urbanSTL

Remember that the party platform means less than nothing, the platform committee is just a place to stick people you don't like while letting them feel important. Having said that, the pragmatic side of the GOP has been dwindling so I wouldn't rule this out. The rabid anti-federalist faction managed to shut down the government for no reason, they can and will continue reducing infrastructure funding.

Alex Ihnen wrote:

quincunx wrote:Transit in the middle of highways is miserable! Spend 19 mins at the Clayton station and imagine worse. Don't be seduced!

Yes. And it's miserable because you can't build immediately adjacent to the station. The 1/4-1/2mi walk shed is 1/2 Interstate. Plus, in St. Louis, the trains would almost always run slower than traffic on the highway - offering the bad experience of watching cars fly by as you wait for, or sit on a train. Still, ultimately, Interstate ROW does not directly connect residents to businesses and jobs. Their immediate surroundings are too often devoid of all three. Even the heavy rail alignment of the current MetroLink suffers from this.

I'll admit the opposite for me when I'm sitting in westbound 64 traffic and I see the Metrolink fly by heading towards BJC.

just to reinforce the need for N-S:

One result was the distinctive neighborhoods that are part of [Denver's] appeal to young people. They were made accessible by new mass transit lines after voters approved, in 2004, a sales tax increase to fund the so-called FasTracks program. Its latest addition is a 22.8-mile light-rail train from Denver International Airport to Union Station that opened with much fanfare in April. (Yet another new line, this one connecting the northern suburb of Westminster with Denver, is scheduled to open on July 25.)

Matt Prosser, a vice president of Economic and Planning Systems, a California-based consulting firm, said the transit system was a “central component” in the area’s ability to draw millennials.

“It makes living here a lot easier for younger folks,” he said. “You don’t necessarily have to own a car.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/21/us/de ... share&_r=0

and if they think Denver has distinctive neighborhoods (meh—from experience), imagine what they would say about St. Louis.

and what neighborhoods does the light rail go through there? i can think of a few it goes on the edge. i suppose the stops on welton in 5 points, the university station and the louisiana/pearl stations are the best examples of going though the neighborhood but man, the louisiana/pearl stop is a bear to stand in as it's under the street next to the highway. it's loud. otherwise the rail is all on the edge. it follows the highways ringing the city only hitting downtown. for the amount they put in, they could have done better at getting to the people, as opposed to park and rides.

Alex Ihnen wrote:

quincunx wrote:Transit in the middle of highways is miserable! Spend 19 mins at the Clayton station and imagine worse. Don't be seduced!

Yes. And it's miserable because you can't build immediately adjacent to the station. The 1/4-1/2mi walk shed is 1/2 Interstate. Plus, in St. Louis, the trains would almost always run slower than traffic on the highway - offering the bad experience of watching cars fly by as you wait for, or sit on a train. Still, ultimately, Interstate ROW does not directly connect residents to businesses and jobs. Their immediate surroundings are too often devoid of all three. Even the heavy rail alignment of the current MetroLink suffers from this.

I don't mind interstate running transit, really. Like you said though, with the excessive build-out of highways into and around St. Louis, and the relative paucity of "traffic" coming in and out, the visual advantage of transit in that location is reduced. I will say though that there is opportunity for development around interstate transit if the planning will and strength is there. Not immediately adjacent, no, but if you can identify E-W corridors that lead into these interstate transit stops, you can push some commercial and residential vibrancy there. In turn, you can then pressure the transit agency to increase and improve bus connections along that corridor and to the interstate transit station(s).

^ I think you are at the point of developing heavy rail system if you want to run down interstate RoW and really need a much stronger core/bigger employment center. Maybe if Downtown had twice the employee count. Nor do you have the growth and people to see transit developments popping up along the system let alone the political ability locally. Not to mention that I64 has simply become a sprawled linear office park already and will stay that way for the foreseeable future. Heck, still got lot of development that could go along metrolink.

I think a much better alternative would be a commuter rail on existing freight line(s) between Pacific, MO and Alton, IL - essentially a localized River Runner & Lincoln Service with the intermediate stops from Granite City, East St. Louis and Maplewood, Webster Groves, Kirkwood on the other side. Build up some town centers just as Metra has helped done in Chicago burbs.

I'm on board with the commuter rail train.

