urbanSTL

^that is the big question. The line to Westport maybe depending on routing and if the proposals that seem to be planned on and near said corridor in terms of development. It does seem it would make more sense than a Metro N/S line due to existing and potential development.

Also wouldn't other MetroNorth positive over Northside be it can create a connection between Clayton and the airport without switching and going the other direction at Forest Park station? Also that line would also be the first mile or two of a Westport line.

Lastly, hasn't there been some hybrid MetroNorth/Northside proposals where the routing uses aspects of both? I was looking that one possibility could be go North from downtown on the Northside alignment or nearby and then jog towards the Northside alignment along some rail lines around Jennings/Ferguson with possibly a segment connecting it with the existing line.

*another idea, have a split off the existing line at UMSL along the Ted Jones Trail to Ferguson, than go along existing tracks to Berkley and then go north along old ROW to the middle of Florissant.*

Now I'm sort of happy Stenger can't get his slimy hands on the City.

As you can see Westport is the "Green Line" for bio-science of course

Looking at this map, I would love to see the region work together city and county to build out this network. Why don't we just go big like Denver and implement a fastrack program. I'm sure it would be big with construction companies, boost our economy, provide numerous opportunities for redevelopment and complete our mass transit system. I feel that trying to go piece by piece will end up costing more in the long run. It should be interesting to see what CMT-STL comes up with in their funding report, because I also think we are not being very smart by simply funding it with sales tax, many other transit agencies use multiple streams of funding.

Thanks Goat. Very helpful. Do you know when that was first released?

Taking a closer look at MetroNorth and Daniel Boone alignments, as portrayed in the above map, it seems that neither of them would break the bank - but that the major obstacle could be obtaining a 50% federal match.

MetroNorth:

4.8 miles, ∼4 stations: Airport Rd, Frost Ave, 270, Florissant
Some strengths: Almost entirely along open right-of-way with no conflict with TRRA (although would require some reconstruction of N. Hanley), serves Boeing (St. Louis County's largest employer), serves Berkley (a predominantly black community with a poverty rate significantly above the state average).

Daniel Boone:

7.25 miles, ∼6 stations, Ladue/Maryland, Delmar Blvd, Olive Blvd, Ashby/N Warson, Lindbergh or Schuetz, Westport Plaza
Some strengths: Mostly along pre-existing ROW (but may require significant reconstruction of Page, and would disrupt/conflict with TRRA right-of-way), serves Danforth Plant Science Center (and generally more industries and employers than MertoNorth), serves Overland (poverty rate slightly above the state average), probably greater TOD likelihood than MetroNorth, serves more major N-S and E-W corridors.

N/S would mostly be used from by current bus riders, anything going west would be used mostly by car drivers but neither has enough ridership to spend $1-2B

We pretend our road network doesn't suffer the same prospects for insolvency.

Love the quote from the guy who wants Metrolink to Six Flags and all the malls.

"But Cella believes St. Louis can make a strong case on behalf of bringing rail to outlying areas of the county."

We can''t and shouldn't

All this points to our poor land use choices and encouragement of unproductive development patterns. It's rendered us house poor.

quincunx wrote:We pretend our road network doesn't suffer the same prospects for insolvency.

Love quote quote from the guy who wants Metrolink to Six Flags and all the malls.

"But Cella believes St. Louis can make a strong case on behalf of bringing rail to outlying areas of the county."

We can''t and shouldn't

All this points to our poor land use choices and encouragement of unproductive development patterns. It's rendered us house poor.

I dont think anyone is pretending that but the road network always had a user fee to increase if the people want a certain level of service ...increasing user fee (fare) for transit is a hard thing to do (if not impossible) to improve or expand service.

Metro fares have been increased several times, though just to maintain service.

dont be silly, locally fares cover 18% of the cost of operation
user fees for road network also include car sales tax, licensing/registration fees..

dbInSouthCity wrote:dont be silly, locally fares cover 18% of the cost of operation
user fees for road network also include car sales tax, licensing/registration fees..

