urbanSTL

Auggie wrote: ↑

Dec 16, 2024

addxb2 wrote: ↑

Dec 16, 2024

Auggie wrote:
She's gonna kill someone with a car if she's car shopping because she can't stay upright.

She is an older woman and it’s water on top of basically granite. It’s a safety hazard.

Old person, can't even walk without falling, definitely should be driving.

Old people in cars is a safety hazard far bigger than a puddle of water.

The puddle of water is a safety hazard for literally anyone, not just old people. I'm not elderly, but my knees are still relatively unbalanced from an injury several years back. I'm clumsy and can fall down my own stairs. 

I think it would be excellent if they focus on safety and accessibility - and yes - that includes this perpetual puddle.

I think the puddle is there because their maintenance power washes the stairs top down

The station is indeed brighter and the reconstructed stairways are an upgrade. However, it does feel much more utilitarian and cold compared to its original feel. The recessed downlights on the platform have been replaced with surface mounted LED floodlight discs that are spaced seemingly at random. All of the indirect cove lighting from behind the granite wall panels is gone. The central uplight between the tracks is a cold-toned LED light strip which doesn't really illuminate the ceiling as intended and looks unpolished with the louvres being bent/damaged and dirty. There is also now a red emergency standpipe hanging from the ceiling the length of the station. While some of these changes are necessary and nit-picky, it's a little disappointing to see all the time and money spent result in a cheapened and less visually appealing station, not to mention the standing water on the dirty floors. The walls of galvanized steel bars at every entrance coming in the next year or two will definitely complete the look I suppose. 

The westbound entrances are also still partially fenced off and have dumpsters parked in front of them, so not the most welcoming look from the street.

I assume the fencing isn’t entirely their choice. That area became really popular for the homeless a few years ago.

Why don’t they get some of those kiosk down in the station area? Seems like a good way to soften and add artificial activity.

The dumpsters are embarrassing. Although every city in America has figured out how to store their downtown dumpsters… Arcade can’t.

Sooooo….we still have the water issue? What exactly did we accomplish here? I thought that was one of the main purposes for the shutdown and construction?

Also, we couldn’t have spruced the station up with art or anything?

Im not seeing improvement here. Looks dreadful. Maybe someone can explain to me what was accomplished here because I am very disappointed

We have some things to fix at Convention Center station too

Between this and the fare gates, bi state may need to get a new engineering team. The fare gates are certainly not the most up to date technology or system and this 8th and Pine situation looks like a complete missed opportunity. Closed since April and we did not fix the water issue? It looks as wet as it did before. Main stairs look a little better but the others do not. No color, art, touches to spruce it up. No new arrival time screens. Doesn’t look like they even replaced the pavers or the wall slabs at the bottom. No new seating. No new signs or more inviting entry way at the top of the station.

We have those rad brick arch ways at our subway stations and then we do this with the rest of it. This is a failure of aesthetics and functionality

And the fencing and dumpsters are embarrassing.

Wow metro really got robbed. Whoever completed this project did a horrible job. The station looks less welcoming than it did before. 0% thought was put into aesthetics and even the finishes were horribly done. 

The scope was to re do the stairwells and change lighting. This wasn’t a grand station beautification project

Metro does not really care about their riders or rider experience, they're only out to provide the bare minimum of service to qualify as a transit system

dweebe wrote: ↑

Dec 17, 2024

dbInSouthCity wrote: ↑

Dec 17, 2024

The scope was to re do the stairwells and change lighting. This wasn’t a grand station beautification project

I know we weren't trying to turn this in to one of the showcase Moscow Metro stations.  But the lighting could have been done better and the standing water could have been addressed. I am also one of those people who has slipped and fell at this station. It was years ago, but happened twice in a 6 month period.

I guess we should just shut up an accept this station will always be damp and there is nothing that can be done about it.

Literally all it would have taken is pulling the tiles at the bottom of the stair and adding a quarter to a half inch of grout so that it sloped away from the bottom step, given that it's the bottom landing of the stair this could have clearly fallen within the scope of "upgrading" the stairs, they just chose not to because what they really meant by "doing stair work" was to remove the escalators rather than actually improving the station

_nomad_ wrote: ↑

Dec 17, 2024

dweebe wrote: ↑

Dec 17, 2024

dbInSouthCity wrote: ↑

Dec 17, 2024

The scope was to re do the stairwells and change lighting. This wasn’t a grand station beautification project

I know we weren't trying to turn this in to one of the showcase Moscow Metro stations.  But the lighting could have been done better and the standing water could have been addressed. I am also one of those people who has slipped and fell at this station. It was years ago, but happened twice in a 6 month period.

I guess we should just shut up an accept this station will always be damp and there is nothing that can be done about it.

Literally all it would have taken is pulling the tiles at the bottom of the stair and adding a quarter to a half inch of grout so that it sloped away from the bottom step, given that it's the bottom landing of the stair this could have clearly fallen within the scope of "upgrading" the stairs, they just chose not to because what they really meant by "doing stair work" was to remove the escalators rather than actually improving the station

Agreed. I assumed the “stair improvements” would include making the stairs not wet and dangerous with a puddle at the bottom of them.

Also, if we are going to shut down stations from April to December we need to take advantage of that more as a full on revamp. That’s plenty of time to do more upgrades than this

That's not a puddle...it's a water feature.

Tim wrote: ↑

Dec 17, 2024

That's not a puddle...it's a water feature.

Probably cost extra.