Is there any breakdown of current Metrolink traffic by Park 'n Ride commuters from the county vs intra-city traffic? I.e., how much of the Metrolink demand is like commuter rail vs. like city streetcar?

dredger wrote:^ I think you are at the point of developing heavy rail system if you want to run down interstate RoW and really need a much stronger core/bigger employment center. Maybe if Downtown had twice the employee count. Nor do you have the growth and people to see transit developments popping up along the system let alone the political ability locally. Not to mention that I64 has simply become a sprawled linear office park already and will stay that way for the foreseeable future. Heck, still got lot of development that could go along metrolink.

I think a much better alternative would be a commuter rail on existing freight line(s) between Pacific, MO and Alton, IL - essentially a localized River Runner & Lincoln Service with the intermediate stops from Granite City, East St. Louis and Maplewood, Webster Groves, Kirkwood on the other side. Build up some town centers just as Metra has helped done in Chicago burbs.

I'm entirely on board for a commuter line akin to greater Chicago's Metra system! Could put Union Station back to its original purpose as well, if you can coordinate the lines properly! From a Union Station terminus, northward along an I-70 center-lane (stops at Old North and Hyde Park), across the Merchants Bridge, to Madison, to GC, to Horseshoe Lake, to Glen Carbon and/or Edwardsville. Could use the full length of I-70's central express lane too for a route that services the north side/north county. For Alton, you can already get downtown on the Amtrak for $5 or so -- of course, that's only four or five times a day. Maybe just need to coordinate/broker shared-use track(s) to provide increased local service. For all, trains running every hour or hour and a half would suffice.

If you were going to introduce commuter rail I'm not at all sure Pacific and Alton are the best endpoints. I think you might be better off running west out to Wentzville, or maybe even Warenton, with additional stops in St. Peters, St. Charles, and Hazelwood and south down to Festus with stops in Pevely, Arnold, and maybe Lemay. But it seems a little far fetched in any case. And commuter rail isn't the sort of thing that encourages strong urban development. (Unless you consider Crystal Lake Illinois urban.) Doesn't mean it's a bad idea, but suburbs really started with commuter rail. (If St. Louis is any indication most suburbs popularly dubbed "streetcar suburbs" in developer parlance, were actually commuter rail destinations that were initially beyond the streetcar lines; rather like Kirkwood or Florissant.)

I assume Pacific and Alton are the suggested endpoints because they lay along Amtrak routes, and were the options presented in the 2010ish long-term plan.

Kirkwood was a streetcar suburb, but Florissant was an old village that didn't really become a suburb until after WWII.

symphonicpoet wrote:If you were going to introduce commuter rail I'm not at all sure Pacific and Alton are the best endpoints. I think you might be better off running west out to Wentzville, or maybe even Warenton, with additional stops in St. Peters, St. Charles, and Hazelwood and south down to Festus with stops in Pevely, Arnold, and maybe Lemay. But it seems a little far fetched in any case. And commuter rail isn't the sort of thing that encourages strong urban development. (Unless you consider Crystal Lake Illinois urban.) Doesn't mean it's a bad idea, but suburbs really started with commuter rail. (If St. Louis is any indication most suburbs popularly dubbed "streetcar suburbs" in developer parlance, were actually commuter rail destinations that were initially beyond the streetcar lines; rather like Kirkwood or Florissant.)

Unfortunately that creates another roadblock in getting St. Charles county to go in on transit. I believe a metrolink extension from Lambert into St. Charles would be more appealing

I don't necessarily see a limited commuter rail service trying to build a urban environment in the outer communities but you do have semblance of town centers and provide alternative option along the existing Amtrak service. Lived in Lisle, IL within a couple blocks from Metra station. Lisle definitely suburban as you get but neighbors who worked downtown and myself took advantage of the option. St. Louis can't support nearly the system of Metra but believe you do got makings of a line or two at most. I think the service and ridership would be in line with North Star in Twin Cities.

Metrolink will never cross the Missouri River.

Never is a long time! Even if it's the expansion after next, we're talking perhaps a couple generations away. A lot could change.

Interesting Along for the ride article in PD on the demise of the South Connector and it being shelved and also the comments that next possible transportation option for south county will revolve around metrolink. Good, first and foremost as a Shrewsbury homeowner that consider the south connector mission was to turn River Des Peres parkway into a defacto highway on top of adding even more pavement in Maplewood and Shrewsbury.

I still believe extending metrolink from Shrewsbury is a no brainer especially when you consider Centene is looking at several more thousand jobs for Clayton CBD. While I don't expect northside-southside to win out based on politics it would be nice if county starts to take a serious look at how to get south county another option and get beyond the more pavement is needed to bypass and speed through the inner ring suburbs.

http://www.stltoday.com/news/traffic/al ... 7806a.html

Now residents of south St. Louis County have a new idea to weigh and debate. Two of the four new MetroLink routes under consideration would run through South County. The MetroSouth line would run from the Shrewsbury station to Butler Hill Road, and the Northside-Southside would end near Meramec Bottom Road. Studies are likely to begin late this fall on the feasibility of them getting built.

