urbanSTL

If you care a lot about Metrolink and transportation, I suggest encouranging St Louisans and Kansas Citians to vote. I think it's quite obvious, although urbanites outnumber the ruralites, that the rural part of the state is in power, most likely due to a lack of voters in the urban areas of Missouri. Which part of the state is growing the most? The southwestern side. That area of the state couldn't be any more different than the rest.

tbspqr wrote:I would rather get a 3 mile expansion in the perfect, non-repetitive location than a 20 mile expansion that is "easy to build" but not ideal. I am fully aware of the cost prohibitive nature of the underground system, and I am also aware of the lack of support that Jeff City shows for the states MOST successful Mass Transit system.... but I still think I would rather:

1) Have no more expansion in Missouri

2) return Metro to being a fiscally sound organization



than to



1) expand on street level for $20 million a mile when busses are doing the job already

2) the expanded service isn't planned well enough to ever make Metro fiscally sound....



The system now is nearly a dream - and 10 years people wont think of the $70 million+ a mile but will think "hey they did this the right way" That is the spirit we need.... if this spirit means NO MORE EXPANSION than I am sorry but I DO NOT WANT MEDIOCRITY. Any until someone can persuade me, regardless of initial economics, that this is the RIGHT way for the city and the region to go for the next 50 years in the future -- than I am against expansion. In the long run - this is the only way we can continue to have public support, fiscal independence and respect.

To me the cross county expansion was the right logical choice for direction but the wrong application of technology. The cost to go underground was way too much and it removed transit from being visible to the public. Had the system crossed Skinker and Hanley and gone through Clayton it would have been far less costly and far more visible. This would not have been mediocrity but smart.



I personally want to see a system of localized streetcars connecting the city and inner ring of suburbs with buses serving the balance of the needs in the region which the density continues to drop off. A transit system supporting density in the core is the right way to do public transportation.

tbspqr wrote:A street car system is one thing - MADE TO GO ON THE STREET -- out current metro system isn't ment to go at street level. I MUCH PREFER 2 different systems - one on its own right-of-way (metro link) and a seperate street car system. I am just completely against Metro running down a major street - like Gravois or Chouteau or any other street. THAT DEFEATS THE PURPOSE OF METROLINK. If you have a new system that is defined as a street level system - thats fine.

On this point we are in agreement! Light rail in the middle of an urban street will be a long-term mistake. Transit we need, medians we don't.

tbspqr wrote:As far as "being visible = better and cheaper" I think this is short sided. People might have complained less for the past few years - but for the next 40+ years they would complain of extra noise and tranins running at 1 am etc. THEY MADE THE RIGHT CHOICE FOR THE LONG RUN. Frankly the long run is all I care about - today, tomorrow and 8 years from now are worthless if 50 years from now the system is crap.

Granted we need to look at a long-term solution but we also need to consider the present so that we actually have something in 50 years. Modern electric streetcars are quiet enough for street running as are the MetroLink cars. Underground is simply not a necessity. We were lucky to have the tunnels we did downtown as well as railroad rights of way but until we are ready to completely shift priorities away from auto to transit the money simply it not there for the luxury of underground. Chicago's EL serves them well and it could not be any more noisy than it is. We can be above grade with light rail and/or streetcars and be fine.

southslider wrote:Then, a lot of American cities, including the urban-mecca of Portland, have all made the same "long-term mistake." Maybe someone should stop construction in Seattle and Phoenix, where medians are currently being built.



Mixed-traffic streetcars are slow, but can work for short distances as a feeder route, where supported by a highly dense mix of activities. For example, Portland and Dallas have streetcar lines, which ironically feed into regional light-rail lines with in-street medians.



At-grade operations keeps construction cost low, while medians help trains make up time. Despite how a median limits crossings, where there are signalized intersections or crosswalks today on wide streets such as Gravois, such crossing would more than likely be maintained. So, in other words, medians only pose a pedestrian barrier to jaywalking.

Come on, we both know Portland loses the median obstruction in the urban downtown. Why? Because it is not condusive to urban life.



I have to laugh about the jaywalking comment. Are you suggesting these medians will have openings every block so that I can cross on foot or bike as I can currently? Doubtful. I can just see it running down Grand and someone saying you have to walk three blocks before you can cross the street to get to King & I.

Here is my concern. If they build the tracks on the street, will the trains have to stop for traffic, construction projects, and padestrians? I'm a bit ignorant on how the systems in other cities have this... If the following was the case, I could see this as being no better than a bus, except that it will be better for the environment.



Then Urban Review brought up a good point. These trains, if running on a street, will obstruct urban activity, will they not? If they build on the street, the trains will have to have a limited number of cars to reduce the obstruction.

