urbanSTL

^That's certainly how the quote in the RFT read to me:

"Some of the things that hampered the trolley project, I do think that we have some of the expertise to help it," Bi-State CEO Taulby Roach said. "But I'm not going to say that it is a super sound project. It's track record speaks for itself."

I'd love to see them make a success of it, but I can also understand that they're spread pretty thin and stepping forward with the bare minimum to keep an amusement park ride going might be about as good as it gets. To make a real success of this would require a substantial investment and a significant rethink. If it were free and frequent and connected parking to destinations, say, it could serve as a shuttle. If the loop were substantially pedestrianized. If on-street parking were eliminated and replaced with expanded outdoor seating or bike paths or both. Not sure what the answer is, but I'm glad Bi-State is stepping in. At the very least they'll make it mesh with the rest of the system to some extent.

If eight hours is the window of operation, why not 4PM-Midnight?  Cover the restaurants, bars and shows.  Pageant, the highest capacity venue on the line, is apparently not part of the equation.  Tivoli?  Same.  With density along this line really starting to build you'd hope residents could use it to access both metro stations 6AM - Midnight 7 days/week.  With decent headways, this could be an incredible amenity to support carless living along the route.    

I thought about that... about 4-12.

But then why do you have a trolley going in Forest Park? Almost everything but the Muny closes by 5.

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I agree, those are absolutely worthless operational hours.  I imagine because they're afraid of things that happens after dark, and don't need to add it to their portfolio of albeit, overblown and sensationalized, bad press opportunities.

12-8pm is pretty consistent with the summer hours for other attractions operated by Metro:
Riverboat cruises: 10am-7pm
Arch Tram: 9am-7pm.

12-8pm also overlaps with major Forest Park attractions:
Zoo: 8am-7pm
SLAM: 10am-5pm
History Museum: 10am-5pm
Visitor Center: 6am-7pm

For folks checking out The Loop or Forest Park or both for the day and wanting to add a ride on the Loop Trolley to their itinerary this schedule makes a lot of sense.

It wouldn't surprise me if nobody wants to stick their neck out to invest more into making the trolley successful. As-is, when it fails it was a lost cause foisted upon BiState, but if they invest in expansion and it fails then it's BiStates's failure.

Top political priority is to make sure one man is blamed for this.

LOL

^ don’t want to be too *urban theory*

But IMO this type of tactical grassroots advertising is how something turns from boondoggle -to- lovable community loser -to- town favorite.

If Bi-State makes a fuss about this they’re stupid. Literally should be hosting jingle competitions with station/stop performances on Saturday.

^ totally agree. I was expecting the worst but that is surprisingly positive. Very cool!

He puts on a good show, I'll give him that. Whether the loop trolley succeeds or not, I'd be thrilled to see Superfun Yeah Yeah ride that rocket to the top of the crustacean nation. (And as a died-in-the-wool crab I mean that.)

I think the 7pm closing time is the stupidest part of that service plan. But there's a lot to dislike. 

LOL - an all time "Correction" that service actually starts August 4th.  Wow. Like who cares at this point.

who are they going to run the actual trolleys? Is metro training persons as I write this? Good  luck metro has a difficult enough time hiring retaining drivers

Start service right as fall and cooler weather begin? I see solid choices all around by skipping summer. Lol

Testing starts on July 27th. 

I still think this thing could be useful if they tried.

I wish they could put it on the Metrolink fare system, vastly improve the hours, replace the old school trolleys with modern streetcars, and rebrand the thing LoopCar or something equally cheesy so long as the point is made.

I'd love to see it extended, even if just to the Zoo and Art Museum, which would be so impactful. I imagine visitors to our city staying in Downtown and taking the red or blue line to Forest Park-DeBaliviere station for an easy connection with LoopCar to the Zoo. They may even decide to explore the LoopCar path and eat at a restaurant they wouldn't have ever encountered otherwise.

Delmar Divine is like 1,000 feet from where the trolley - er, LoopCar - turns onto DeBaliviere. There are already talks of a Phase II. Imagine how many of those non-profit workers and new residents may walk that 1,000 feet to board and catch a meal on the Loop for lunch or after getting off work in the evening.

I also remember murmurs of something happening behind the scenes at the Crescent Plumbing site at the Loop Metrolink station.

I expect that entire Delmar and DB corridor it is on to continue its momentum of development and we already have the tracks laid. LoopCar can grow with it!

On the St. Louis side of the tracks, you have two Metrolink stations that the system connects with -- Forest Park-DeBaliviere and Loop. There is an opportunity for some real density here, with easy mobility for residents and workers via the trolley and access to both the red and blue lines.

St. Louis has a chance to arm wrestle with University City over the Loop area. U-City has wasted their own opportunities to develop on the massive surface parking lots behind their entertainment drag, and I hope the city does it.

But then again, they also killed the project at Skinker so maybe my vision just fizzled away.

I know UrbanSTL exists for dreaming but seriously, no expansion of the Loop Trolley is ever going to happen. Edwards is broke, the Trolley was barely open for a year, the project is widely hated in St. Louis (not even just by the usual suspects), and the feds are unlikely to ever fund an expansion after what happened, let alone local governments. I think that Metrolink adding two more lines is more likely to happen than that. 

I realize how unlikely the Loop Trolley is to expand, or really do anything but run out the clock so that it can be closed without the feds being able to claw back funds. 

I guess I just see more potential for what could have been, and what could be. 

RockChalkSTL wrote: ↑

Jul 22, 2022

I still think this thing could be useful if they tried.

I wish they could put it on the Metrolink fare system, vastly improve the hours, replace the old school trolleys with modern streetcars, and rebrand the thing LoopCar or something equally cheesy so long as the point is made.

I'd love to see it extended, even if just to the Zoo and Art Museum, which would be so impactful. I imagine visitors to our city staying in Downtown and taking the red or blue line to Forest Park-DeBaliviere station for an easy connection with LoopCar to the Zoo. They may even decide to explore the LoopCar path and eat at a restaurant they wouldn't have ever encountered otherwise.

Delmar Divine is like 1,000 feet from where the trolley - er, LoopCar - turns onto DeBaliviere. There are already talks of a Phase II. Imagine how many of those non-profit workers and new residents may walk that 1,000 feet to board and catch a meal on the Loop for lunch or after getting off work in the evening.

I also remember murmurs of something happening behind the scenes at the Crescent Plumbing site at the Loop Metrolink station.

I expect that entire Delmar and DB corridor it is on to continue its momentum of development and we already have the tracks laid. LoopCar can grow with it!

On the St. Louis side of the tracks, you have two Metrolink stations that the system connects with -- Forest Park-DeBaliviere and Loop. There is an opportunity for some real density here, with easy mobility for residents and workers via the trolley and access to both the red and blue lines.

St. Louis has a chance to arm wrestle with University City over the Loop area. U-City has wasted their own opportunities to develop on the massive surface parking lots behind their entertainment drag, and I hope the city does it.

But then again, they also killed the project at Skinker so maybe my vision just fizzled away.

In my opinion the biggest sign that it was never intended to be useful is that it wasn't incorporated into the metrolink fare system, that alone relegated it to a tourism novelty. Although I can't speak for anyone but myself, I would probably ride it if I could transfer with my metrolink ticket, it'd be useful getting up the loop from any of the train stops, but there's no chance I'd buy a separate ticket. I agree there's a lot of missed potential, unfortunately I just don't see any effort to change that.