolink.

Crazy unnecessary. The obvious route is Delmar to Euclid and down to the Metro station.

mjbais1489 wrote: they just don't seem successful the way they are currently set up

Surely this is actually measurable, somewhere.

Crazy unnecessary. The obvious route is Delmar to Euclid and down to the Metro station.

The entire Loop trolley is crazy unnecessary. Its a tourist trolley. So having it go through Forest Park to hit the tourist attractions makes sense if that's going to be its purpose.

If it is something intended to be used as transit, I wouldn't bother going down Euclid. I would continue down Delmar and have it cut through Midtown to Downtown

Pershing at DeBaliviere to close on Friday.