urbanSTL

My decades of observation of Delmar and DeBaliviere reveals the main contributor to traffics is too many cars.

It's nice to see the trolley running with actual people on it. At some times, it actually seems crowded. 

^ I wish they'd run two trolleys a day instead of the one that is running Thurs-Sun. The 45 minutes to one hour headways is terrible. Glad to see people riding it and yes its FREE to ride.

I wonder if tenants in the Expo and Hudson will utilize the trolley and increase ridership? It would make it easier for them to go to the loop especially if one didn't own a car. Hopefully after the trial run the trolley will run daily and later into the night?

Who knows? But probably not -- everybody wants the thing gone. 

At the end of October, I believe the trolley is being shut down again until Spring 2023. 

I like the trolley and wish it success. I believe in its worth more than others in this region, but it is so evident that this thing will never be taken seriously and is only there because it would cost more if it weren't. They're running out the clock and then it will be gone. 

Then taxpayers will pay to tear up Delmar again. 

Has the Trolley been so demonized in the press and public opinion that they can’t even sell advertising like the ads on the sides of the Cable Cars in San Francisco? And why can’t some tourism funds be used to support this project at this stage. We are the city of the trolley song (and Merry Little Christmas.) If a photo of a charming trolley on Explore St Louis lured just one additional convention, couldn’t some of those added funds be used to simply drive the motor?

Now that the trolley system is all done and tickets machines are off with free rides, how expensive is it to just drive it? Have they asked for volunteer drivers? Amtrak threatened to shut down the Kirkwood train station, but volunteers saved it and are still saving it. Is it just the cost of electricity? Rail maintenance should be cheaper than Delmar road maintenance — no pot holes on tracks. Sheesh.


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At this point, I think St. Louis should embrace the trolley, own it, support it, ride it, promote it, make it work. The Trolley Song is a part of the St. Louis soundtrack. Stop hating it & weave it into the St. Louis lore and experience. I would ride it if I lived in the neighborhood. And would definitely bring all out of town visitors to enjoy it. Streetcars & trolleys are legit St. Louis history. St. Louis visitors should go home with pictures of the arch and singing the Trolley Song.


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BeagleGuy wrote: ↑

Aug 19, 2022

At this point, I think St. Louis should embrace the trolley, own it, support it, ride it, promote it, make it work. The Trolley Song is a part of the St. Louis soundtrack.  Stop hating it & weave it into the St. Louis lore and experience.  I would ride it if I lived in the neighborhood.  And would definitely bring all out of town visitors to enjoy it.  Streetcars & trolleys are legit St. Louis history.  St. Louis visitors should go home with pictures of the arch and singing the Trolley Song.


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I love and support this perspective.  Going to take my kids to the loop this weekend to do just this.

^ Ha. The trolley has been so demonized that it gets blamed for hitting parked cars, as though it's jumping the tracks or menacingly throwing out an elbow. 

I'm beyond trying to reason with people about the trolley and how it could be an asset for St. Louis if we would tweak its model.

Nobody wants to listen to it. Some people think it would be worth it to shut it down permanently now, even if it means coughing back funds to the feds. Literally read the comments for any local article about the trolley and it's there in spades. 

I'm pretty optimistic about the future of St. Louis as a whole, but I don't know how optimistic I am about transit in this region. Ridership for Metrolink has been atrocious as of late and I think we're just as likely to see Metrolink shut down entirely in 10-20 years as we are to seeing it expand by a line or two in that same time.  

I live on the trolley line and my metro stop is forest park. I still choose metro over the trolley because it’s simply faster. Now I also have my metro pass paid for by my employer so I could see how somebody who doesn’t want to pay metro could utilize the trolley. If the trolley goes back to being a paid system it will, in my opinion, fail especially with these current operating hours.

Would love for it to succeed but it’s hardly an option that’s viable.

Gary has a great post.    Anyone has been in San Fran or even has never been in San Fran identifies the cable car as a tourist attraction, a physical representation of the city itself  As someone who has ridden it a couple times I would never identify the cable car as transit and it will never be on par with BART, Muni and the buses that move people in, out and around the city for daily routines.  

At this point the City, Ucity and County leadership along with private stakeholders via Forest Park Forever needs to embrace Trolley as tourist attraction  and find every penny, nickel and quarter in the nook & cranny of each other couches along with as many volunteers possible to keep it free.     Keep getting people to ride it.  Keep getting people identifying it with as part of the Loop & Forest Park.   Keep getting people to identify historical relevance with the streetcar.

begging for another million to run this folly
Throwing money down the toilet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpQ03hphs60

I'm with BeagleGuy and dredger above:

>At this point, I think St. Louis should embrace the trolley, own it, support it, ride it, promote it, make it work. The Trolley Song is a part of the St. Louis soundtrack. Stop hating it & weave it into the St. Louis lore and experience.

> find every penny, nickel and quarter in the nook & cranny of each other couches along with as many volunteers possible to keep it free. 

My little brother's family made an afternoon of it last weekend- park-> trolley -> lunch and root beer floats in the Loop-> trolley back to their cars.  Kids had a blast.  They will ask to do it again.  It will take time but it is not the complete disaster it has been made out to be.  

^+1   :-)

This is the grant they passed on last fall.

StlToday - Loop Trolley to get $1.26 million after regional board approves federal grant

The board of the East-West Gateway Council of Governments voted 15-5 to OK the grant request.

The panel, which oversees federal transportation spending in the metro area, last October had rejected the same grant request on a voice vote.

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/gov ... 16c48.html

The five people that voted 'no' are entirely clueless and shouldn't be involved with local government. 

The Loop Trolley still needs to extend its hours and run all its cars, but it’s been consistent and stayed away from negative press since restarting in August. So naturally, RFT feels the need to stir the pot and suggest its best use is as a bathroom.

https://www.riverfronttimes.com/news/le ... m-38690803


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How does one go about riding the trolley what with it lacking a schedule and it taking 60 minutes to complete a round trip? I want to ride it before it closes for fall, but I don't want to stand there for 45 minutes.

Go for a walk from Forest Park Metrolink station down DeBaliviere and catch it when I see it? Is there something I'm missing on how people figure out when to catch it?

The RFT's Trolley coverage has to be some of their worst stuff, but I do think it reflects the zeitgeist. While obviously we're all in our own little bubbles, people I talk to don't see the Loop Trolley as transit but just some tourist trap that Joe Edwards dreamed up as a vanity project. 

PeterXCV wrote:The RFT's Trolley coverage has to be some of their worst stuff, but I do think it reflects the zeitgeist. While obviously we're all in our own little bubbles, people I talk to don't see the Loop Trolley as transit but just some tourist trap that Joe Edwards dreamed up as a vanity project. 

historic streetcars ARE a tourist trap.

^Yes? But they're sometimes one that locals like too? I don't think I can recall my SF friends moaning about the cable cars. And they seemed convenient and well utilized. On the other hand . . . they have I think more than ten times as many on barely twice as much track, so the headways aren't awful.

I've always felt this was a horizontal Ferris wheel. But I've also been happy to see it running. (Even just the track makes me smile. Even the wire.)

I'll never understand the outrage other than St Louisians love to hate St Louis.

I wonder if anyone working at the RFT ever smiles about anything ever. Must be the most miserable group of people anywhere.