Right, so if I was a resident on the other side of the river, I would only support a "right of way" metrolink line. I don't see this as serving its purpose.

Wow tbspqr, I would say my opinion is almost the oposite of yours.



First, in the places I have seen in street light rail in action (visited, lived near Minneapolis, North Jersey, South Jersey) these lines are some combo of both in street, and sperate righ of way systems. And the instreet systems work fine. This inclues crossing the street (seems to work well in MPLS) and creating active streetscapes (visit Hoboken sometime and ride the Hudson Bergen Light Rail). done well is always the caveat



Look at the current metrolink system, while great as a commuter rail system, because Metro went with abandoned rail lines, it misses coming close to some important areas including the CWE, Forest Park, SLU, Grand Center, and AG Edwards, sites that can only be well accessed by doing part of the system in the street.



Are you right that not all streets are made for such a line? sure you bet. Something like broadway that wide and less pedestrian focused might be better than something like grand, which can be and has been developed into dense nodes in some corridors. This is why many support the Gravios route, as its wide, great retail can develope at the station nodes, and it crosses important streets like Grand and Kingshighway because it angles through the city.



But in the end you might be correct that the best option is not the one that hits all the marks, but many lines, which collectivly hit those marks. Therefore funding needs to be increasaed to make sure you can do a south city line and something like a french town line.

You have two CWE stops that are a couple blocks from retail areas, a stop directly across from Forest Park, a stop a couple blocks from SLU/Grand Center. AG Edwards at least used to have a shuttle available I know when I rode the Metrolink. The only way to get these directly into the retail areas effectively would have been to do all subway - something we obviously didn't have money for.

^ haha now that's funny. Lets think about this for a few moments. The park is a large place, so i may be willing to give you that one (though note that you can really only easily get to the History Museum, great places like the Zoo, Science Center, and Muny are a hike and a half from that stop or require waiting for the park shuttle, and multiple connections reduce the attractiveness of transit).



The CWE stop is located in the midde of the Barnes complex, making it not only less than visable from the CWE as a neighborhood, but even worse, located at the southern edge of the neighborhood. Not at all the "ideal" location for such a CWE stop. Not ideal, but not the worst stop.



As for the SLU and Grand Center stop, this is the worst of the stop choices made. It is in the middle of everything (Grand Center, SLU, SLU hospital) and near nothing. The walk from SLU to the stop, assuming you are on Laclede, takes a bit more than 5 minutes. A walk from Lindell takes more than 10. And we all know, most people won't walk more than 5 minutes. How frustrating, as it is just out of the reach of campus. Even worse, the walk from the station is across an ugly bridge, under a highway over pass and across Forest Park Parkway. That's about as hostile and unattractive a route as you can imagine. Everyone loves the new line because of the convenient Wash U stops, well the orginal line has about the worst stops possible to try and hook SLU riders on using the system. And I am not even addressing the fact that our "cultural and entertainment center," Grand Center, is abandonend by the line.



Finnaly we have AG Edwards. Well lets be honest and say that there is no stop and given the route taken by Metrolink there could have been one. Even worse, for all who complain about the massive parking structures that wall off the campus from the city, remeber that maybe a line and stop might address this situation. Leaving one of downtown's biggest employers off of the route? Does this make sense?







No, what we got as a line designed looking at the bottom line not the future of the line. Penny wise and pound foolish. Take the abandoned rail line and make the best of it because it's cheap. Worse is that I think a line with better central corridor stops could have been developed for more money, without making it all a subway. Imagine if instead the line had run down Forest Park Parkway from Kingshighway past Compton, where it switches over to Market, passing by AG Edwards and then coming into the ccurrent downtown alingment. (BTW, such a line could have a new stop withing throwing distance of the new SLU arena)





But let's face it, in the end it doesn't matter about the orginal line. What's done is done. I just don't want to see another line built where we pay so much attention to the bottom line that we forget about putting stops in better locations. That's why I support an in-street line, thinking that it might offer better stops and better usage, which is what really matters for a line's future.



The orginal southside line is not horrible, and it can provide good access for the neighborhoods it will reach. I however worry that given the location of the line, it will not effectivly link in those neighborhoods closest to downtown, and these are the areas that need the access the most. People complain about parking downtown, and then we don't make it so that those who live nearby (soulard is close) can't take the train into downtown? It makes no sense. These folks would have the shorest ride and live in some of the densest areas of the city. That's what I, and I think many other, object too regarding the southside line. And given the location of the line, I worry whether any future second southside line would get built. I feel like we have ONE SHOT to get this right, not TWO, not THREE. If we only have one shot, we better get it right and I am not sure the southside alingment is worth that ONE SHOT.