urbanSTL

I think you make good points about why not to go elevated rail, but I have to ask: did anyone mention that? I may have missed it.

BRT is what I've meant the whole time. You could run 2 one way BRT dedicated lanes up the middle of Gravois along with a median along the center to catch the bus at stops. In my vision, you remove parking, so you have 2 lanes each way and a bus lane each way. Left turns would be limited to just a few intersections, but that's kind of the case already.

And like I said, a similar BRT line along Grand.

^ Wabash mentioned it very briefly in the post above my previous one. No biggie -- we're in full agreement re: BRT

rbb wrote:

bprop wrote:^ 31 minutes from Shrewsbury to 8th and Pine. FYI.

That may be ride-time (though by memory that seems optimistic) but doesn't include time waiting for the train. Going by experience I've found I need to budget 45 minutes to from parking at the Shrewsbury station to arriving downtown. And that doesn't include time spent travelling to the Shrewsbury stop. That's fine for special occasions (going to a ball game or a parade, for example) but when you're going to work every day the time saved by driving is significant; at least it would be for me, and I think I'm echoing jstriebel here.

I doubt anyone needs it to be minute-for-minute the same as driving. but the Metro line and bus routes are circuitous at best. A straighter line, be it light rail, BRT, or just a regular ol' express bus to downtown IMO would be quite useful for South City and near South County residents.

-RBB

Which is why I was responding to:

The jog up to Clayton means it's a 40 to 45 minute ride from that station to the downtown stops just on the Metro. Add drive/bike time and it's no faster than the buses.

I've ridden this route most every weekday for the past seven years and it really is 31 minutes. It's not optimistic and in fact, it's far more stable than drive time. If you know your scheduled departure time, you can drive, park, walk onto the train, and wait less than a minute before it departs. Parking/waiting/riding is a 35 minute activity, tops. If someone (not referring to you here) consistently takes the train and needs to budget 45 minutes between parking and arrival downtown, they're doing something very wrong. An occasional rider, of course, would likely not plan so closely.

In the early mornings, the train is about the same as an Express (not local) bus ride was. The Shrewsbury Express ran for a few months between the Metro station and downtown, and if the driver ignored the schedule, departing intermediate time points before s/he was supposed to, it was about a 30-minute ride. Now, in the afternoon with traffic, no way would a bus match the Metrolink on time. Even with the swing over to Clayton, the train beats any bus hands-down. The same bus as above took over 45 minutes from 12th and Market to the Shrewsbury station.

As always, take your time into account. Every minute I spend behind the wheel is 100% wasted. Not so on the train. I'll gladly take 15 minute longer total in order to make my 31-minute ride productive. YMMV.

If I didn't have to drive to the station in the first place, I'd be totally fine with another 15 minutes. But once I'm in the car, I might as well just drive the 15 minutes downtown.

That's how I feel about it anyways.

It would be nice to see the Highway 40 option chosen - I could/would actually be able to use it.

^ You would actually find a service that ran only every 20min peak / 60 min off-peak minutes useful? Compared to the other 3 lines with 10 min peak / 20 min off-peak headways, the hourly service on the 64/40 line is a joke.

Well, seeing how it's the only option close to where I live, yeah.

There's no indication a route like Gravois was considered to any wide audience. Maybe to a few small decision makers. And that's unfortunate.

http://www.stltoday.com/news/traffic/al ... cf0fd.html
not sure if this will work or not .

BrickCity4470 wrote:http://www.stltoday.com/news/traffic/al ... cf0fd.html
not sure if this will work or not .

Metro is a joke, before they get any money for anything they need a total change in management. The current clowns in charge have proven they are clueless...they got the tax increase and now are broke again, total mismanagement of tax payer funds.
MoDOT should pull the $10m they set aside for this in 2016

^ Exactly, there seems to be a mismanagement of funds. Metro also lied and said passing prop A would result in system expansion (specifically another Metrolink line). I'm really disappointed with what Metro has been able to accomplish with so much local tax money at their discretion. Charlotte, Minneapolis, and a slew of other cities get a much smaller percentage of their revenue from local tax dollars and they are able to expand their systems, get state and federal funds, and have real visions for the future. Metro has proven that they can do none of this. It seems that if Metro actually had a long term funding strategy or plan it could actually go to the state and say, we need "X" amount of dollars per year for expansion, and another "X" amount of dollars per year for operations to match local taxpayer funds.

