urbanSTL

Can you write in more coherent sentences, stmdqmw?



Busdad, the pressure from Kansas City to build light rail should aid the cause for more funding by the state. I think the future KC entity and Metro should corner the political state together. That and Dems in Washington should up the funding of mass transit.

It is certainly interesting that the Kansas City Light Rail decision came from the "people" rather than the transit or political leadership.



While it is always possible that our governor or legislature could surprise us, it sure doesn't seem that anything new for Missouri like a significant Statewide transportation program is going happen.



I don't currently know what the final decision is for the $20 million will be, but it is clear to me that our success for St. Louis will be held by St. Louis County voters in November.



Rumor has it the financial plan is this:



The City and County will attempt to obtain legislation to permit the City's 1997 1/4th Cent to be collected without a corresponding approval by the County.



Second, the County will place a 1/2 cent tax on the ballot for November. Half of this tax will be used for continuing operations. The City does not want to add an additional 1/4th cent sales tax on the ballot. (This certainly casts doubt on the City's real commitment to any City Street Car lines.)



The second 1/4th cent in the County would be used to extend off the existing alignment north to I-270 and west to I-270. (Most likely to the Westport area.)



This plan may require additional investment in the core between the CWE and Emerson Park to allow closer scheduling of trains.



The County is reportedly uninterested in helping to fund a north-south street car line.



The Metro suggestion to build off the existing alignment would perhaps result in about 4 miles of new Metrolink north into North County and roughly 4 miles west would get Metro deeper into West County and North County.





Looking at the 1997 vote for Metro, it seems that the referendum is more likely to pass in West County and North County with this approach that could allow shorter, quicker builds to more of the county. Trying to build entirely new lines will use all the money and would probably only add service into one part of the County.

A mixed levy (1/4-cent City, 1/2-cent County) may be the best political solution. For buses, the City can still get improved frequency on routes with lower subsidies, while the County would help sustain the expanded coverage of its more highly subsidized routes. For MetroLink, the added funding from only the County would answer what everyone knows, but even County politicians lack the guts to say, and that is heading west next has the broadest public support. Even for the City, a County expansion west would save reverse commuters, many of them transit-dependent, time over today's bus connections, helping those living in the affordable core reach moreg jobs increasingly at the fringe faster.



Aside from the staunchly fiscally conservative groups that oppose virtually all tax levies, there are still two broad groups in the County that could kill the half-cent County increase. One, moderates who think building anywhere but along 40 is crazy. Two, liberals who think heading west supports sprawl. And considering many conservatives will automatically vote against a tax increase, other voters are certainly needed to pass any tax increase in the County. Hence, the campaign needs to convince voters that A) Westport makes a lot of sense for County development and regional commuting patterns and B) heading west actually benefits the neediest of transit users living east, in or near the City.



As for Northside-Southside, this study always seemed ill-timed, when Cross County's completion would obviously raise public pressure on determining the next expansion priority. Unless the City shows some political will and can find common ground with the County, this may sadly end up just another plan sitting on the shelf.

I am slightly confused.



Busdad, Metro could build a 4 mile extension north from the Hanley Station towards Florissant? There better be few stations so that the timing is decent.



Metro could also build a four mile extension from Clayton to Westport?



And will Metro potentially build a connecter between Hanley and Clayton with a Westport connection. I feel like this would be a Y with the longer stem going to Wesport and the two smaller v sections going to Clayton and Hanley.



These expansions may take more than a 1/2 cent tax, and I think points beyond I-270 may need to be served via a commuter rail or faster Metrolink with an added lane of track to bypass stations like in Chicago.

If the system is going to continue to grow (laterally at least) some form of "express" system is going to be needed. Sitting on a train for an hour or so to get to Alton from downtown isn’t my idea of “responsive to the publics needs” Also my perception on it is that people saw a lot of negative and slow development on the Clayton/Shrewsbury extension with huge cost overruns and what could be seen as political bickering... a quick cheap easy extension closer to a large unserved tax base (west county or Florissant) could prove to be pivotal in the quest for more funding - say to build the all important north - south line.

Ok I used 4 miles for effect.



If you extended north off the existing alignment it would be roughly 3 to 3.5 miles depending upon the exact alignment. The original alignment included some structure that would permit a Y just as the alignment goes over I-70. (West of Springdale.)



