Streetcar headed to downtown St. Louis?
by Kim Cella on June 1, 2012

Is a modern streetcar system headed to Downtown St. Louis? The Partnership for Downtown St. Louis (Partnership) released a Request for Qualifications today for a streetcar feasibility study for connecting the areas of Downtown, Midtown, Central West End, and Skinker-DeBaliviere in the City of St. Louis.



link: http://cmt-stl.org/streetcar-headed-to- ... -st-louis/

RFQ link: http://www.downtownstl.org/docs/StreetcarRFQ.pdf

^+1

Let's also get that proposed NS line on the map as well PLEASE! What a great little transit system with the 4 metrolink lines and two street car lines. Assuming they ran fairly frequently, it would be a huge draw for more young professionals in the city.

Hopefully they can get SLU to be a big motivator of this.

ImprovSTL wrote:Let's also get that proposed NS line on the map as well PLEASE! What a great little transit system with the 4 metrolink lines and two street car lines. Assuming they ran fairly frequently, it would be a huge draw for more young professionals in the city.

What's the 4th?

I believe that the North South line will be considered as two lines. Then you have the Red and Blue already.

Man I hope this can be fast tracked, what a potential great project.

Financing will be a bear, federal dollars will be hard to come by.

^as could local

I believe this thing is going to happen if big institutions like Grand Center Inc., St. Louis University, Cortex, Harris Stowe University etc. get behind it. I have no reason to believe they wouldn't but then again stranger things have happened in St. Louis.

Remember a year ago when there was a story about Lacy Clay failing to get the needed funds for a downtown streetcar study? Well aparently the funding came from somewhere, because now we're getting the study. I believe many developers, leaders and institutions are finally realizing that St. Louis has great potential to attract and retain talent, but if we make the right investments. Look what a new streetscape has done for Washington Avenue, would that be possible without the initial investment? I think not! Let's also not forget that the central corridor were the fastest growing census tracts in the region, this streetcar push is definitely trying to solidify and even further capitilize off those gains. Even during the recession St. Louis has seen a lot of big developments,just imagine what would we be happening if the economy was healthy.

So do we have 13,000 downtown residents or 7,600 downtown residents??

I am currently working on a GIS study of this potential line, so I guess I better get on the ball. So far I have housing unit density, employment density and household income incorporated into the model. If anyone has any other factors to consider and implement those thoughts would be appreciated...as would any others.

stlien wrote:So do we have 13,000 downtown residents or 7,600 downtown residents??

As of 2010, the two downtown neighborhoods (Downtown and Downtown West) had 7,661 residents.

The larger number comes from the addition of the Carr Square and Columbus Square neighborhoods, which nets a total of 12,304.

^Agreed. That map was clearly done by someone who has given this no thought until today. Notice how they have it running east & west on Locust east of Tucker, which is a one-way west bound street. That's just homicidal.

I agree with running it along Locust in downtown and Midtown Alley. But then once it gets west of Leonard it should cut south in that angled street that has since been turned into a parking lot and run along Olive/Lindell out to the CWE and perhaps Skink-D.

^ Actually, I hope they keep the focus squarely on Downtown to Mid town via Locust as you noted with a proper run to CWE. Getting the streetcar line built and built right as Alex alluded to should be the priority. I belive Skink-D will take care of itself once loop trolley goes forward, Wash U starts developing more of the property it owns in the immediate area and the transit grid really starts developing between this idea as well as a Grand Ave BRT.

This development and Goat's comments concerning metrolink starting to take a look at NS as the preference bodes well for the city. I just hope they can pull it off as well as the new 22nd street interchange, putting Grand/Forest Parkway back to an at grade intersection and at least getting rid of the raised section of I-70 downtown.

Alex Ihnen wrote:Depends. What are you selling/building?

Ha. Good point.

stldotage wrote: As of 2010, the two downtown neighborhoods (Downtown and Downtown West) had 7,661 residents.

The larger number comes from the addition of the Carr Square and Columbus Square neighborhoods, which nets a total of 12,304.

Thanks.

Alex Ihnen wrote:BTW - the map accompanying the STL Today story is awful, just horrible. Why would a streetcar make sense on Olive through the CWE (Gaslight Square) where relatively large single family homes have just been built? Anywhere other than Olive/Lindell makes little sense at all.

I completely agree.

Wouldn't a modern street car line connecting the Loop to Downtown along the proposed route make more sense than what is currently proposed?

So now we would have a historic trolley from the Loop to the History Museum. At best the two lines would connect, but you would still have to transfer. At worst they may not be integrated at all, or poorly.

An modern street car line from Downtown, hitting Midtown, Grand Center, CWE, Forest Park and the Loop would solve one of St. Louis's big tourism issues... Attraction Sprawl.

Why wouldn't they make some kind of connection to the Loop Trolley!?!
Seems like a no-brainer. Not connecting the two would be a major lost opportunity. Imagine being able to get from the Arch to U-city via street car. Amazing thought!

^Corporations, I believe.

Alex Ihnen wrote:It's going to be a mess getting multiple streetcar lines under one roof. Anyone know how that was accomplished way back when?

I think most of the lines were run independently until the early 1900s when the St. Louis Public Transit Company (forerunner of Bi-State/Metro) began buying them up. People would just transfer between lines run by different companies. I think they were all under one roof by the 1940s, certainly by the 1950s.

That said, I don't think the model of multiple independent lines would work today. There needs to be some sort of seamless transfer between the different lines and modalities if our transit network is going to work. People are just going to drive if mass transit requires dealing with that sort of hassle.

So if Gaslight Square hadn't been demolished would the route be totally obvious? Olive?