urbanSTL

We can debate and trash/praise the KCStreetcar all day, every day but I don’t think the Loop Trolley is the place for that.

I happen to find the KCStreetcar fun and see it as a viable form of transportation, especially once the extensions are done. I like that that the ridership is coming back. It’s all good stuff and good for KC for having it even if it is a “glorified bus”.

The Loop Trolley, despite being Joe Edwards’s big toy, has the opportunity to be something truly great despite its problems. People can joke about it all day, but it is an asset. The infrastructure is there and the trolley cars are here too. It just needs a plan to get up and running and actually deliver on transporting people. If done right, more development will pop up. And while it only serves the Loop and Debaliviere, one is one of the most walkable, if not the most walkable, street in the region while the other has the opportunity to become just as walkable. Things take time, but for the Loop Trolley, operations need to get rolling again.

chriss752 wrote: ↑

Jan 13, 2022

We can debate and trash/praise the KCStreetcar all day, every day but I don’t think the Loop Trolley is the place for that.

I happen to find the KCStreetcar fun and see it as a viable form of transportation, especially once the extensions are done. I like that that the ridership is coming back. It’s all good stuff and good for KC for having it even if it is a “glorified bus”.

The Loop Trolley, despite being Joe Edwards’s big toy, has the opportunity to be something truly great despite its problems. People can joke about it all day, but it is an asset. The infrastructure is there and the trolley cars are here too. It just needs a plan to get up and running and actually deliver on transporting people. If done right, more development will pop up. And while it only serves the Loop and Debaliviere, one is one of the most walkable, if not the most walkable, street in the region while the other has the opportunity to become just as walkable. Things take time, but for the Loop Trolley, operations need to get rolling again.

If reliable and free (with decent headways) the trolley would promote additional density.  That's the formula clicking in KC.  The Delmar/Skinker project is a canary in a coal mine.  If NIMBY's shoot it down, I believe possibilities moving east down Delmar would be tempered.  Hope I'm wrong.

St. Louisans of all walks appear united in their hatred of the Loop Trolley. In typical StL fashion, they’ll choose to spend millions destroying useful capital.

JaneJacobsGhost wrote: ↑

Jan 13, 2022

St. Louisans of all walks appear united in their hatred of the Loop Trolley. In typical StL fashion, they’ll choose to spend millions destroying useful capital.

Media has influenced opinion on this one.  Needs a full rebrand.  World's Fair Trolley FTW.  Someone needs to open a hot dog and ice cream/waffle cone joint on Debalivere in or near the new Expo development.  Call it "The Pike".

FWIW KC is actually an exception in terms of recently built streetcars being successful. Atlanta, Cincinnati, Detroit all have systems with ridership way below projection, slow and heavily criticized. So this isn't just a "St. Louisans are backward" issue (personally I also like the Loop Trolley and want it to keep running, though for free). 

JaneJacobsGhost wrote: ↑

Jan 13, 2022

ldai_phs wrote: ↑

Jan 13, 2022

JaneJacobsGhost wrote:I’m not jealous. A street car is just a bus for yuppy white people

Exactly what people say about light rail of all forms……

Um, that’s definitely not what people say about Metrolink

I do! I mean, I like MetroLink because trains are fun, but pragmatically I feel like the region has more pressing and practical transportation concerns.

KC is an outlier because the system is free. Also Metrolink is a fantastic (albeit incomplete) transit system.  Trains are clean, always on time to the minute, and connect a lot of important areas an institutions.

We have it all wrong! It’s not either or, it’s AND

KC Streetcar AND St. Louis MetroLink (Siemens SD-400 and SD-460) = Pittsburgh T

Save tens of millions by repurposing MetroLink cars. Coming to Olive, dedicated ROW, Grand to Broadway.

It's not so much I am envious of their street car but am envious of what a similar project could have accomplished on a North-South alignment in St. Louis City. Certainly more than the Loop Trolley, which regardless of some people here liking it, is an unviable project.

Ebsy wrote: ↑

Jan 13, 2022

It's not so much I am envious of their street car but am envious of what a similar project could have accomplished on a North-South alignment in St. Louis City. Certainly more than the Loop Trolley, which regardless of some people here liking it, is an unviable project.