Going to Westport would be more like six miles or so from Clayton if you used that point. You could also connect it to the existing Lambert alignment.



The point is you probably can't build each branch as an entirely new 17 mile line and serve more than one corridor of the County. Political people see I-270 as the being solidly in the "County."

Busdad is right in that a track wye is already in place on the northwest quadrant of the I-70/170 interchange out by Lambert. Unfortunately, a track wye was cut from Cross County in Clayton to ironically keep costs low. The latter point is so significant that it easily adds another $100 million to Daniel Boone's projected $250 million (2007 dollars from 2000 MTIA) cost. And technically, that $250 million price tag only covers west of I-170 to Westport where branching off a conceptual "Metro North" line on the then-CMT/now-Metro right-of-way parallel to I-170, thus the cost from Page/170, not Clayton.



Still, the combination of a "Metro North" branch only north of I-70 and "Daniel Boone" from Clayton to Westport would be far less than a combined "Northside-Southside" line. That mostly street-running light-rail line (technically not a streetcar) primarily within the City but touching Jennings and entering Lemay would easily cost more than Cross County (albeit for nearly three times as many miles of new track), whereas the combined cost of branches to Westport and Florissant would be at or below Cross County's cost in today's dollars.



Another potential benefit to the combined Westport/Florissant scenario is how it could increase frequency on Cross County east of Clayton (including the elaborate subway-built piece) and on the original line east of North Hanley (or future Springdale/70). However, systems on the central corridor section of the original line (Forest Park-Emerson Park) would need to be upgraded to allow trains every 2.5-minutes (if every 5 minutes to Clayton and N.Hanley and 10 minutes on outlying branches). As part of Cross County improvements, I had heard more frequent trains were already possible beyond Forest Park to the CWE station. If this is the case, and there were room for a pocket track east of that station, then Shrewsbury and Florissant trains could end there, with only Lambert and Westport trains continuing to Shiloh-Scott and someday Madison County (until then, Emerson Park). But ideally, all trains should continue through Downtown, making use of the Emerson Park and future Fairview Heights pocket tracks, with not all trains continuing the entire way into the more peak-hour commuter-markets of St. Clair and Madison Counties.



If nothing else, the Northside-Southside Study will highlight how the City lacks support for denser, pedestrian-scaled development, which is essential for even strong bus routes, if not street-running LRT. The County should be concerned about land use too, since demonstrating development potential and effective policy support are dire to a successful federal application, and no MetroLink extension, at least for another 30 years, will be built again with entirely local funds.



As for transit improvements, the City could still very much use bus-based solutions like articulated buses on Grand, and possibly BRT ala Kansas City on Gravois or even maybe Natural Bridge. And while the County could design its shorter MetroLink extensions (and also strategize better suburb-to-suburb connections), the City could more quickly improve its transit in their near-future with lower-cost, bus-based strategies. But as for true streetcars (which Northside-Southside is not), developers in the loft district just need to visit Portland and think of building something more on their own that may connect Downtown with the Loft District and SLU/Grand Center, if the market and City policies can support extensive, dense infill along with continued rehabs and conversions.

And JMed, some regions even use their CMAQ funding for TOD, so there is certainly room to be creative. However, flexing funding for one cause is usually at the opportunity cost of another need.



As for land use, any extension will need federal funding, and the feds are scrutinizing land use today more than ever, with New Starts funding more competitive than ever. As such, any extension in any direction, the popular west or any other, would lead to the feds scrutinizing what impact our existing system has had on land use.



Ultimately then, our region needs to work on supporting more TOD about the billion-plus investment already in place, before returning to the feds with promises of new development about another line.

It's a good sign when a Republican from west County sponsors and pushes a bill to help Metro as well as go father than Busdad did to contemplate a whole cent tax in the Post-Dispatch open to the eyes of many voters.



I wonder if a one-cent tax would generate enough money to start sooner on West County and North County lines?

SMSPlanstu wrote:I wonder if a one-cent tax would generate enough money to start sooner on West County and North County lines?

Is there even a timeline yet? I was under the impression that after Clayton/Shrewsbury - the proposals for the next expansion are just that - proposals... no specific route has been chosen officially and no date has even been announced to start preliminary engineering work (other than the feasibility studies that were already completed).

tbspqr wrote:

Is there even a timeline yet? I was under the impression that after Clayton/Shrewsbury - the proposals for the next expansion are just that - proposals... no specific route has been chosen officially and no date has even been announced to start preliminary engineering work (other than the feasibility studies that were already completed).

