urbanSTL

Unfortunately, I believe this will prove to be a HUGE waste of money that could been spent on improving frequency and access to transit in our region.

Congrats to the spouse of a Centene interviewee! Without spending more than two days here, You’ve officially had a greater influence on transit policy than any number of planners and experts from the last 20 years.

We’ll have to get you a plaque and hang it below Joe Edwards.

What happens when the gates don't open? The vast majority of stations are unmanned, especially after hours. I hope they work better than Metro's escalators. The system seems to be crumbling in a lot of ways, rusting stairs, escalators broken for years, broken TVMs and validators. The W/B 8th and Pine escalator has been repurposed as a trash receptacle.

The other day I was trying to get home. My Gateway Card "expired" itself for the second time in a month. Neither Cortex TVM accepted my card. Luckily I had cash, but at least I could've just ridden anyway, showing my card if needed. Even buying paper tickets in advance is a poor plan since Metro insists on making them expire in three months or something.

Under the new system I guess I'd be SOL.

no comment necessary 

MetroLink Update: Secure Platform Plan https://www.metrostlouis.org/nextstop/metrolink-update-secure-platform-plan/

Looks great

it’s lesson number one post global pandemic.

“Give people more objects to touch while in public”

Making something harder to use usually isn't a recipe for increased use. Certainly not the approach the state takes for its "free"way system.
Maybe they could market it like an exclusive club or restaurant, then everybody will want in.

My question is...how will people with Bicycles navigate onto the platform? I see there are clearly larger swing doors between the turnstiles. Is this implying there will be a touch-card pad you scan your pass against to unlock the swing door? I mean...I can easily see someone slipping through quickly when the opportunity presents itself. Which would make this whole project superfluous.

Looks like every other turnstile system in America. I really don't have any feelings about the system either way, but I will admit that I was scared to death riding it from the airport a couple years back. So much so that I rented a car when I visited last year. The city as a whole just felt kind of lawless.

Sad to see tens of millions of taxpayers dollars wasted on ameliorating the imaginary fears of people who don’t even use the system.

I know they said this is just a concept, but it's funny to think about spending tens of millions of dollars on this only to have relatively easy access over this short wall next to it lol

These turnstiles don't seem to be worth the investment, but they will neither encourage nor discourage me from using the system.

^They are at the least ugly and intrusive. And expensive and not likely to be remotely effective. Which causes me to think they're a waste of money. If it's coming from the Neidorff estate I'll live with it, but I honestly don't like it.

I don't like it because it would have been nice to see the St. Louis Metro system invest in other, more pressing things such as better bus stops around the city; but, like you said, if this is coming from private investment, whatever, I won't lose much sleep about it. 

I agree with you.

I don't think they should be there. In fact, as someone that is trying to use the Metro system more often, I have seen some of the glaring inadequacies we could better spend that money on.

Gosh, it'd be nice to see that money go toward improvements at the Metrolink stations themselves. I would kill for something that provided an ETA on next train arrival. But that really is so small on that list of things that could be bettered.

I think my greatest concern now is bus stops, though. So many of them are really crummy and poorly located.

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RockChalkSTL wrote: ↑

Jun 17, 2022

I agree with you.

I don't think they should be there. In fact, as someone that is trying to use the Metro system more often, I have seen some of the glaring inadequacies we could better spend that money on.

(snip) . . . (For reasons: see below.)

I think my greatest concern now is bus stops, though. So many of them are really crummy and poorly located.

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Yeah. And what's worse, a lot of the stops actually used to be nicer. There were at least benches at most all of them when I was a kid. Covered in adds, but still. Many had shelters in the 80s and 80s. Now? . . . crickets.

dweebe wrote:

RockChalkSTL wrote:Gosh, it'd be nice to see that money go toward improvements at the Metrolink stations themselves. I would kill for something that provided an ETA on next train arrival. But that really is so small on that list of things that could be bettered.

Metro is probably 20 to 30 years away from providing that capability.

Hah!

I really, truly, deeply object to spending our limited funds on the stupidity of ineffective and ugly toll gates.

Who needs turnstiles when you can just put up plywood like they have at several locations downtown?

I hope they comprehend the manpower needed. So many stations are unmanned most of the time. Can some folks at a camera center keep up with manually opening gates when various glitches pop up across the system, or when the gate is opened for a bike or luggage then propped open.

I'm batting worse than Paul DeJong in getting ticketing-related things to work on Metro lately. Gateway Card errors. Paper validators not working. All the TVM's at Cortex refused my credit card one day recently.

Maybe this will work at first, but in a city where everything decays and is rarely fixed, it seems inevitable that people will be prevented from getting places when things start breaking down.

The total estimated cost is $52M:

$17.25M | BSD capital and American Recovery Plan funds
$12M | Bond refinancing proceeds dedicated to security
$12M | Illinois allocation (federal stimulus)
$10.75M | Private sector funding

eee123 wrote:I hope they comprehend the manpower needed. So many stations are unmanned most of the time. Can some folks at a camera center keep up with manually opening gates when various glitches pop up across the system, or when the gate is opened for a bike or luggage then propped open.

I'm batting worse than Paul DeJong in getting ticketing-related things to work on Metro lately. Gateway Card errors. Paper validators not working. All the TVM's at Cortex refused my credit card one day recently.

Maybe this will work at first, but in a city where everything decays and is rarely fixed, it seems inevitable that people will be prevented from getting places when things start breaking down.

Download the Transit app. I have hardly any issues.

There was one time the app told me I didn't have any tickets left when I knew I did. I bought more and filed a complaint.

Anyway, I restarted the app at a later time and noticed that I now had my old rides plus new rides in my queue.

I probably just needed to restart that app. It's the one and only time it's ever happened.

Anyway, the $50+ million is clearly in part going toward an overhaul of the ticketing/gate system.

quincunx wrote: ↑

Jun 18, 2022

The total estimated cost is $52M:

$17.25M | BSD capital and American Recovery Plan funds
$12M | Bond refinancing proceeds dedicated to security
$12M | Illinois allocation (federal stimulus)
$10.75M | Private sector funding

Good lord, what a waste of money. Throw the private sector funding away and spend the rest of the money on something useful, like hiring staff for crying out loud. Yeesh!