I really doubt roads are paid for by taxes and fees, unless you want to get very generous with your definition of "user fees".

I do think that improving buses in the city would be even more desirable than MetroLink expansion. How much would it cost to realign bus routes to achieve 10 minute frequency covering the city core?

quincunx wrote:We pretend our road network doesn't suffer the same prospects for insolvency.

Love the quote from the guy who wants Metrolink to Six Flags and all the malls.

"But Cella believes St. Louis can make a strong case on behalf of bringing rail to outlying areas of the county."

We can''t and shouldn't

All this points to our poor land use choices and encouragement of unproductive development patterns. It's rendered us house poor.

Yup. I loved that Six Flags quote, too. The more interesting one was from the woman who lived in Baden and works fast food in the County on Manchester.... again, if N/S speeds trips, as it should, it would greatly advantage more lower wage workers over any of the County alternatives as it would speed up access to the more rapid system and build a bigger jobs base w/in the service area so as to give greater local opportunity. It just is too hard to chase those County jobs spread over such a large area; associated with that is the last mile problem.

Is the N/S alignment even the best alignment? Or is there a better more cost efficient routing that could be get most of what the proposed alignment does but at a lot lower cost? Especially if it could be augmented with better bus routings.

roger wyoming II wrote:

MarkHaversham wrote: I do think that improving buses in the city would be even more desirable than MetroLink expansion. How much would it cost to realign bus routes to achieve 10 minute frequency covering the city core?

Mark, I'm supportive of improved bus service as part of a broad enhancement of our system but I also believe having a rapid N/S line is key.... more frequent bus service would be helpful but the trip time can still be enormously long. If we can build a true rapid e/w and n/s rapid system, I think you'd have a great opportunity to realign bus routes as well to get improved service for both.

N/S would be great, but if it's unlikely to happen in the next twenty years can't we still focus on the buses we have? And if we find a way to push N/S through down the road, even better! Even if we get a full build-out of MetroLink like the 2010 long-range plan, most of the city will still be covered by buses.

I suspect a focus on short transfer times for grid routes in the city would be cheaper than MetroLink expansion. It seems like the low-hanging fruit of reducing travel times.

Why in the world were they not saying anything about this in the past 5 years? They could have figured it all out a long time ago.

MarkHaversham wrote:

dbInSouthCity wrote:dont be silly, locally fares cover 18% of the cost of operation
user fees for road network also include car sales tax, licensing/registration fees..

I really doubt roads are paid for by taxes and fees, unless you want to get very generous with your definition of "user fees".

Local roads are definitely not paid by only user fees, its probably 50% user fees and 50% general revenue...my point was for state/interstates in Missouri, those get 0 general revenue or any other tax that's not directly a user fee.

^ I was thinking its more that there is massive regional animosity at play to where I figured local political structure is similar to the Holy Roman Empire in its latter stages, look at a map of that and its apparent.

Also the other obvious is that every development issue in the region highlights racial and class divisions.

Stenger also needs to look ahead to costs to update stoplights in the next few years to communicate with cars.

Hamburg Port Authority is now using smart traffic signals from Siemens to communicate with trucks and reduce congestion. Also in a few months, Cadillac will introduce the 2017 model, the first US car that will transmit V2X signals. The US government is trying to accelerate this to get to crashless cars. But the thing that will make people want it early is the traffic signal communication that will let adaptive cruise control communicate with traffic signals and get cars smoothly through traffic lights with little or no stopping.

http://globenewswire.com/news-release/2 ... ent=695237

http://www.autonews.com/article/2015052 ... gh-the-v2v

imperialmog wrote:Why in the world were they not saying anything about this in the past 5 years? They could have figured it all out a long time ago.

Because the County has waited until now to spend Prop A funds on formally studying possible extension options.

I think their reasoning was to initially focus the funding on maintaining the system - including reinstating some bus routes which had been slashed - and paying down Cross County.