urbanSTL

The problem with a parallel line on Lindell or Forest Park is in headways. I personally love riding the system without use of schedule between Forest Park and Downtown, knowing that even late at night the headways are fairly reasonable. Granted, the addition of WestPort AND Florissant branches could mean that a parallel line would have just as frequent overlapping service, that is two lines running on each of the two hypothetical central-corridor alignments, instead of a cumulative four on today's existing alignment. However, the expansion of the system to new branches will only increase demand at existing stations. One need only look at how Cross County has greatly increased overall system ridership, including more crowded Lambert trains.



Fortunately, the existing central-corridor alignment has room for additional tracks between Taylor and 20th, and again between 14th and 7th. Even other places could be widened but added cost, like between Union Station and Civic Center with retaining walls, although Metro already owns the property along the tracks there.



The current Vandeventer bridge is even three-tracks wide. However, this bridge is slated for a near-future replacement. And whether it's to speed construction and thereby minimize service disruption, or just save on costs, I think the new bridge will only be two-tracks wide. Thinking long-term, I'd go ahead and build only a two-track bridge today, but leave room to someday build perhaps even another parallel two-track bridge in the future, as the Forest Park to Downtown (and into East STL) corridor will easily see more and more trains in its future.

captainjackass wrote:Somewhat tangential to SMSPlanstu's comment, the Bay tunnel proposal was spawned directly from population predictions for the next 50 years, and especially the geographic distribution of those populations. BART, the agency that oversees the heavy rail commuter lines, is banking on 11 million people in the bay area in the next 30 years, only 800,000 of which will live in the city. Their extensions will run pretty far-almost 40 miles from the city, and add 2 lines.

I think that Metro is kind of like a hybrid of Bay area transit systems: the geographic reach of BART, and the technology of Muni. And as far as wait times, Metro's much closer to BART. Muni, the rail system in San Francisco proper, has an abominable on time performance record. Some people wait 30 minutes for a Muni train in the peak of rush hour, when they're scheduled at 7 minute intervals.

BART operates more than twice as many rail-miles as Metrolink and has about 4x as many passengers per day. And it's worthwhile to note that BART does not currently reach the most populated city in the Bay Area- San Jose.

I hear you. My point was that first, BART and Metro have the same type of reach, albeit Metro has one line and fewer riders; and second, discussion about the geographic distribution of the St. Louis area is apropos to any topic in rapid transit.

BART doesn't need to go to San Jose. Caltrain does that.

captainjackass wrote:I hear you. My point was that first, BART and Metro have the same type of reach, albeit Metro has one line and fewer riders; and second, discussion about the geographic distribution of the St. Louis area is apropos to any topic in rapid transit.

BART doesn't need to go to San Jose. Caltrain does that.

We agree about population distribution being key to transit, e.g., future expansion. Caltrain serves San Jose, but it's only good if you're heading up the Penninsula. One cannot get from the South Bay to the East Bay simply, locations where the bulk of the population (and much future growth) is centered. That seems likely to change in the future. Related to the distribution of future population growth is the idea that connections between growing moderate- to large-sized communities are often as important as connections to the historical big city (SFO or STL).



~~



Metrolink attempts to be one-size-fits-all light rail, and I think it currently serves STL and STL county quite well (I've not used it in IL). When considering expansion, is it practical for Metro to be a urban-suburban people mover to the city and airport, etc., as well as a neighborhoods connector (Olive, Delmar, CWE) in other places? From busdad's earlier post, it seems that the "planning for the future" factor was left out of the equation. Would streetcars fit in?

In a streetcar system like the proposed northside and southside lines, which have multiple grade crossings and are often times operating without a dedicated through-way, how much of an effect does the track circuit spacing have to do with on time performance, as opposed to interaction with vehicle traffic? And how much could Metro pad the schedule, for instance, while trying to keep some semblance of regular intervals? It seems to me that the vehicle traffic would compound the issue of track circuit spacing, and there would inevitably be 3 trains piled up, the first one full of passengers, and the next two following behind it, trying not to get on the track circuit of the one in front.

Busdad, will you post the ridership for July 4th and also for this first week of July. I bet we hit over 100,000.

