Metro has a new website that lays out a 30 year vision for our transit system. Personally I think this is the way they should have been selling Metro for years, but I guess its never to late.



www.movingtransitforward.org



This is what the 30 year plan will focus on (I guess its pending a tax increase similar to the one in Denver, where surrounding counties are included).



1-5 year action plan:



* Restore service that was cut in March 2009 where practical

* Enhance service and amenities to make transit experience more pleasant and convenient

* Begin planning any light trail or commuter rail transit expansion

* Implement any Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) service and park-ride lots at BRT stations.



5-10 year investments:



* Construction of BRT, light rail, and/or transit centers



10-30 year investments:



* Further study of potential corridors or additional technologies

* Development and implementation of land-use strategies that support and encourage transit use



Although I believe the surrounding suburban counties do need transit, it will be an extremely tough campaign (I believe it took Denver like 10 years before every county agreed to join). Personally I would prefer a Transit Development District like they have in Dallas. Your city or county wants transit, join the TDD. I think that would be the most logical way to impose a transit tax in St. Louis.

thanx

Although I believe the surrounding suburban counties do need transit, it will be an extremely tough campaign (I believe it took Denver like 10 years before every county agreed to join). Personally I would prefer a Transit Development District like they have in Dallas. Your city or county wants transit, join the TDD. I think that would be the most logical way to impose a transit tax in St. Louis.

Goat:



Dallas does not have a Transit Development District. Each of the 13 Cities in the DART service area had to vote separately to become part of the District. In fact, any of the cities can vote to leave DART. Two cities did vote to leave DART (Coppell and Grand Prairie). Irving voted within the past 10 years to leave DART, but the city voted to stay in DART.



Mesquite conducted a vote in the past, but the vote lost by something like 30 votes. (I don't remember the exact vote, but I was in a meeting recently with the Mayor of Mesquite where it came up.)



The maximum sales tax by State law is 6.5 % for the State and up to 2 % for local governments. In the DART service area, DART collects 1 % (which generates $387 million last year in the 13 cities with a population of 2.6 million or so.) We have been as high as $426 million, but the recession has hurt us.



In the Non DART cities, most have used a provision of the State that permits 4a/4b where the money can be used for economic development and to reduce property taxes.



The 4a/4b taxes really stand in the way of expanding the DART service area.



Arlington Texas used its 4a/4b to help build the new Cowboy stadium and perhaps to help the Rangers. Arlington has no mass transit system.



Fort Worth has a 1/2 cent sales tax, but it will probably be insufficient to expand much more of the system.

so busdad, what can we do to "fix" st. louis? city county merger? what do you suggest? more state funding? i heard infighting between north and south city killed the north/south metro line. is that true?

JCity wrote:so busdad, what can we do to "fix" st. louis? city county merger? what do you suggest? more state funding? i heard infighting between north and south city killed the north/south metro line. is that true?

I'm pretty sure lack of any funding of any kind killed north/south.

Metro Discussion on St. Louis on The Air.



http://kwmuweb.streamguys.com/Slota/102109web_56k.asx

I'm a bit confused as to why all the potential BRT lines (but one? is that Grand?) are located on the highways. I mean, it makes sense from the standpoint that there are plenty of lanes on the highway, and the highway is the fastest road. But how are pedestrians going to get to the middle of the highway? Doesn't this disconnect the BRT from the neighborhoods it's going through? I know this is preliminary and all, but I would have liked to see more BRT going in on the countless wide streets we have in the city.

I would assume it would basically be an express bus that just got off at certain exits to pick people up.

Probably won't happen but I would love to see them extend the Metro line that stops in Shrewsbury down 44 with stops in downtown Webster Groves, downtown Kirkwood, maybe Valley Park and ending in Eureka and Six Flags.



A line that goes from Clayton to Shrewsbury to Webster to Kirkwood to Valley Park and ends in Eureka makes a lot of sense to me.

^You also could have Northside-Southside as rapid streetcar for less than the price of any single light-rail corridor. By rapid streetcar, I mean modern trams within reserved lanes.



The Northside-Southside Study identified streets such as Natural Bridge and Jefferson, where there is space for semi-exclusive treatments, but you could save money by building a cheaper, less invasive trackbed for streetcars instead. I would also forgo the I-55 section of Southside for a street-running route, but that far south could be a much later phase.



What Metro has shared as the "Minimum Operating Segment" for Northside-Southside in their "Moving Transit Forward" presentations would be a good Phase-I. That "MOS" appears to run from Grand/Natural Bridge to Broadway/Chippewa. Latter phases would not even have to follow the remainder of the Northside-Southside LPA route. Instead, Grand, Chippewa, and other high-ridership routes may make more sense beyond that initial "MOS." Besides, streetcar is more about shorter trips within the urban core, not long-distance commuters.