Sad that MoDOT can commit $10m for this metro project and metro hasn't even found the money for their portion on their own project

Metro is seriously a joke. We're still using paper tickets and having to hire security to check fares? What is this, 1970?

I think the West Florrisant route makes sense because it serves those that really need it. The other route that makes sense from my perspective is one of Jefferson/Grand/Gravois. But it seems they scraped that for Chesterfield to appease the county. I mean the demand for either Grand or Kingsgighway must be higher than Chesterfield, right? Optimally, I'd think three would best serve the region.

Randy wrote:Metro is seriously a joke.

Knowitall wrote:Metro is a joke.... they got the tax increase and now are broke again, total mismanagement of tax payer funds.

I have to disagree with you guys here. Metro needed Prop A to save the system from being completely eviscerated. Cross County was an absolute boondoggle, that went way over budget, and Metro ate all of those costs, and saddled it with much more debt than it had anticipated. As a result, Metro promised the public it would never do another significant capital project without significant outside funding, primarily with federal matching funds in mind. So, just because Metro says they don't have the funds to build out a $40-$60 million BRT line doesn't mean that they are "broke again" and "totally mismanaged" it means that the funds they have are spoken for, and are being used to run and maintain the current system and pay down its debts. While $40 million isn't a huge project like Cross County, N-S Metrolink, or Daniel Boone, it's still a significant capital expense with commensurate increased operating costs. If anything, the fact that Metro doesn't have tens of millions of excess funds lying around, and that it's not jumping to foot the bill for new capital projects and increase its operating costs without federal assistance shows that it is being well managed.

The president of Metro, John Nations, is a lawyer and a republican. For better or worse, what we're going to get with him is responsible, conservative management that is going to put Metro on solid footing and repair its thoroughly tarnished reputation (basically a continuation of the work that Bob Baer did). This will put Metro in a stronger position when it comes around to competing for significant federal funds for major capital projects. Until then, smaller projects that can secure some federal/state/and non-Metro local funding can continue to help improve transit in the region (i.e. Boyle/Sarah Station, Loop Trolley, Olive/Lindell Streetcar, increased Grand Bus capacity, etc...).

^ please tell me you don't actually believe the service cuts because they were out of money. It was a ploy to get the tax passed so that the cross county mess can be fixed.

wabash wrote:So, just because Metro says they don't have the funds to build out a $40-$60 million BRT line doesn't mean that they are "broke again" and "totally mismanaged" it means that the funds they have are spoken for, and are being used to run and maintain the current system and pay down its debts.

With all due respect, if this is the best way Metro can find to spend $50,000, then they haven't the faintest idea what they're doing.

With all due respect, read articles before citing them:

"The project was fully funded with $50,000 in federal stimulus money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) which was awarded by the Federal Transit Administration (FTA)."

I read the article. According to KMOV, Metro had discretion over how to use the $50,000. In total they're spending $350,000 on this kind of nonsense.

http://www.kmov.com/video?id=245027281&sec=549692

Randy wrote:According to KMOV, Metro had discretion over how to use the $50,000.

Where does KMOV say that Metro had discretion over the funds?

It sounds like: "Metro really didn't have a choice. The federal government mandated part of the transportation grant be spent on enhancements, like works of art." and "In the past it was a federal mandate to spend a portion of transportation grants on enhancements. On new grants it's just a recommendation." These works were funded by a July 19, 2009 grant.

I think the key word is that enhancements are mandated, not a singular, $50,000, w̶o̶r̶t̶h̶l̶e̶s̶s̶ "sculpture." I have not read the text of the original grant (if you have it I'd love to read it), but I am pretty sure that the federal government did not mandate Metro put this particular thing at this particular location.

When I first saw it, I mistook it for a poorly placed utility box or something. Really a shame and shows how misplaced the priorities are at Metro.

That said, I use Metro because it is still more efficient and cost-effective than driving. If they raise rates as they plan to do, that is something I will have to reconsider.