urbanSTL

A south side line makes sense. Imo, a big issue with metrolink is that it touches so few neighborhoods where people live and people live most densely on the south side.

The northern prong on this is a waste of money.

reminder (while the route has changed the timeline is still the same, maybe shave off 12 months at best) 

I don't think it's a waste of money, actually. 

I think that's a corridor where we have a really great chance at rebuilding north city.

I wouldn't mind seeing this made into BRT. Can we please just make a Gravois line? 

I firmly believe a Gravois line would be a game changer for a number of different south side neighborhoods. Its terminus should be at Hampton at the existing transfer center there. That would open up a number of other possibilities for future BRT lines. Grand, Kingshighway, Hampton, etc.  

I think building infrastructure for where you’d like people to live rather than where they live and the infrastructure is actually needed is a bad development strategy and, frankly, unethical.

Building a north line in that misses the most densely populated area of north city (the Kingshighway corridor) is a missed opportunity.

This shouldn’t be conceptualised as a N/S line but rather a north line and south line because the population distribution of North and South sides cannot be served by a single line.

There are only like 16-20 "gold" standard BRT lines in the entir world, most being in Brazil, so yes we most likely won't have that but swinging and missing with $100m is better than $800m

From Indianapolis' experience, seems to be a significant risk that the legislature would ***** around with any serious BRT activity in St. Louis. Light rail at least they are willing to tolerate if not support.

I’m fine with either BRT or light rail. If any corridor in St. Louis has ever had the right variables to justify light rail, it’s S. Jefferson.

How would BRT be better than simply building real stations and improving frequency? I suppose I have this feeling that BRT in St. Louis would more or less just be the No. 70 Grand bus. Which is great, don't get me wrong. We need more of that. I love my fixed rail transit, but I can see the argument that we would be better served simply by improving the bus system and fixing its connectivity with the Metrolink spine.

All that said, this is certainly a better alignment. The downtown chicane was pure silliness. I could see the argument for a Jefferson-Gravois-Tucker-Florissant route, but this is at least much better.

symphonicpoet wrote: ↑

Jun 09, 2022

How would BRT be better than simply building real stations and improving frequency? I suppose I have this feeling that BRT in St. Louis would more or less just be the No. 70 Grand bus. Which is great, don't get me wrong. We need more of that. I love my fixed rail transit, but I can see the argument that we would be better served simply by improving the bus system and fixing its connectivity with the Metrolink spine.

All that said, this is certainly a better alignment. The downtown chicane was pure silliness. I could see the argument for a Jefferson-Gravois-Tucker-Florissant route, but this is at least much better.

At this point N-S Metrolink or at least a fixed rail transit (Modern streetcar?) has to be built. The optics that the wealthiest neighborhoods in the region have access to modern light rail and the poorest neigborhoods get a water down BRT seems like a political firebomb waiting to happen. I'd personally go modern streetcar like KC. We could probably get away with that for maybe $400M?

I'm with goat314 on this one if i understand his comments correctly.   I would keep it fixed transit and  say go all in on modern low floor streetcar taking up dedicated street lane with the new N-S city only alignment (think KC) .   Yes, more expensive than BRT but should come in  better than full on light rail which is not needed being that it is a stand alone fixed system for all intents and purposes & essentially a street running alignment.    Plus Feds have had a pretty good track record lately funding new starts on streetcars.

You can always overlay BRT coming from county over part of it and going more into downtown/touching on the downtown transfer station/Amtrak station.   But make it fixed transit for encouraging development.    Save BRT for Kingshighway and Grand where you have other drivers in place that are already encouraging development.

dredger wrote: ↑

Jun 09, 2022

I'm with goat314 on this one if i understand his comments correctly.   I would keep it fixed transit and  say go all in on modern low floor streetcar taking up dedicated street lane with the new N-S city only alignment (think KC) .   Yes, more expensive than BRT but should come in  better than full on light rail which is not needed being that it is a stand alone fixed system for all intents and purposes & essentially a street running alignment.    Plus Feds have had a pretty good track record lately funding new starts on streetcars.

You can always overlay BRT coming from county over part of it and going more into downtown/touching on the downtown transfer station/Amtrak station.   But make it fixed transit for encouraging development.    Save BRT for Kingshighway and Grand where you have other drivers in place that are already encouraging development.