East-West Gateway has been planning so many MetroLink corridors over the last ten years, and at different levels of planning, that even this MetroLink-junkie gets confused too. Click on the status table link (mid-page under map) on this official MetroLink planning website to see where each corridor stands in its stage of development. CMT has a similiar table on their website.



As you'll see in the E-W Gateway and CMT tables, only Madison County is at the early level of a feasibility study. "Metro North" was recommended as a transit strategy in the 1997 Cross County MTIA as a conceptual extension from Clayton to Florissant, primarily along I-170. However, current interest is only in building the segment north of I-70, utilizing the existing track-wye east of Lambert and adding trains to the popular Hanley branch.



Studied more recently in 2000, "Daniel Boone," on the other hand, resulted in an officially adopted route. Called a Locally Preferred Alternative, the official route resulted from a full alternatives analysis in the Daniel Boone MTIA of 1999/2000. That analysis fully compared what the route from Clayton to Westport via the mostly inactive Rock Island Railroad south of Page against the more common-wisdom route along Highway 40. It was in such study that East-West Gateway infamously decided not to expand MetroLink along Highway 40, since the alternative to Westport offered more development potential, slightly less construction cost, but most importantly, better ridership, especially off-peak (or non-rush-hour), when compared to an extension along Highway 40.

^JMed, there is a clear advantage to having Florissant trains branch off the original line, instead of Cross County in Clayton. That is the Lambert branch (aka original line) could use the added frequency of trains to North Hanley. Right now, this is the most underserved section of the MetroLink system, or where trains continue to be the most crowded on non-event weekdays. However, Clayton and WashU would still get to see more trains too, if Westport trains branched off the Shrewsbury branch (aka Cross County) west of Clayton. Granted, there would be no single-ride connection from Clayton to Lambert, but neither of the two Lambert stations nor their combination has ever been among the busiest of the system.



As for BRT, County MetroLink extensions (Westport and Florissant) would enable better bus connections on inbound express and reverse-commute shuttles, each ideally with time-saving limited-stop service. Some connections from Westport to Chesterfield, Creve Coeur, and Maryland Heights could be better branded and operate more like BRT. But as for doing a true BRT route akin to Kansas City's successful MAX route, I'm thinking the Northside and Southside corridors would be good candidates. Such routes would be bi-directional, frequent, limited-stop service with branded, stylized shelters. On the Southside, BRT could utilize Gravois as its trunk with branches to Shrewsbury and Gravois/Hampton, buses having overlapping frequency between Chippewa/Gravois and Downtown. On the Northside, BRT could be split between Natural Bridge and West Florissant, respectively serving UMSL and Northland, yet the two branches converging on North Florissant in Old North St. Louis to Downtown. In all cases, however, BRT works best as an addition to existing Interstate-based express routes and reverse-commute shuttles, not their replacement. However, some local routes, like 11x for example, would make sense to cut, in light of improved service on new BRT routes.



Finally, back to the County and BRT. With its added lanes west of I-170, the New I-64 would certainly have physical feasibility for BRT. It's worth exploring and maybe could be combined with the Daniel Boone extension, so long as the public can be assured there won't be any bait-and-swith of promised rail to Westport replaced with enhanced buses to Ballas/Chestefield. No matter what though, a quick connection between Brentwood/64 and the Ballas MetroBus center will remain a crucial piece of the multi-modal system. Hence, why Metro needs added funds just to maintain existing levels of service in light of 40 reconstruction. But as for how that effort is coming along in Jeff City, I personally don't know.

^Ironically, it was Clayton's own politically connected and/or financially able residents years ago that pressured planners to avoid linking them. The planning of the first MetroLink line in the 1980s had sought to go to Clayton. Yet Clayton still managed to end up on the system. The concentration of jobs as a destination finally outweighed all the outcry by affluent NIMBYs, though they certainly made us pay the price.



But in hindsight, Clayton's initial loss did benefit key areas. That is, today, UMSL, the Delmar Loop and even extremely poor Wellston have all been riding the benefits of MetroLink longer now due to Clayton's shortsightedness. And you have to wonder if the Loop's amazing success or even Wellston's slower upturn would have even happened without MetroLink. For one, Joe Edwards will tell you he built the Pageant where it is because he was inspired to expand east towards a new bookend, the Delmar MetroLink station.