So what's different about this report from the "Final Report" done by EWG on the South County connector back in 2004 or so? I remember going to open houses and looking at the four route alternatives (River des Peres, Mackenzie, Laclede Station among them), and then it dying. Is this starting over or building on what was already done?

An example article from the time:
http://new.southcountytimes.com/Article ... ounty.html

MetroSouth just doesn't make sense to me. I mean, nobody wants to ride from Butler Hill to Downtown via Brentwood.

Yeah, that's going to be like a 40-45 minute ride from Butler Hill to downtown, isn't it?

It's already 23 from Maplewood to Union Station, and Butler Hill would have to be double that mileage.

Yeah, MetroSouth definitely seems like the laggard I the group - at least at first glance. It would however do the most to serve City residents. Not very efficiently, but running down River Des Peres would serve the city's most southwesterly (and also probably least transit dependent) areas.

wabash wrote:Yeah, MetroSouth definitely seems like the laggard I the group - at least at first glance. It would however do the most to serve City residents. Not very efficiently, but running down River Des Peres would serve the city's most southwesterly (and also probably least transit dependent) areas.

eee123 wrote:Yeah, that's going to be like a 40-45 minute ride from Butler Hill to downtown, isn't it?

It's already 23 from Maplewood to Union Station, and Butler Hill would have to be double that mileage.

MarkHaversham wrote:MetroSouth just doesn't make sense to me. I mean, nobody wants to ride from Butler Hill to Downtown via Brentwood.

Nor should it. You guys are taking the context of metrosouth the wrong way. Metrosouth is about serving Clayton Business district and to lesser extent central corridor. Centene follows through along with a few other developments and you got a significant jobs center in its own right. In addition Metrosouth also tackles a south county transportation issue to Clayton by transit instead of pavement.

The county under Dooley leadership was pushing a $120 million plus road project between Manchester and River Des Peres at one point. That in itself was what $40-60 million a mile road. Metrosouth is big step forward in planning something beyond pavement and worth looking at, crunching number and should be part of the long term plan.

Neither of the proposed routes by the county really do anything help the city outside of the MetroSouth route which serves minimal density along with a couple cemeteries. Should N/S fall through I would like to see the city take on a piecemeal approach to building itself a truly functional streetcar network, similar to the way Kansas City is doing things. Instead of taking on a massive projects every 10 years, build a 2-5 mile stretch of track every 5 (Loop Trolley is 2.2)

This approach would allow the city to methodically address areas of real transit need without needing to play political chicken with the county. Don't do this willy nilly, still use a master plan, but have it on a far smaller scale.

Even if it ends up more of a spur system branching off of the existing Metrolink spine it would be hugely successful because it would better address serving our islands of density and eventually connecting them.

Imagine a short streetcar line running up Tower Grove Ave, through Shaw, through the Grove, then up Boyle through Cortex and the new Metro station, then turning left down FPP or Lindell towards the park. That would only be about 3 miles.

A linear Washington Ave system between Jefferson Ave and the Convention Center would bring service to thousands of new residents and businesses in the area and lead to God knows how much investment along the corridor. That line would be less than 1.5 miles, and that's including a CBD turnaround block. A future extension could bring the line all the way down to Grand Center.

A line from Wash Ave, down Tucker and Gravois, terminating at Grand is a hair under 4 miles and would connect a huge amount of neighborhoods to each other and downtown. A streetcar and some good old form based code could be what finally gives the Gravois corridor a kick in the butt.

The more you think about it the more obvious routes come to mind. Instead of a gigantic multibillion dollar project that tries to serve the most interests possible in one long route, St. Louis would be better served with 5 shorter routes costing $40-$150 million a piece but actually serve density.

MarkHaversham wrote:Kirkwood was a streetcar suburb, but Florissant was an old village that didn't really become a suburb until after WWII.

You're quite correct that Florissant was initially an independent community, but I don't think you're correct on when it became a suburb. There was a narrow gauge passenger line connecting Florissant to St. Louis as early as 1878. And it remained in service into the 30s. Florissant may have been a bit less developed than places south, west, or east of it, but I don't think you could accurately characterize it as an independent community inside the twentieth century. I seem to recall the railroad station there is among the oldest surviving in the state.

PD has an article today on Metrolink with an interactive map.



http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metr ... 9a908.html