urbanSTL

We've talked about how the red and blue lines will share a transfer station with the north-south Jefferson line. What would you think about the blue and red lines adding a stop at Compton, too? 

The Compton Ave. viaduct is being replaced and I kind of feel like Metrolink should be taken into consideration whether a station is ever built there or not. 

Already, I think a Compton Metrolink station would be more convenient than the Grand or future Jefferson stations for Harris-Stowe students and staff, portions of SLU and SLU Med campuses, and Chaifetz Arena access. I also think, even after the north-south Metrolink expansion, that patrons of Midtown Alley may really appreciate it. 

The city is starting to have discussions about reconfiguring the knotted mess of highway and Market/Forest Park Ave. near Chaifetz Arena and Compton Ave., which will potentially open up developable land and, in my opinion, create a better connection for Metrolink with areas north of 64/40.

Top Golf is already slated for space near the new Compton viaduct, right at this proposed station. That alone will be huge for the area, but I expect more is coming and really believe there's an enormous opportunity to also look south and develop and change that entire Chouteau Ave. corridor for the better.

If Metrolink could relocate their Central Facility, and if Airgas and United Refrigeration and some of those industrial companies could clear out (to other areas of the city), I think you could have a pretty special transit-oriented neighborhood in that wedge of land to the south of I-64 and north of Metrolink in Midtown and Downtown West, with three stations - Grand, Compton, and Jefferson (transfer) - anchoring the area. Likewise, I think you could see those three stations helping to anchor a revitalized Chouteau. 

If things go well for St. Louis, there could be impressive density between Park and Forest Park Ave./Market, and Grand and Jefferson. I suppose it could all happen with or without the Compton station, but I do think there’s a solid case for it at some point down the line, and I do think it could strengthen the system and Central Corridor when the area becomes less industrial. 

I’m hoping the Jefferson transfer station will attract development and bring what I think I can see for the area a little closer to reality.

The city is starting to have discussions about reconfiguring the knotted mess of highway and Market/Forest Park Ave. near Chaifetz Arena and Compton Ave.
YES FINALLY!
Its a mess and a whole lot of other adjectives

MODOT is and you can find details here
http://future64.com/?fbclid=IwAR2AWBJkK ... gFOkCUVXwA

They're doing a Planning and Environmental Linkages study, which is a pre NEPA study that you can roll into and save some time when you do NEPA, either way best case is studies wrap
up by end of 2025 and a project comes out of it that starts in about 7 years from now

When I was at MODOT we finished the NEPA study for 270 at end of 2016 and the project got programmed in 2017 for 2020 construction and it should wrap up by end of next year

I hope it happens and that we can open up the land that would allow us to truly give the Central Corridor a spine and fantastic connectivity throughout.

Seven years sounds about right and might closely match the timing for the north-south Metrolink extension. I just think it would be sweet if an extra Compton station could be thrown into the mix to really hammer down the potential of a dense, transit-oriented corridor on both FPA/Market and Chouteau. 

I also wonder if there might be value in a Vandeventer station as well, which could easily service City Foundry and Armory, provide another option for SLU students and staff, and another option for getting to the Grove. IKEA would also be right there at that stop. 

As much as I've written about station expansion this morning, I do agree that Metrolink is not a streetcar and should not be treated as such. 

I think a much better argument could be made for a Compton station than Vandeventer station, but I don't expect we are ever going to actually get it. 

Fair enough. 

Though to be fair to my argument, the stations in the Laclede's Landing-Convention Center-8th & Pine-Stadium-Civic Center-Union Station portion of the route are all as close or closer to each other than any combination of Cortex-Vandeventer-Grand-Compton-Jefferson would be.

Metrolink runs through freight yards in the portion that I've been writing about. I guess I just see some real opportunities for the city to encourage and create density through the area, though I've already acknowledged in my previous posts that new stations (outside of Jefferson) may not be necessary to do this. 

 

Great piece on why rail projects in the US cost so much and get killed after wasting hundreds of millions of dollars

https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/why-c ... ild-trains

Yeah unfortunately in my experience the Cortex station (which I do think is necessary) is only lightly used.

^^ I think that's probably true, that St. Louis can get far more bang for its buck on pedestrian infrastructure than on new Metrolink stations.

I just want what's best for the city, and what's going to promote the most density. 