Metrolink Ridership for July 3rd.....103,800 passengers

Metrolink Ridership for July 4th.......83,xxx passsengers



The special event ridership for July 3rd was about 50,000 boardings leaving around 53,000 non special event boardings for a Tuesday weekday. This is often a low ridership week because of a lot of vacations.



The special event usage for July 4th was estimated at around 42,000 boardings. July 4th is technically a very low day except for the special event usage. Its possible that special event ridership was in fact much higher since Metrolink usage on a typical "Sunday" is may be around 34,000. That means that the usage for special event on July 4th was about 49,000 riders.



All in all, these were big days.

Busdad, how accurate are these numbers? I was riding the metrolink out to Delmar today and was thinking about what you said, and I can see where you would count the ticket purchases and such at each stop, but what about those with monthly passes and stuff?

^ I believe Metro stopped manually counting MetroLink passengers long ago. I think every doorway in every MetroLink vehicle has sensors to count passengers boarding and alighting.

^ That's certainly not the case for Cardinals games - OK, maybe in Boston they would squeeze four more people in, but it it packed.

how accurate are these numbers? I was riding the metrolink out to Delmar today and was thinking about what you said, and I can see where you would count the ticket purchases and such at each stop, but what about those with monthly passes and stuff?

^ I believe Metro stopped manually counting MetroLink passengers long ago. I think every doorway in every MetroLink vehicle has sensors to count passengers boarding and alighting.

Since December 2001, Metro has used an automated passenger count system from a German company (INIT) to determine passenger boardings by station. Each door has a dual infrared counter that measures the number of times the beam is crossed from outside to inside and the number of times it is crossed inside to out. As long as the object crossing the beam is "warm", it is assumed to be a passenger boarding or exiting. We have tested this system repeatedly and found that is it more accurate that manual methods of counting.



Like any system of counting its not perfect. Our manual tests in controlled situations has verified that its accuracy is in the high 90s and its reliability is also in the high 90's. The same system is being used by Denver (or will be soon) and by Houston.



The system does malfunction occasionally. You get the system working on one car, but not the other. To adjust for that, we calculate an average boardings for a given trip over the month. If the equipment fails to provide data for a given trip, we adjust based upon the monthly aveage for the trip.



This counting system does not tie boardings to tickets or type of fare. (You can get that information on a bus, but not the train.) We add up all the money and divide the the boardings to get an average fare. The average revenue per boarding on the system is approximately 80 cents. The average fare has been quite consistent over the years but does creep up as the base fare increases.



When we switch to a smart card system, we may have another way to determine light rail boardings if we require that everyone validate their fare upon boarding each time.

That's cool. I'm just glad all I have to do is by a ticket and ride the train, the behind the scenes stuff sounds rather complicated. Thank you though for the info.

wow. cool. I had no idea.

To the question about Atlanta's MARTA vs. METRO, I think our system is cleaner, nice and better overall. Yes, Atlanta has a much longer train, but ours are newer and much cleaner, the same is true for the stations. Do you really need to use the bathroom on any mass transit line?

JCity wrote:Do you really need to use the bathroom on any mass transit line?

A better question would be: "Do you really want to use the bathroom on any mass transit line?"

Article on Metrolink maintenance (probably doesn't need it's own thread):

Original MetroLink is wearing down and needs repairs

By Ken Leiser

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

07/09/2007



A MetroLink train arrives at the Delmar Station where the old rocks and wooden cross ties are part of the tracks. Newer stations have concrete ties and larger type of rock.

(Odell Mitchell Jr./P-D)



ST. LOUIS — The original stretch of MetroLink is wearing down, and the section is still in its early teen years.



The system takes a pounding from the daily light-rail traffic, but Metro transit agency officials also blame the low-cost materials that were used to build the initial Lambert Field-to-East St. Louis segment for causing maintenance headaches so soon.



Porous, blast-furnace slag was used as rock ballast in the railroad bed and is slowly crumbling. The old railroad bridge that carries MetroLink cars over Vandeventer Avenue at Highway 40 needs to be replaced. Wooden ties are splintering. And the hand-me-down rail has worn down on curves.

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/s ... enDocument

Did anyone read the article in the Post-Dispatch regarding the aging original MetroLink line? The article suggests repairs of tunnels, railroad ties, and other critical repairs. How will Metro be able to cover the costs associated with the repairs? A link is provided below







http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/s ... enDocument

^As for covering the cost, County voters will likely be asked to pass a half-cent sales tax early next year to pay for both system preservation and expansion.

