urbanSTL

goat314 wrote:One more thing to consider.

http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/news ... l?page=all

"A Cortex MetroLink station would help solidify the innovation district as a destination for out-of-town businesses to relocate, and connect riders from across the St. Louis metro area with what is likely to become one of the region’s biggest job generator"

Monsanto/Danforth has already invested heavily into an auto-centric, suburban wasteland, which will make it increasingly difficult to attract talent and start-ups, especially when Cortex is right down the street. They are too heavily invested in suburbia to move to the city or build near an existing station, so their idea is to bring the urban amenities to them. Its really a long term plan. They know by 2025 Cortex will be busting at the seems and thousands of, national and international, business people will be taking the Metrolink from Lambert to Cortex on a daily basis, staying at hotels in the Cortex district, being entertained in the CWE for the weekend, getting back on the Metrolink to Lambert, flying back to Boston, San Francisco, Berlin, Tokyo, Sao Paulo etc. with the impression that St. Louis is a first rate city with modern amenities and a top notch research park at Cortex, let me call my buddies about making some investments there. The big wigs want to be able to say, hey lets hop on the Metro so I can show you around the Danforth Research Center, no need to get in the rent-a-car. Bio-Science employess want to be able to travel between Cortex and Danforth without having to be inconvenienced by a car, while looking over some reports.

That's too bad, Monstanto could have put up a skyline-redefining major tower that would have been the cumshot of Midtown/CWE's tall buildings if they went to CORTEX.

goat314 wrote:I've heard that if Metro can get MoDOT to commit $50 million/year, We could fully build out the transit vision and operate it at high frequency by 2030. Metro would have simply bonded out projects to accelerate the construction and be federally competitive. Having the local match in hand also makes you much more competitive.

Doubt thats true...I mean metro has a bigger yearly budget then the MoDOT st.louis district.... (Have to remember that MoDOT funds aren't one big pot of money, they are distributed to the 7 districts around the state)

Look at the 2015 MoDOT STIP for St.Louis District
2015- 220m, 2016-
232m, 2017 -94m, 2018- 73m, 2019- 40m

Those 5 years the total is $659...metro budget over the next 5 years is 1.25-1.35 billion. So if future metrolink depends on milking $50m a year from an org that has a budget almost twice as less, we are in trouble.

^ I was told this by a Metro representative at an CMT-STL event. He said they have already crunched the numbers. If they could get $50M/Year over a 20 year period they could bond out projects and build the big capital projects we would all like to see. Its not rocket science. That's what many agencies that are building like crazy are doing, state funded bond initiatives for transit. The state handles capital costs, the locals operate it. Problem is Metro cant get any reasonable money from the state (whether operations or capital) to free up money for the big projects. Missouri is truly dropping the ball here.

Also, lets be honest the $659M number you threw out there is before federal match. MoDOT is working with billions every year and could get more money when they get a bigger state match.

I don't think the county has to offer anything to the city for Westport, remember its a "our money, our toy" mentality with St. Louis County. If I remember correctly the Daniel Boone/Westport/Green Line will have 2 branches one that is Westport to Downtown, the other that's Westport to Shrewsbury.

goat314 wrote:
Also, lets be honest the $659M number you threw out there is before federal match. MoDOT is working with billions every year and could get more money when they get a bigger state match.

Again, MoDOT $ is not one big statewide pot it's distributed to 7 districts and the stl district over the next 5 years has $659 in the STIP (including fed funds) the stip doesn't just show state funds, it's total cost.

See 2nd to last page
http://www.modot.org/plansandprojects/c ... ojects.pdf

Also look at any project- it shows state and fed share already.

STLEnginerd wrote:^Not exactly true they still might have to bond much of the construction which means garner political support to pass the bond. I doubt very much that they will pay it all in cash and i would wager it will come before city voters as well. Anyway you didn't answer the question would you consider it a fair trade? Its really just hypothetical...

No a fair trade would be a N-S Metro line, but that's not happening. Again the county has its own "Metro money", they don't have to "play fair" because they control Metro's purse strings.

STLEnginerd wrote:Obstructing progress is alot easier than constructing. If the city chose to play the role of spoiler i'd bet they could.

You think Mr.Region, I mean Mr.slay wouldn't throw all of his support behind Westport?

dbInSouthCity wrote:

STLEnginerd wrote:Obstructing progress is alot easier than constructing. If the city chose to play the role of spoiler i'd bet they could.

You think Mr.Region, I mean Mr.slay wouldn't throw all of his support behind Westport?

I agree, Slay has already been co-opted. The full N-S line is dead for at least a generation. Westport gets built next and then Metro will be tapped out and only have money to maintain system without state help. I've heard that Metro "may" and that is a big "maybe" help the city operate the streetcar, but capital funds are completely up to the city and feds.