St. Louis was once a leader in light-rail transit with MetroLink in the early 1990's. But when it comes to modern streetcars, the list of US cities only keeps growing, with St. Louis strangely absent:

Albuquerque

Atlanta

Arlington

Augusta

Austin

Baltimore

Boise

Brooklyn

Charlotte

Cincinnati

Colorado Springs

Columbus

Dallas

Detroit

Ft. Lauderdale

Ft. Worth

Gainesville

Grand Rapids

Indianapolis

Jacksonville

Kansas City

Lancaster

Long Beach

Los Angeles

Miami

Milwaukee

Minneapolis

New Haven

New Orleans

Oklahoma City

Philadelphia

Portland

Providence

Sacramento

Salt Like City

San Antonio

Seattle

Spokane

Stamford

Tacoma

Tempe

Tucson

Washington

Winston-Salem

^True, St. Louis is on the list, but it links to the Loop Trolley project, which is not a modern streetcar project. Indeed, St. Louis is not on Infrastructurist's mapfor that very reason.



And each city has a project at various stages, many lacking funding, including Kansas City. Portland and Seattle out West are the best known and operational, but both Charlotte and DC on the East Coast have started laying tracks.



But most interestingly, even in the Heartland, Oklahoma City voters just passed their local funding source. Obviously, that's neither coast, and a Red State at that.

METRO'S PLANNING



Three good articles in The St. Louis Globe Democrat newspaper the past two days:



Metro lays out future of public transportation

By Brian Flinchpaugh

St. Louis Globe Democrat



Originally published December 9, 2009 at 9:15 a.m., updated December 8, 2009 at 11:03 p.m.



Metro officials outlined a wide range of potential future public transportation improvements at a community meeting Tuesday evening that may become a reality if money is available.



READ ENTIRE ARTICLE:

http://www.globe-democrat.com/news/2009 ... portation/



----



St. Louis County tax increase could fund metro growth

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

St. Louis Globe Democrat



Metro said it’s trying to move ahead with development but will need more tax money to do it so St. Louis County residents could see a proposed sales tax increase on the April ballot.



According to Metro - St. Louis Director of Communications Dianne Williams, Metro is in the middle of determining a long range plan for public transportation.



READ ENTIRE ARTICLE:

http://www.globe-democrat.com/news/2009 ... etro-grow/





----



St. Louis County Council considers sales tax for Metro

By Brian Flinchpaugh

St. louis Globe Democrat

Wednesday, December 9, 2009



The St. Louis County Council may decide next week whether to place a half-cent sales tax on the April 6 ballot to provide more funding for Metro, the area's public transportation agency.



The council may consider placing the measure on the ballot at their Tuesday, Dec. 15 meeting. The measure was on the council's agenda Tuesday night for a second reading.



READ ENTIRE ARTICLE:

http://www.globe-democrat.com/news/2009 ... tax-metro/

Mill204 wrote:Question: is anybody concerned with the way the Moving Transit Forward workshops completely omit streetcars while mentioning every other mode of transit?

It bothers me, as I shared my thoughts recently in a guest post on Urban Review STL.



I helped manage the Northside-Southside Study when I worked at East-West Gateway three years ago. I now work in Charlotte, where preliminary engineering is underway for modern streetcar, plus a few blocks of tracks have already been built in conjunction with a streetscape project. Growing up in St. Louis, I'm afraid my hometown will have a lot of catching up to do soon, if they don't seriously consider streetcars.



From the recent public meetings for Metro's Moving Transit Forward, I find it interesting their results from public input show the most support for Northside-Southside. In a recent Executive Briefing in Clayton, Metro shared a presentation that showed ("NS-SS MOS" on slide 19 of 30) the inner-core segment of Northside-Southside from roughly Grand/Natural Bridge to Broadway/Chippewa as a Minimum Operating Segment (MOS). I think this would make an excellent streetcar line.



Given that that County holds the pursestrings for Metro, MetroLink extensions are much more likely in the County, albeit short extensions, and just one a decade. But the City has the opportunity to build on the clear public support for more transit there by pursuing cheaper streetcar lines. I think what Metro is calling the "Northside-Southside MOS" should be modern streetcar, instead of conventional light-rail transit.

Here is a link to the draft report:

Moving Transit Forward

My biggest fear about this plan is that it will bend over backwards to please suburbanites that never even use the system. Also the lack of conversation about implementing modern streetcars in the city is also very disturbing. St. Louis is so far behind the curve in that department that it isn't even funny. St. Louis City is way more urban than Portland and Seattle, but they are pumping out the streetcar lines ever 18 months or so. I'm also pissed that the state of Missouri provides a pathetic amount of funding to the transit system. If this tax passes (which for some reason I believe it will), I'm almost certain that the city will get one, maybe even two crappy BRT lines and the E-W Gateway will blow the rest of the money on a Westport line that will probably not even qualify for federal subsidies, because of West County's lack of density and sprawl dominated zoning! The N-S line is what the majority of people that actually use the system want, but I'm sure E-W Gateway will buckle to political pressures and not do the right thing for the region!