It will be interesting to see how the city's pedestrian experience is handled in the years going forward. Clearly, there is reason for optimism with the Brickline and other projects, but how will Top Golf handle the pedestrian experience surrounding their property? If the Steelcote area continues to grow, how will Metrolink access be handled for the Grand station? 

It won't be. Recall that parking is being massively subsidized there.

Isn't that by far the smallest park-&-ride lot in the system? It seems to hold maybe twenty cars. 

I think about five to ten years from now, when Corrigan Company has likely moved out for another building of a similar size to the Edwin (Target) on the Grand viaduct. 

The base of that building would be significantly below the viaduct. Knowing that pedestrians in that area will be unable to cross the freight tracks, ever, I hope something will be done to make Metrolink access simple for pedestrians within that growing neighborhood.

How hard would it be to build a South City extension from the Grand Metrolink station?
 
First, I don’t expect this is an extension that would ever be built – or at least not for a long time – but I’m intrigued by a line that was studied in the past. This line would veer off the red/blue lines to the south, swinging past Bar-K and Southwest Garden, The Hill, Northampton, Tower Grove South, essentially the border of Bevo and Dutchtown, Holly Hills, and through Carondelet Park and into Carondelet and Patch. The line could then go into South County. River City Casino could have a station.
 
In many of the images I have seen for this line in the past, it travels down Chouteau before jumping onto existing tracks.
 
I feel like this potential line would resemble the red line in some ways, with Metrolink stations retrofit into an old freight line, but I do like where the tracks go and the new neighborhoods that they would service.
 
I just wonder if it’s even possible to do this from the Grand station. And that’s before we’d find out how hard residents of The Hill or Tower Grove South would want to kill the project.
 
I’m not sure about the logistics of running a third line out of the Grand station or beyond. I’m not sure if you could make Grand a transfer station for this conceptual line or if this line would have to go further along the Metrolink system before being able to do transfers. It just wouldn’t make much sense to me have three lines running on the same tracks between the Grand station and Fairview Heights station.  

^That rail line is currently in use by, I think, Union Pacific but I could be wrong on that particular company. But it is still in use. That's probably why this idea was dropped in addition to the ROW being too narrow that it can't really be widened to accommodate two lines of Metrolink.

The Amtrak Texas Eagle uses those tracks as well.

It would make sense if they dropped the idea for those reasons. 

^It was studied. When the initial planning was done for the N/S extension (back in the late 90s or early 00s?) they looked at three options and floated them to the community. That was one. A second used almost entirely street running, down Grand maybe? The third was the community preferred option, and is what's currently in the planning stages. Anyway, UP has expressed a willingness to sell lines in the past, but there's always a price. There was even talk about closing the 12th St. Yard for Chouteau's Pond back when the greenway was first proposed. Supposedly UP was willing to do it . . . in trade for getting the Carondelet branch back. (Which is presently Grant's Trail.)

Very light use from what I can tell. I can't remember ever seeing a train crossing Kingshighway on the viaduct south of Home Depot. 

PeterXCV wrote:Very light use from what I can tell. I can't remember ever seeing a train crossing Kingshighway on the viaduct south of Home Depot. 

I live near there. I see and hear trains often enough.

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^I'm going out on a limb here, but I'm guessing it's about three or four trains a day, typically, most of which could be rerouted in a pinch. The hardest one would be the Texas Eagle, which is three times a week each way, I think. So far as I'm aware there's no industrial customers left. It's just a convenient way to route some traffic. (If your train is coming off the Iron Mountain Line, of which the "Oak Hill Branch" is actually the main, then it allows you to arrive into the west side of the 12th St. Yard, the north side of Lesperance, or to cross the river without the nasty climb up the south lead to the MacArthur.) Not that I'm advocating turning it into Metrolink. I don't think it would be an incredibly useful line. But I don't think it would be crippling to the railroad to sell it. I could see both arguments. But I'm inclined to think the planned alignment will be better anyway.

The Texas Eagle returned to daily service in March.

https://texasrailadvocates.org/post/amt ... this-month

My dream would be for it to become a regional rail line, I actually think there's several spots along the track that could be viable stations. S Vandeventer/Tower Grove Ave for FPSE/Botanical Heights, Shaw for MOBOT, Southwest Ave for The Hill, Morganford for Tower Grove South, Delor for Dutchtown south, etc. Unfortunately 1) Metro doesn't even have an interest in regional rail 2) When Metrolink was proposed along this route, many of the possible locations I just named were skipped, I believe they only even proposed 5 stops on the whole line.