Good idea. I'm also not convinced that this wouldn't be popular at the federal level. Between NGA, Cori Bush, Tishaura Jones, feds throwing around infrastructure money like candy, the promise zone designations, possibly some Rams settlement money being thrown at it. I think if the political will is there it will get built. Also, makes you more pissed realizing how much time Slay wasted. We should be almost done building N-S if it would have moved forward when Slay first proposed it.

sc4mayor wrote: ↑

Jun 09, 2022

^ KC is mixed traffic.  Mixed with car traffic is literally the last thing I want to see on a N/S spine here.  If we’re going to provide dedicated lanes for rail transit…just make the investment and build a fully modern LRT line.  How long has the region been thinking about this?  Skip the half measures and do it right…or don’t do it all.

I favor light rail, but I wouldn't mind a streetcar if they did something like this (although preferably with bollards on both sides) making it extremely inconvenient for some of our more creative car drivers to use the tram lanes. I think putting rails on paved lanes will result in idiot drivers cutting through the designated tram right-of-way. Also from an aesthetic point of view, I think this looks more like a deliberate transit system than paved lanes that are just painted or roped off from car traffic.

^And the grass should help with stormwater retention. (Though I hate to think what that retained water is doing to the sleepers below.)

goat314 wrote:At this point N-S Metrolink or at least a fixed rail transit (Modern streetcar?) has to be built. The optics that the wealthiest neighborhoods in the region have access to modern light rail and the poorest neigborhoods get a water down BRT seems like a political firebomb waiting to happen. I'd personally go modern streetcar like KC. We could probably get away with that for maybe $400M?

Don't get me wrong, I favor light rail since that's what we voted for. But I can see other arguments and I'm not married to any particular position. I'm really not sold on BRT, though. It sounds like a bad compromise: most of the worst features of a bust with most of the up-front cost of light rail. And without the flexibility of a bus or the reliability and efficiency of light rail. I'm not opposed to ordinary busses, but I truly don't get the love for BRT.  I suppose I'm looking for someone to explain why I'm wrong about BRT. (DB, you up for the job?)

All that said, whatever happens I really want improvements and I want construction to start yesterday.

Hypothetically, would you take 4 of these BRT lines? Or the one LRT line? If so which 4 would you choose first?



For me the answer is pretty obvious. You take 4 BRT: Jefferson, Grand, Kingshighway, Skinker. 

One line? St. Louis culture would kill it. 4 lines at once? Teach people and they will acclimate and learn to tolerate if not like it. 

Do what Ottawa did. Make BRT so successful you need to upgrade to LRT. 

^ none of those would actual be lines, This is not a BRT plan, this is bunch of crayon lines on a map. Nothing on it makes sense, the spacing is bizarre, the duplication is a waste of money and area with some of the highest pop density is a line desert. Eyeballing it, it looks like about 90 miles, which would be $3,200,000,000 for gold standard

RuskiSTL wrote: ↑

Jun 09, 2022

Hypothetically, would you take 4 of these BRT lines? Or the one LRT line? If so which 4 would you choose first?

I'd personally choose one LRT line over all your BRT lines because all those lines closely duplicate service we already have and I'm not convinced BRT would be a dramatic improvement on ordinary bus service, while I'm fairly confident it would require a dramatic investment.

BRT literature talks about average speeds of thirty miles an hour or more, but inside of city limits that's pure fantasy land. The vehicles are still busses, with ordinary acceleration and handling, To get an average speed of thirty would either require the vehicles to  never stop anywhere on their route, or to have operating speeds approaching sixty miles an hour, and the stretches you show simply wouldn't support that. You couldn't safely intersect with cross traffic at those speeds and you'd be constantly accelerating and decelerating hard just to get to those speeds on such short segments. I think a fair estimate would be about fifteen miles an hour on average, which is only about twice as fast as what we have now. And the more stops you have the worse it gets, since the stops are most of the time cost anyway. Add to that the fact that it's still a bus, with all the associations people have with busses. It won't really change perceptions any. I don't see that as a worthwhile investment.

LRT has some of the same problems. No matter where you put it it will be redundant, and the top speeds won't be dramatically higher. But you will get the benefit of signal priority and some crossing protection, so you will be able to more safely maintain those speeds. It will also probably have fewer stops, since that's just the expectation with light rail anyway. Fewer stops, but faster service. And it might appreciably change perceptions. People will see it as an investment. Companies might use it in their marketing materials. Developers might use it talking to a bank, or a government organization.