There needs to be a big change in federal policy for Metro to build the vision we want in the next 50 years. Basically, the feds have to force state DOTs to be more multimodal in exchange for federal money. Unfortunately, the last person that had an idea like that was Oberstar from Minnesota, but he passed recently.

I am for the Westport line I see any metro-link expansion as a good think but I wish the North-south line would be built first or at the same time. Maybe we should have the metro-link be the regional rail system and have streets cars in the city as the urban core's rail system. Lets let them build the Westport line and work on a complete street car system in the city.

He has way too much pull for a position with limited power...and I don't see him not getting re-elected anytime soon, he has built a large network that can crush any opponent.

Hopefully the next line after Westport would be a City/County Southside line along the Union Pacific Railroad/De Soto ROW.

That would present more of an equitable distribution between City and County investment. It's shown here in purple:


Which was also supported (except with a Grand Station connection instead of a Chouteau + Downtown Loop element) by Kevin B in this thread, with this mock up:


And this interesting overlay:

How will the change in the County Executive seat, change the County's position on Metrolink expansion? If Stenger were elected, is anyone familiar with his position on Metrolink?

If metro took the airport line west to earth city and then across the river to St.charles, is that sprawl or giving people more choices?

Both. But that won't happen unless Saint Charles wants it to, which they don't. Hence it never being proposed as an option for expansion.

Like Wabash noted, don't see metrolink crossing the Missouri River anytime soon. However, The more I think about it, the more I think building a new Lambert metrolink main terminal station so the current metrolink line can extend west past the airport, through Bridgeton and into Earth City as well as extending the cross county extension from Shrewsbury to at least I-55 is a far better option then the proposed Westport line. Being the financial and political reality that any metrolink expansion is happening in the county first and foremost.

For one, Earth City/Harrah's Casino/Riverport is a county job center as anywhere else in the county and see metrolink going there just as advantageous or even more so and definitely no worse than going to Westport. It certainly would give employees/employers a quick convenient one ride hop to the airport, or UMSL and Clayton CBD (especially if the Crossings gets built and or Montgomery Tower, so on).

Second, the cross county extension would be much more effective for south county commuters into Clayton Central Business District/Washington University if it would actually get to south county. Extending metrolink south to me is a far better alternative and long term investment then the south county road connector project which will only promote the shift inner ring residents farther south and hurt those communities because the convenience of an over built road network. I'm still hoping that Richmond Heights, Brentwood, Maplewood and or Shrewsbury wakes up to the fact that they have done a terrible job of embracing metrolink and its TOD opportunities. Instead, the inner ring communities south of Clayton might find themselves with an underdeveloped transit asset of their own doing and a roadway that lets everybody zip on past them.

Another way to put it. St. Louis county transportation planning is hurting not helping development. I think it only gets worse if Amend 7 passes as the city has at least taken a position of rebuilding its urban environment for those who clearly want it and St. Charles/exburbs will welcome anyone else who wants to drive out of the county.

dbInSouthCity wrote:If metro took the airport line west to earth city and then across the river to St.charles, is that sprawl or giving people more choices?

Both

It would be nice to take it to a show at the amphitheater though.

mill204, can certainly see your point and no doubt you would need additional service such as a loop or dedicated bus service for the area. Earth City is one more example sprawl office park development in the region. But I believe that job count between Earth City, Casino and Riverport far exceeds what you will get in Westport and office park/light industrial along Page Ave isn't any better in terms of the sprawl. Could be mistaken.

In addition, I don't see Westport as a destination point/entertainment for metrolink riders where as I can see at least some metrolink ridership pickup for a weekend concert or two and the casino if you terminate the Earth City metrolink extension nearby. Heck, The casino could easily market a pickup service from the new metrolink station that literally offers direct one ride service to the airport and Amtrak. Think a getaway weekend package from KC or Chicago and/or a ballgame/casino package including tickets to a game & metrolink or a weekend package for out of town NFL fans.

Could easily be mistaken but I don't see Westport being nothing more than a park and ride lot either. So why not strengthen what you have and build ridership on the existing two lines versus introducing a third metrolink line with questionable ridership numbers? Heck, many posters have noted that the Westport line doesn't match up to the North-South in federal requirement for federal matching dollars. Since we are still stuck with the political and financial reality that the county will get the next metrolink line over the North-South line why not reconsider or explore different options?

Finally, even if it is very unlikely, a Earth City extension does offer a buy in for St. Charles extension down the road. My bet is St. Charles leadership and business leaders would prefer a direct airport connection over a direct Clayton Business district connection. Once again, that is pure speculation on my part.

A station would be over a mile away from the amphitheater. Plus there's no sidewalk along 141. Just a horrible place for a pedestrian. We shouldn't waste money building transit out to places like this.

The 34 bus goes there and my heart goes out to people who have to use it to get to jobs there.

Here's one on 141. Simply inhumane