I got a response from State Senator Michael Gibbons:

Thank you for your letter regarding the funding for Metro to help mitigate the I-64 construction problem.



I am working with the Senate Transportation chairman to develop a plan to provide some additional funding. Whether we can get to the level as requested by Metro or not is unclear; however, we have a plan on how to pursue it in a way that gives us the best chance of gaining the favor of other legislators.



Thank you for contacting me.

Any spelling mistakes are mine.



This was a full letter on Senate letterhead, and actually addressed to me and signed by Sen. Gibbons, so big thanks to him for creating such a professional response. This is the type of thing that voters remember come elections.



Rep. Kathlyn Fares provided an e-mail response which was also apparently written by her about two weeks ago; so thanks there as well:

Thank you for your e-mail. Our St. Louis Regional Caucus is hosting a meeting to get more information on this important issue.

The governor's office has not said anything on way or the other, at least not yet.

The great thing about linking North Hanley to Florissant is the North Park development, which by the way needs to be redesigned to orient towards the station and pedestrian walkability. A Metrolink line to North Park may create another STL County Central Business District and unsuprisingly it may be a good thing for North County with immediate proximity to the airport, highways, and big bedroom communities to the north, south, and east.



I also dare Metro to send the Metrolink deep into Florissant to Lindbergh Blvd north of the historic quarter.

This is just my humble opinion.



MetroLink is doomed to fail just like the St. Louis City public schools. Money is not the problem preformance is and neither has nor will preform well enough to succeed.



I read (and I can't find it again) that the St. Louis City Schools have the highest cost per student rate in the state. I wouldn't be surprised that it would be cheaper to pay for cab rides for MetroLinks current ridership then it has to and operate build this over priced and under used monstrosity.



That is just my humble opinion.

The Curmudgeon wrote:This is just my humble opinion.



MetroLink is doomed to fail just like the St. Louis City public schools. Money is not the problem preformance is and neither has nor will preform well enough to succeed.



I read (and I can't find it again) that the St. Louis City Schools have the highest cost per student rate in the state. I wouldn't be surprised that it would be cheaper to pay for cab rides for MetroLinks current ridership then it has to and operate build this over priced and under used monstrosity.



That is just my humble opinion.

Mr. Curmudgeon:



You are so terribly incorrect.



I am sure that many uniformed people believe that the problem is performance and mismanagement. However, review the National Transit Database statistics published for Metro over the past five years to see how we compare to our peers. Those statistics don't suggest performance problems.



Most people look at Cross County as the documentation for Metro's mismanagement. It is certainly true that the project cost more than planned. It started later than hoped. Those two facts are tragic and certainly hurt Metro's image significantly. There is a lawsuit underway that will determine if it was Metro or the designers who "mismanaged the Cross County project.



But if you ride the system daily since the new alignment has started, you can't honestly see a flawed system. It is no monstrosity. It was a complex system built in a tough area, and it now works very well. Ridership on Metrolink since September has been up over 40 %. Ridership in December was up 59 %. Ridership on Metrolink nationally is viewed as very high even with the commuter style market on the 17 miles in Illinois. There may be light rail lines nationally with low usage, but that's not the case here.



The economic impact certainly looks good. There are major development underway all along Metrolink. A $150 million project just announced in Richmond heights was stimulated by Metrolink. The $170 million project planned adjacent to the Forsyth Station was stimulated by Metrolink. The developers of the Couples Station Lofts said that the sales were absolutely stimulated by Metrolink. Ask the Cardinals, Rams and Blues if Metrolink hasn't been part of their success and supported their investment. Ask Pyramid if Metrolink isn't part of their business plan downtown. Ask Mills and the owners of the Euclid Park Place development if their investments in the CWE weren't stimulated in part by Metrolink. Ask numerous developers why they want to build mixed use development on or over the Forest Park Station Park & Ride lot. Ask the owners of the Meridian Development if their investment adjacent to the Brentwood Station wasn't stimilated by Metrolink. Ask Richard Baron if his Couples Station Westin Hotel Development and his East St. Louis Parson Place were not significantly stimulated by Metrolink. Ask the Convention and Visitor's Bureau why they use Metrolink as tool to bring in future major conventions? Why is McEagle's North Park project adjacent to North Hanley also asking for a Springdale Station? Why did UMSL use the North Hanley Metrolink to entice Express Scripts to build adjacent the Station? Ask all these private investors if Metrolink is such a monstrosity. Would they have all made their cumulative billions in long term investments if Metrolink was so bad?