I have doubts.



Two words: deferred maintenance



The longer routine maintenance and basic capital improvements are delayed, the higher the costs.



I've been a customer of MetroLink since is opened and the maintenance of the stations and platforms from the beginning has been disappointing (to be nice).

^ espcially compared to the astronomical deferred maintanence of systems like Boston and New York, I think Metro has held up very well and I've rarely, if ever, found broken, defaced or unsatisfactory elements to their cars or platforms.

If they don't start to do regular maintenance then they'll end up in the same boat as the CTA here in Chicago. The entire system is falling apart!

Surely the metro ride (on the train, that is) is nothing like at the Busch Stadium station after a game, but how busy is the Metrolink between 6:30-9am and 4-6 pm in comparison?

If they don't start to do regular maintenance then they'll end up in the same boat as the CTA here in Chicago. The entire system is falling apart!

Metro does regular maintenance on all critical items. Maintenance on buses and rail cars is aggressively preventative and among the best in the industry as measured by cost and reliability measures.



If there is a problem, it's in rail systems and facilities. However, the insulators referenced in the article have been replaced. We have replaced sections of rail and ties. We have replaced the crossing sections. The Vandeventer bridge will be replaced when we have a final design. There will be maintenance on MSE retaining walls in places.



Station finish maintenance and signage need to be updated however. The Eads bridge must be painted. Elevator and escalator reinvestment could be better by anyones measure. But the big challenge is when to do the work since operate service from 4:00 am in the morning until around 1:00 am. We have insufficient crossovers in the core to maintain weekday frequency while single tracking around repairs. We need more crossovers west of Wellston also.



The deferral of capital reinvestment is heavily tied to the conscious decision to program the bulk of its 5307 Federal formula funds for capital maintenance into operational maintenance. We have programmed almost all of but the most mandatory capital match funds from the Prop M and 1/2 cent funds for operations.



This decision isn't an acceptable solution but it is all done to prevent cutting service before the St. Louis County voters can determine if they wish to preserve the current investments and level of service in February 2008. Could you imagine to happiness of the voter if Metro cut rail and bus service now after the voter just got the real benefit of $650 million in new rail alignment.



If the voters decline this option, then Metro and its funding partners will have to decide where to cut $40 to $50 million from the operating budget. This will allow the Agency to recapture its capital maintenance funds. It will cut service levels back to the service levels that can be supported annually with the growth in 1/2 cent and 1/4 Prop M taxes. We will be much smaller, but financially able to sustain our operation with the current funds. The consumers won't be happy however.



Since Illinois is relatively well funded, nearly 100 % of these cuts will in Missouri. If you think it can't happen, see what's going on in Pittsburgh this year.

Juice13610 wrote:Surely the metro ride (on the train, that is) is nothing like at the Busch Stadium station after a game, but how busy is the Metrolink between 6:30-9am and 4-6 pm in comparison?

I can't speak for the main line other than what i see as trains pass; it is about 30% more crowded than Cross County, in my estimation, on an average day.



6:30am isn't very busy on the CC route. I often ride at about 6:10 and the train is only at about 10% all the way through downtown. It begins to pick up more towards 7:30 and it gets close to seating capacity.



During evening rush CC often is slightly past seating capacity (i.e. standing room only) at some point, but is never unfcomfortably full, not taking into account the odd situation when a Cards game is letting out at the same time. Capacity generally trends upward from Emerson through Forest Park, which is approximately break even (lots getting off, lots getting on). A huge influx occurs at CWE when at least one bicycle but somtimes several get on; by this point it is standing room only.



From Forest Park through Clayton it is approximately break even, right around full seated capacity.



At Richmond Heights the crowds begin to thin out a bit. I have noticed that particularly when conventioneers are in town; many visitors seem to want to go to the Galleria.



At Brentwood almost half of the remaining people exit, folowed by a few at Maplewood, a couple at Sunnen, and the rest of course at Shrewsbury. By the time the train reaches Shrewsbury, it's approximately 25% seating capacity in my estimation.

You're my boy, Busdad! (Will Ferrell to Blue voice)



what an asset to this forum/thread.