I don't think a similar project would have accomplished anything at all on the N/S alignment. Two miles gets you from Kiel to Johnnie Brock's Dungeon. Or from Kiel to Cass if you go north, which is even less useful. Two miles is a drop in the bucket. You could make a connector downtown, maybe, but the alignment up 9/10th overlaps so completely with the existing alignment up 8th that I've honestly never understood what they're thinking. Great, let's add six more stations within two blocks of three existing stations. You could maybe put two miles elsewhere on the system, but it wouldn't connect to anything other than a bus, so what would be the point to that? I am completely in favor of N/S, but I don't think the Loop Trolley has any relationship to it at all. (Save that the failure of the thing is arguably making N/S a harder sell. Ergo I want to see it succeed. Somehow.)

symphonicpoet wrote: ↑

Jan 14, 2022

Ebsy wrote: ↑

Jan 13, 2022

It's not so much I am envious of their street car but am envious of what a similar project could have accomplished on a North-South alignment in St. Louis City. Certainly more than the Loop Trolley, which regardless of some people here liking it, is an unviable project.

I don't think a similar project would have accomplished anything at all on the N/S alignment. Two miles gets you from Kiel to Johnnie Brock's Dungeon. Or from Kiel to Cass if you go north, which is even less useful. Two miles is a drop in the bucket. You could make a connector downtown, maybe, but the alignment up 9/10th overlaps so completely with the existing alignment up 8th that I've honestly never understood what they're thinking. Great, let's add six more stations within two blocks of three existing stations. You could maybe put two miles elsewhere on the system, but it wouldn't connect to anything other than a bus, so what would be the point to that? I am completely in favor of N/S, but I don't think the Loop Trolley has any relationship to it at all. (Save that the failure of the thing is arguably making N/S a harder sell. Ergo I want to see it succeed. Somehow.)

What do you get if you add all the cash we'll have to pay back to the Feds to the budget?

MarkHaversham wrote:

symphonicpoet wrote: ↑

Jan 14, 2022

Ebsy wrote: ↑

Jan 13, 2022

It's not so much I am envious of their street car but am envious of what a similar project could have accomplished on a North-South alignment in St. Louis City. Certainly more than the Loop Trolley, which regardless of some people here liking it, is an unviable project.

I don't think a similar project would have accomplished anything at all on the N/S alignment. Two miles gets you from Kiel to Johnnie Brock's Dungeon. Or from Kiel to Cass if you go north, which is even less useful. Two miles is a drop in the bucket. You could make a connector downtown, maybe, but the alignment up 9/10th overlaps so completely with the existing alignment up 8th that I've honestly never understood what they're thinking. Great, let's add six more stations within two blocks of three existing stations. You could maybe put two miles elsewhere on the system, but it wouldn't connect to anything other than a bus, so what would be the point to that? I am completely in favor of N/S, but I don't think the Loop Trolley has any relationship to it at all. (Save that the failure of the thing is arguably making N/S a harder sell. Ergo I want to see it succeed. Somehow.)

What do you get if you add all the cash we'll have to pay back to the Feds to the budget?

It will take some pretty foolish governance to have to pay these funds back. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but it’s completely preventable.


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^That is my biggest concern. I don't mind the trolley. It made my grandmother very happy to see it. (And ride it.) But . . . I really don't want the city to lose the money.

Whether we like it or not, a large part of our region is tying the Loop Trolley to other much more important transit. I think it’s in our best interest to find a way to make the Loop Trolley work.


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SeattleNative wrote: ↑

Jan 14, 2022

It will take some pretty foolish governance to have to pay these funds back. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but it’s completely preventable.

You could say that about a lot of things the government does nowadays lol.

imran wrote: ↑

Jan 13, 2022

I’ve never been emotionally invested in the failure of an investment in the City so don’t quite understand that stance. They got it built. How about we focus on making it work?

The loop trolley is unique and will be an iconic success if/when run reliably.  And for all the KC streetcar hype, is it really all that much more than a free shuttle between business districts?

1) Get out of here with your level headed logic  

2) I think you've nailed two things about the Loop Trolley.  As I and others have stated and you imply here, it has been brutally mismanaged, even from the design.  The secon part dof your quote says it all - KC streetcar connects 2 business districts.  Unfortunately for the Loop Trolley Skinky-D isn't one (yet?) and the line stops too far from CWE to be useful to the average would-be-rider.   So not only is the schedule a farce but the end of line is no man's land, at the least utilized portion of Forest Park.  I wish they had found a way to extend (or do so in the future) to Kingshighway, perhaps down Grand Dr. through the park, with a loop or terminus at West Pine.

That said, I am in full agreement that supporting this project and identifying ways to make it a success is a better approach than throwing our hands up, ripping it out, and paying back the feds. 
 

These along the Loop Trolley route would go a long way. Also, would be nice to have them at all MetroLink stations and Transit Centers



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Now to see if they do anything with the additional time.