Ask Washington University why it sends all its potential students and parents on Metrolink tours as one of the sales pitches to being the best and brightest to St. Louis. Why did Wash U provide a Metro pass to its 25,000 students, employees, doctors, professors, and staff if its such a monstrosity? Why is BJC considering a similar investment for its 19,000 employees if Metro is so poorly managed and such a monstrosity? Why did Wash U give up its private shuttle for the public system if Metro such a poor performer?



In terms of every day management indicators, Metro's costs per passenger boarding have declined three years in a row. How many US systems have had that experience?



In 2001, on time performance for Metrobus was 80 %. Today, it is 93 %. Check the other systems of similar size or larger to see how many meet that standard.



Customer complaints have declined for five years in a row to a level of historically low levels not just for Metro, but for our peers.



Metrolink on time performance is 98 % measured at every timepoint, every trip and against early and late standards. That is pretty good in my experience.



Workman's compensation costs, unscheduled absentism, and liability claims are at historic lows for Metro and compared to our peers. Accidents are at historic lows for Metro and against our peers. Road failures (breakdowns etc) are at historic lows even for the industry.



The Metrobus service changes in August cut annually 1 million non revenue miles, but INCREASED revenue miles by 500,000 annually. The net change in miles was a 500,000 decrease. Bus ridership was up 8 % in FY06. There is more service for more people and Metrobus miles are lower. Six routes in North County are up 74 % in ridership year to year. That's pretty good by any industry standard.



Over the past five years, Call a Ride has increased the number vehicles on the road from around 60 peak vans to 120 vans. Ridership for our disabled customers has increase by at least double.



Before you "humbly" assert performance problems, please research your claim and then share your supported facts with the forum. It is easy to make a your claim, but you ought to back it up.



On the cab business...the average Metrolink passenger trip is around 7.5 miles. The average Call a Ride trip is around 10 miles. The average Metrobus trips is around 5 miles. (these are unlinked distances). The latest cab rates in the City are around $2.50 drop charge or roughly $2.00 per mile. (there are a few cheaper) That means that the cab cost per Metrolink trip would be $15 per unlinked trip, $10.00 per Metrobus trip, and $20 per call a ride. Metro's average blended cost for all Metro trips is around $3.60 cents based upon current ridership and current costs. For Metrolink, it would be a cost of less than $3.00 per unlinked trip. If you leave out Call a Ride which is heavily impacted to wheelchair usage and has very high per trip costs, the cost per transit trip is much lower. No cab service will beat that Metro's costs as far as I can determine.



There is no way in the world Metro is perfect. We have a long way to go to be the best system. I certainly know is a fact as a rider and after 30 years working as a transit professional working for multiple systems in New York and Illinois as well as Metro.



But I will "humbly" prove to anyone who wants to learn that the Metro system is not mismanaged. We don't have critical performance problems. The most chronic problem Metro faces is and have been consistently inadequate revenue to support the system the regional has desired. You don't add $14 million in new Metrolink operations without some revenue to support it. You don't incur $6 in annual cost growth (3 % on your base operational costs) with only half that in local revenue growth without facing a crisis.



Metro is a huge economic and quality of life asset to the St. Louis region. Its not a poor performer. Metro not a bad investment. Its not a monstrosity. It is a postive profit generator of major proportion for the private and public business in the region. It is not a net drain on public resources.



I am sorry you can't see the value in your public investment in Metro toward the regional GNP. I certainly hope that others will see differently for their own best economic interest.

Those numbers are pretty good to hear. Don't forget that before the system, if I remember correctly, bus ridership had been steadily declining. I didn't know BJC was considering getting employee passes like Washu's! That's awesome, hopefully in the coming years some of those garages might be converted to better uses.



I'd just like to reiterate the plea for everyone to write to their state senators and representatives. I've not recieved a real response from my senator and I didn't get any response from the governor but I got a very positive personalized response from my representative and I live in Town and Country!