urbanSTL

I had to hunt for this one. The TOD study data appear to be from 2011:

"As part of our contribution, Metro staff members preformed an analysis of all 37 existing MetroLink stations during 2011, and compiled detailed Station Area Profiles drawing together helpful information about the usage of each station and the character of surrounding neighborhoods."

http://www.metrostlouis.org/BusinessCom ... files.aspx

Metro's 2013 Annual Report was finally posted to their website. The good news is, MetroBus and Metrolink posted modest gains in ridership. The bad news is the ridership from Lambert through Emerson Park declined. But all-in-all it's good to see the system being used by more people.

____________2013___________2012
MetroLink: 17,054,484_____17,000,005

Emerson to Shiloh Increase: 87,346 (4% increase)
Cross County Increase: 13,572 (.7% increase)
Lambert to Emerson Decrease: 46,439 (.4% decrease)
Overall Increase: 54, 479 (.3% increase)

Ridership statistics have just been released for the third quarter of 2013 (July-September).
Highlights:
Metrolink had daily ridership of 57,800, up 5.7% compared with Quarter 3 of 2012
Metrobus had daily ridership of 99,100, up 3.73% compared with Q3 of 2012.

We're headed in the right direction, hopefully when they start using articulated buses on Grand we'll break 100,000 bus riders a day.

Full Report Here: http://www.apta.com/resources/statistic ... p-APTA.pdf

^ Maybe.

I don't know how much of an uptick you'll get from increased capacity alone. Sure, it'll be less crowded for those who jam on to the #80 Grand, but it isn't impossible at the current buses' capacity. The "newness" should be good for a few thousand, I guess.

Now, if you roll out the articulated buses and add more service (and lower headways) that's when you might see a substantial increase in ridership.

^^The fourth quarter APTA ridership report came out.

MetroLink: 53,000 per day (2.02% increase vs. 4th qtr 2012) (overall 2013 increase of 1.56%)
MetroBus: 99,100 per day (0.00% increase vs. 4th qtr 2012) (overall 2013 increase of .04%)

2013 total system ridership increased .58%

Those numbers just re enforce metros thinking that there is no need to expand metro link

I just met a woman from Philadelphia last night at a place near S. Grand. She was complaining that our Metro isn't as good as what they have in Philly and also touted their streetcars as a major reason she doesn't prefer St. Louis over Philly. While she had no knowledge of how any of them work or how they are funded, she was absolutely correct in saying that most people aren't going to choose a city with mediocre transportation like STL over a city with a huge network like Philly. We need a N-S line, like, tomorrow morning.

Philly also has a 11,000/sq mile population density, we have less then half of that
Density drives transit.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Un ... _ridership

We had that kind of density in 1928

St. Louis is denser than Portland, Denver, Charlotte, Virginia Beach and Dallas. Guess who is expanding their rail?

I think transit and density is chicken/egg. There is a reason all the neighborhoods that saw growth in the city are the ones currently served by Metrolink. I believe Alex already did an article on this. There is no doubt in my mind that St. Louis City would see rapid gentrification in areas served by a N-S Metrolink. I think it would slow or stabilize northside neighborhoods and be a big boom for more stable southside neighborhoods.

Well, excuses are like assh-les: everybody's got one and they all stink. If we had a N-S line built in the '90s around the same time as the Red Line, the areas around Jefferson would be seeing as much new development as CORTEX by now. My cousin is moving to the City soon but won't even consider moving anywhere without a MetroLink station. While he would prefer South City over the Central Corridor, he doesn't have much of a choice since MetroLink is his #1 concern. He doesn't have kids so schools aren't an issue for him, either.

Same with a friend of mine in Rolla. He's been telling me that he's moving up here this summer but his main concern is that he lives near a station. Neither of them will move anywhere that doesn't. Personally, I would want to live on Cherokee, but given a choice between that or a neighborhood that has a station, I also must give the station priority. We know Cherokee would blow up if it had one! Especially if it had already been built 20 years ago.

Gateway- how many parking garages/spots have been built in the central corridor in the last decade?

Does anyone have handy population growth along the central metro link corridor and metro link Ridership numbers for the same period....

Yeah, we've lost some great buildings to lots, but at least many of them are being redeveloped, i.e. STLCOP, lots of CORTEX, Drury Tower, BPV, Shriner's, the proposed mid-rises next to Union Station (what's going on with those now?). Some of that loss can be attributed to SLUburbanization, of course...

There are plenty of lots on Cherokee that would be the sites of new mid-rise buildings if the Jefferson line were finished long ago. I'd like to see something like the North Sarah buildings near Jefferson and Cherokee eventually.

Here's the population change by neighborhood 2000-2010 map

We may have denser neighborhoods than those respective cities the fact of the matter is metro isn't going to expand in the foreseeable future even if theres the slightest demand for expansion.The real facts are those cities are growing and St.Louis is in a wait n see stagnation mode... We'll need to see an increase of nearly 100,000 people into the city and thats not just counting people from within the region but people from outside. St.Louis is gaining lots of momentum and lot of things that are happening and going for it .. It's all about growth especially populational growth which we don't have yet..

The population of St. Louis City, St Louis County,. and St. Charles County has grown by 1.2% since 1970. I say the highways aren't getting it done. They deserve a lot of the blame for the declining densities that would support transit

quincunx wrote:The population of St. Louis City, St Louis County,. and St. Charles County has grown by 1.2% since 1970. I say the highways aren't getting it done. They deserve a lot of the blame for the declining densities that would support transit

Lol good sense of humor you got....white flight due to crime and failing schools deserves 95% of the blame for the cities population decline.

Well, there are also the highways that plowed through what used to be incredibly dense neighborhoods. We're driving over historic building graveyards. Thousands and thousands of residents were displaced because of those highways.

Knowitall wrote:

quincunx wrote:The population of St. Louis City, St Louis County,. and St. Charles County has grown by 1.2% since 1970. I say the highways aren't getting it done. They deserve a lot of the blame for the declining densities that would support transit

Lol good sense of humor you got....white flight due to crime and failing schools deserves 95% of the blame for the cities population decline.

I suggest reading Mapping Delcine.

Isn't 44 aka "farty far" the welcome mat/gateway to Texas anyways? That's where every one is seemingly headed .. Dallas Houston Austin! So our wonderful city replaced our once robust street car system in favor of highways that pretty much encouraged sprawl and literally almost decimated our beautiful city and now we're left with near ruins in having to recover whatever remaining core we have left!. St.Louis may not be Austin Portland Denver but we sure in the hell ain't Detroit Cleveland Buffalo either. How many years do you think it will take for metro to consider putting the N/S line on a ballot for vote?