My fear is that BRT is basically LRT light. That it has many of the costs of LRT, but not all of the benefits. It's clearly going to fall somewhere between ordinary bus service and LRT. That's just the nature of the beast. And the middle thing is rarely the best. If you have three smart people picking numbers between one and a hundred you don't want to be in the middle. The top or the bottom will nearly always win, because they get the benefit of all the cases above or below them and the middle only wins if they picked exactly the right number. Well . . . BRT sure looks like that middle pick. If I'm taking a longer trip I want a train. If I'm taking a shorter trip I want a bus. When do I want a train-bus? Pretty much never unless I live at one stop and work at the next. I'm really not sold on BRT. Am I seeing something fundamentally wrong here?

To my thinking the best system connects (metro) trains and busses. I won't say N/S makes sense as LRT. But I'm pretty sure it doesn't make sense as BRT. That said . . . while decidedly interested in transportation, I'm no engineer. Just a composer. (And one time bus driver and railroad volunteer.) I will gladly accept I might be wrong. Just looking for an explanation of why BRT makes economic or engineering sense.

STLEnginerd wrote:^^
Not really fair. Obviously they ARE crayon drawings on a map but that doesnt mean they aren't conceptually sound. They all mostly follow major coreidors that could ptobably handle the reappprop4iation of a traffic lane to BRT row. I'm not sure where you see a line dessert. Seems like most people could get where they needed to go in 2 transfers or less which is p4etty solid for a city as spr r ad out as st. Louis. Reminds me of London underground which to me is the aspirational target.

All that said I wonder if it's all a waste of time. Once cars become fully autonomous in 10 -20 years public transit will probably seem like a silly idea. And 10 years is prob target for full build out if we really got going. Maybe investing in Waymo is a better move.

I certainly hope not! It would take a gargantuan, monumental shift for private, autonomous vehicles to be as price accessible as public transit for low income people who need mobility.

All of those single user vehicles would be terrible for the environment and our infrastructure (most likely) too. Even when vehicles are electric, they still can contribute dramatically to climate change through increased tire particulates, battery manufacturing and waste, mining, and increased weight on our road and city infrastructure.

By the way I’m not trying to lecture here….but I’m passionately against the idea of autonomous vehicles somehow creating a utopia that replaces transit. I think they’re separate. Rather like Uber and Lyft fill pretty different needs.


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It's also unrealistic. Uber & Lyft were launched on the assumption that autonomous vehicles were only a few years away, and that the drivers would soon be replaced. That's part of why they could get away with never making a profit. But here we are, years later,  and autonomous vehicles are still just as much of a pipe dream. I think it's delusional based on recent history to conclude self driving cars are right around the corner, and irresponsible to use it as an excuse not to invest in transit. 

I lament the loss of the corridor on N Florissant Ave in favor of Jefferson. An easy light rail connection to downtown would have worked wonders for stabilizing the neighborhoods of Old North, Hyde Park, and St. Louis Place. Instead it will be running through the bombed out neighborhoods around North Jefferson where there isn't even much neighborhood left to even stabilize. 

 I understand we promised the NGA a station but how many NGA workers are really taking transit to work? I see the benefits of not running the line directly though downtown, but could the line make a right turn on to Delmar or MLK from Jefferson, before turning North again on Tucker or 14th? Not only would route through North City be more effective but it would add a lot of connectivity to the northern side of downtown west which would be huge for that stretch of Wash Ave and surrounding areas.

 

GoHarvOrGoHome wrote:I lament the loss of the corridor on N Florissant Ave in favor of Jefferson. An easy light rail connection to downtown would have worked wonders for stabilizing the neighborhoods of Old North, Hyde Park, and St. Louis Place. Instead it will be running through the bombed out neighborhoods around North Jefferson where there isn't even much neighborhood left to even stabilize. 

 I understand we promised the NGA a station but how many NGA workers are really taking transit to work? I see the benefits of not running the line directly though downtown, but could the line make a right turn on to Delmar or MLK from Jefferson, before turning North again on Tucker or 14th? Not only would route through North City be more effective but it would add a lot of connectivity to the northern side of downtown west which would be huge for that stretch of Wash Ave and surrounding areas.

 

Granted JVL is a big neighborhood, but 4,200 people live there. There are 6000 in the neighborhoods you named and they cover a larger area.

This new route also provides access for DT West and Midtown in a meaningful way. DT West has 5k people and I’d imagine somewhere around 2000 of those residents might find the Jefferson stops quicker to walk to than stuff downtown. Midtown population is pretty heavy to the west side of that neighborhood but locust street is growing and the Jefferson corridor is seeing action there.

Idk that zig zagging the line makes a whole lot of sense if the goal is rapid transit.


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