I like the design of the new wayfinding pylon, anyway. I assume that's the replacement for the original pylons from 1993?

brianadler6545 wrote: ↑

Dec 16, 2024

Auggie wrote: ↑

Dec 16, 2024

addxb2 wrote: ↑

Dec 16, 2024

She is an older woman and it’s water on top of basically granite. It’s a safety hazard.

Old person, can't even walk without falling, definitely should be driving.

Old people in cars is a safety hazard far bigger than a puddle of water.

The puddle of water is a safety hazard for literally anyone, not just old people. I'm not elderly, but my knees are still relatively unbalanced from an injury several years back. I'm clumsy and can fall down my own stairs. 

I think it would be excellent if they focus on safety and accessibility - and yes - that includes this perpetual puddle.

oh my god! I am not the only one who notices it. it has been a recurring issue since 2017. why cannot they fix it? who can I reach at metro to address it? it is definitely a safety hazard - i thought it was my slippery shoes.

Bi-State has done all this hiring but we are still moving at 20 minute headways. It makes the system a tougher choice during the winter than it should be. Have we not hired enough to get back to at least 10 minute headways during certain hours? Feels like we should be there.

The frequency of metrolink (and metrobus) and obviously the land uses around the stations are really restricting the ridership numbers and potential that this system has.

It comes on time at that 20 minutes - it’s very reliably right on time, gotta be close to 100%. Feels like we have the ability to increase the frequency then.

@delmar2debaliviere2downtown Are you referring to frequency between consecutive blue (red) lines or system in general? I believe they scheduled maintenance and track work this week which is impacting the frequency. Least to say it is quite annoying - bad timing. And, the puddle at 8th and pine is turning into a slushy mess.

delmar2debaliviere2downtown wrote: ↑

Jan 23, 2025

Bi-State has done all this hiring but we are still moving at 20 minute headways. It makes the system a tougher choice during the winter than it should be. Have we not hired enough to get back to at least 10 minute headways during certain hours? Feels like we should be there.

The frequency of metrolink (and metrobus) and obviously the land uses around the stations are really restricting the ridership numbers and potential that this system has.

It comes on time at that 20 minutes - it’s very reliably right on time, gotta be close to 100%. Feels like we have the ability to increase the frequency then.

In addition to only 20 minute headways, they cut service on the blue line to only operate between Forest Park to Shrewsbury a significant amount of time making it's even more time-consuming to use the system. Metro does not care about riders or good service.

^No they do not. Some organization or politician(s) needs to put pressure on them to make improvements or they never will. 

stlurbanist wrote: ↑

Jan 23, 2025

@delmar2debaliviere2downtown Are you referring to frequency between consecutive blue (red) lines or system in general? I believe they scheduled maintenance and track work this week which is impacting the frequency. Least to say it is quite annoying - bad timing. And, the puddle at 8th and pine is turning into a slushy mess.

Each line only runs at a 20 minutes frequency always. Then since last week, they are only running the blue line to forest park for maintenance, so we get only 20 minute frequency between trains from Forest Park to the east (and they do this quite often). Imagine you are a blue line rider to Downtown or CWE - you now exit the blue line at FP-D and might have to wait 20 minutes for a transfer.

We should at least be back to 10 minute frequencies in each train by now anyways. When one is not operating, we especially need to up the frequency on the other. Just doesn’t make sense when they don’t run one train, and we don’t make other adjustments.

And yes, not happy at all about the 8th and Pine renovation. That was very poorly done. I have little hope for the Convention Center now.

_nomad_ wrote: ↑

Jan 23, 2025

delmar2debaliviere2downtown wrote: ↑

Jan 23, 2025

Bi-State has done all this hiring but we are still moving at 20 minute headways. It makes the system a tougher choice during the winter than it should be. Have we not hired enough to get back to at least 10 minute headways during certain hours? Feels like we should be there.

The frequency of metrolink (and metrobus) and obviously the land uses around the stations are really restricting the ridership numbers and potential that this system has.

It comes on time at that 20 minutes - it’s very reliably right on time, gotta be close to 100%. Feels like we have the ability to increase the frequency then.

In addition to only 20 minute headways, they cut service on the blue line to only operate between Forest Park to Shrewsbury a significant amount of time making it's even more time-consuming to use the system. Metro does not care about riders or good service.

They're doing work in the metro east which is limiting frequency. Not sure how long it'll take.

Auggie wrote: ↑

Jan 23, 2025

_nomad_ wrote: ↑

Jan 23, 2025

delmar2debaliviere2downtown wrote: ↑

Jan 23, 2025

Bi-State has done all this hiring but we are still moving at 20 minute headways. It makes the system a tougher choice during the winter than it should be. Have we not hired enough to get back to at least 10 minute headways during certain hours? Feels like we should be there.

The frequency of metrolink (and metrobus) and obviously the land uses around the stations are really restricting the ridership numbers and potential that this system has.

It comes on time at that 20 minutes - it’s very reliably right on time, gotta be close to 100%. Feels like we have the ability to increase the frequency then.

In addition to only 20 minute headways, they cut service on the blue line to only operate between Forest Park to Shrewsbury a significant amount of time making it's even more time-consuming to use the system. Metro does not care about riders or good service.

They're doing work in the metro east which is limiting frequency. Not sure how long it'll take.

And taking zero steps to limit the impact on riders or keep up service frequency. Metro does not care and puts no effort into limiting the footprint of service reduction or limiting the inconvenience for riders. They do not care about providing timely and reliable service.