urbanSTL

pat wrote:

I hope the study would consider putting Metrolink or Commuter to St. Charles down the express lanes, that ROW is large enough to put trains down the middle and could potentially be our Northside part of any future Metro expansion. I know many are opposed to this idea, but the only way I see Metrolink expanding is if the ROW is already there, like the express lanes of 70 or the old rail ROW through South City, because anything else would likely be cost prohibitive with lack of state support.

I think the beginnings of a future bullet train from STL to KC would be better down that portion of 70. Light rail like Metrolink needs to be as close to people as possible. Transit involves walking. Its part of the neighborhood. It needs to be close by. HSR doesn't. There's not a lot of on-offs. HSR would be perfect down that stretch of highway with a stop at the airport.

I like this idea. Isn't the 220 HSR from St. Louis to Chicago the idea is that it would go beyond downtown Chicago and go to O'Hare making a trip by train from St. Louis to O'Hare around 2hours which would basically be a better alternate than a connecting flight, especially for international travel? That and such line could go further north and go to Milwaukee.

Also, couldn't some of the area the airport land bought up be used for mass transit lines in a cost-effective manner? Since looking at it could be easily used to extend the metrolink line to Earth City with little non-airport ROW. Also, what would be interesting is to see get a map showing all unused railway and power line ROW in the area since maybe those could be used as cheap corridors for metrolink transit if it makes sense, or at the very least new bike trails linking areas.

Podcast: Strong Towns Talking Transit

http://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2014 ... ng-transit

4 decades and $500+ million later (probably $700m when RoW is factored in)
http://m.stltoday.com/news/local/stchar ... touch=true

The quotes from Tim Fischesser are spot on.

Tim Fischesser, the league’s executive director, said the project subsidized urban sprawl and the spreading out of the metro area’s population base which hasn’t grown much overall.

“It made the region less efficient,” Fischesser said. “It made it more difficult for MoDOT to sustain the infrastructure. If you’re roughly serving the same amount of people but greatly expanding the infrastructure, it’s wasteful without more people.”

quincunx wrote:MINNPost - The Met Council is a great idea, but the full council shouldn't plan transit

Earlier this week, the Star Tribune published a dynamite survey of the transit usage of the 17 members of the Metropolitan Council. As it turns out, not many of them use transit particularly often.

http://www.minnpost.com/minnesota-blog- ... an-transit

Is the Met Council our EWG?

edit- looks like a yes and a no, it started out as a MPO but it seems like its grown into something way beyond a function of an MPO.

^ EWG would be a lot more effective if board members were elected and they actually had real planning authority. OneSTL was a good vision, but I'm skeptical of its implementation because EWG has no real power over municipal or county planning.

EWG board is elected- not to the board but the board isn't appointed. whomever is the Mayor of the city or county executive at any given time is on the Board.

dbInSouthCity wrote:

quincunx wrote:MINNPost - The Met Council is a great idea, but the full council shouldn't plan transit

Earlier this week, the Star Tribune published a dynamite survey of the transit usage of the 17 members of the Metropolitan Council. As it turns out, not many of them use transit particularly often.

http://www.minnpost.com/minnesota-blog- ... an-transit

Is the Met Council our EWG?

edit- looks like a yes and a no, it started out as a MPO but it seems like its grown into something way beyond a function of an MPO.

Sounds like our EWG. I see this line in the piece.

"Transportation, land use planning, and wastewater treatment are things that should be done regionally. Controversially, they are not elected, but appointed by the governor, and this is frequently pointed out by people who belong to whatever political party the current governor does not belong to."

I suggested in another post, that the start of regional government could be to elect the head of our EWG, just as Portland does with their regional planning organization. And then have the legislature give it the power to call for EWG-wide votes (or at least Missouri side) on tax measures that benefit the region, and require a straight majority vote up or down for all the votes cast, not county by county option.

Here's more on the Met Council

MINNPost - Can the Met Council be tamed?

http://www.minnpost.com/politics-policy ... l-be-tamed

So they are EWG, metro and msd rolled into one?

^ Sounds like something St. Louis could use. Metro should have control over land use, transportation planning, the ports, public transit, airport etc. Basically we should make Metro the regional port authority, something like New York has.

^ In theory MoDOT should be doing that....

^ whatever organization does that, whether it be a merger between Metro and MoDOT-St. Louis, there needs to be something like that. It seems like regional planning and growth is hindered by the lack of collaboration between our planning organizations.

Metro. MoDOT stlouis , GRG and EWG all have a good working relationship and there is plenty of collaboration. EWG long range plan along with modots long range plan is developed with input by all those but the issue is they all develop their own section and tape it together without seeing how it all actually fits together.

^ That hardly qualifies as collaboration.

They all may get along, but if they're developing their own priorities independent of each other's then it's not collaboration, and it's not good.

^ There is collaboration going on individual project level ie the I-70 study but not as a system as a whole and how it fits together.

^Which is probably where it is most important.

I agree and I don't any solutions to fixing it because everyone has their own/different funding source and restraints that come with it.

dbInSouthCity wrote:Just noticed MoDOT has awarded a $25million lane addition job on I-64 from 340 to 270 (both directions) To be complete by 2016. I assume a spring of 2015 construction start, then another $8 million on new surface from 340 to 270 on I-64

then next summer there is a $35M project to fix all bridges and pavement on 44 from Murdoch to Kingshighway.... so the work will overlap on those 2 corridors...yay for traffic + Grand Bridge ($9M) over 44 in Fall of 2015...

toss in the Kingshighway bridge replacement ($15M) that the city is doing during that same window- now its a party

Shame so many people are dependent on those roads. If only there was another way.

^ I think there is another way- but politics is hindering it. Right now Metro is running nowhere near capacity, they need to re-think their current system for better utilization before any kind of system expansion talk can start

^ Metro will do a partial redesign of their bus routes when the new North County Transit Center opens up. However, I don't think Metro believes there is any need to do a wholesale redesign/rethinking of the entire bus system.