urbanSTL

A regional BRT system would be a good have for the money, especially if it's done right. The Green Line's time isn't now, it doesn't mean it can't be reopened in the future. Benefit of BRT lines is that if you do them right, and ridership is high enough, you then have some justification to "graduate" them to light rail. I say let this play out.

Besides, it's not like the north end of the Green Line is bustling with people. Even if Paul McKee's properties were taken away, there's no guarantee anything will be built in the near future or even once the Green Line was built. NGA employees wouldn't use it. A few stops were cut on the south side. The Green Line we saw presented recently was a bastardization of a previous bastardization of a grand vision that came from over 2 decades ago. There's nothing to lose if there's no federal money allocated or expected to be issued for rail.

If the problem comes back to studies taking forever to conclude, then reforms at the federal level need to be had to roll back environmental review, locally preferred alternative studies, and all associated stuff. Just say "this is what we want, here's a plan, we must build". No more of those costly and time burning studies. These particular things are the killers of many transit projects all across the country, yet you can ram through a highway expansion or new roadway.

Blame the Mayor and Bi-State if you wish, but the writing was on the wall for this a long time ago.

There will be no more Light Rail or Streetcar expansions in the State of Missouri for a very long time. 

dbInSouthCity wrote: ↑

Sep 24, 2025

There is no wiggle room and if nobody else sues, I will

I wonder if the county could be sued too. They passed a tax even before the city and we have seen zero movement on Metrolink expansion out there too. Also, the Ferguson Commission definitely recommended Metrolink expansion. It's been zero movement. The leadership is so bad. People criticized Tishuara for making the new route, but maybe she was the only one that actually understood that some semblance of Metrolink must be built or the city would be held liable.

dbInSouthCity wrote:There is no wiggle room and if nobody else sues, I will

The city could fund the local match of a 6 mile BRT route without touching Northside Southside MetroLink funding. An amendment could be written and passed while the Green Line is being built to free up the other funding for the system.

Chris Stritzel wrote: ↑

Sep 24, 2025

A regional BRT system would be a good have for the money, especially if it's done right. The Green Line's time isn't now, it doesn't mean it can't be reopened in the future. Benefit of BRT lines is that if you do them right, and ridership is high enough, you then have some justification to "graduate" them to light rail. I say let this play out.

Besides, it's not like the north end of the Green Line is bustling with people. Even if Paul McKee's properties were taken away, there's no guarantee anything will be built in the near future or even once the Green Line was built. NGA employees wouldn't use it. A few stops were cut on the south side. The Green Line we saw presented recently was a bastardization of a previous bastardization of a grand vision that came from over 2 decades ago. There's nothing to lose if there's no federal money allocated or expected to be issued for rail.

If the problem comes back to studies taking forever to conclude, then reforms at the federal level need to be had to roll back environmental review, locally preferred alternative studies, and all associated stuff. Just say "this is what we want, here's a plan, we must build". No more of those costly and time burning studies. These particular things are the killers of many transit projects all across the country, yet you can ram through a highway expansion or new roadway.

Blame the Mayor and Bi-State if you wish, but the writing was on the wall for this a long time ago.

There will be no more Light Rail or Streetcar expansions in the State of Missouri for a very long time. 

Out of 3,000+ NGA employees, many of whom live in the city and Metro East, there is a 100% chance that a noticeable chunk would have used MetroLink. Significantly fewer, however, would use it if they have to take a bus.

Indy’s Purple Line is the framework for STL’s Green Line. In 2022, the Purple Line was $188M for 15.2 miles. They brought $69.3M to the party, about 37%, or $4.55M per mile local match.

Assume 20% inflation (not backed by data, just a guess) comes out to $32.76M for six miles of local match on roughly $100M project.

addxb2 wrote: ↑

Sep 24, 2025

Indy’s Purple Line is the framework for STL’s Green Line. In 2022, the Purple Line was $188M for 15.2 miles. They brought $69.3M to the party, about 37%, or $4.55M per mile local match.

Assume 20% inflation (not backed by data, just a guess) comes out to $32.76M for six miles of local match on roughly $100M project.

Ok I think I disagree with what you're suggesting. I have no issue with building BRT in certain places, and I wouldn't object to the city doing this in certain places. But it shouldn't be the Green Line's routing.

addxb2 wrote:Indy’s Purple Line is the framework for STL’s Green Line. In 2022, the Purple Line was $188M for 15.2 miles. They brought $69.3M to the party, about 37%, or $4.55M per mile local match.

Assume 20% inflation (not backed by data, just a guess) comes out to $32.76M for six miles of local match on roughly $100M project.

Indy’s Purple line is averaging 3,200 riders per day in March. $188M. STLs NS MetroLink is/was projected (big emphasis on projected) to average 5,000 riders per day on a $1.5B project.

addxb2 wrote: ↑

Sep 24, 2025

addxb2 wrote:

dbInSouthCity wrote:There is no wiggle room and if nobody else sues, I will

The city could fund the local match of a 6 mile BRT route without touching Northside Southside MetroLink funding. An amendment could be written and passed while the Green Line is being built to free up the other funding for the system.

I also wonder if the City could argue that building the stops, intersections, lane adjustments for BRT is the first step in building Northside Southside into a light rail corridor not the end of the project.

I will still sue

Auggie wrote:

addxb2 wrote: ↑

Sep 24, 2025

Indy’s Purple Line is the framework for STL’s Green Line. In 2022, the Purple Line was $188M for 15.2 miles. They brought $69.3M to the party, about 37%, or $4.55M per mile local match.

Assume 20% inflation (not backed by data, just a guess) comes out to $32.76M for six miles of local match on roughly $100M project.

Ok I think I disagree with what you're suggesting. I have no issue with building BRT in certain places, and I wouldn't object to the city doing this in certain places. But it shouldn't be the Green Line's routing.

But why not? When I previously complained about the routing being a concern, I think you were quick to remind me that the route was just the first phase for which additional phases would be built off of and therefore I shouldn’t worry.

I am making another iteration of your argument. That the projects realities and federal landscape are such that it is no longer feasible to ONLY trim routing but STL must now consider adjusting the mode?

A BRT route can be built quicker and cheaper in the Trump reality we live in. One day, with sales tax still earning, STL can lay rail. Further into the future the rail can be extended to the initial promise.

I will never understand this decision to completely start over. Wasted money. As if this federal money might not be available in 3 years. They quit before quitting was necessary. There’s work that can be getting done, they just gave up because it probably was never as much of a priority as they wanted the public to believe

I'm a bit undecided on the merits of this decision but I do know that any city with a good transit system doesn't just have urban rail but also frequent bus service. And the bus service Metro provides is very bad. Personally I'd prefer $$ be spent making that a good frequent system first as opposed to investments reliant on an at best fickle federal gov't.

Its worth remembering that the cross county (blue line) metrolink extension was rejected for federal funds, metro went deep into debt to build it and as a result neither metrobus nor metrolink service has completely recovered since 2009. I'm not saying that extension was a mistake, but wishcasting for an improbable extension in the future while we have garbage bus service seems misguided to me.

addxb2 wrote: ↑

Sep 24, 2025

addxb2 wrote:Indy’s Purple Line is the framework for STL’s Green Line. In 2022, the Purple Line was $188M for 15.2 miles. They brought $69.3M to the party, about 37%, or $4.55M per mile local match.

Assume 20% inflation (not backed by data, just a guess) comes out to $32.76M for six miles of local match on roughly $100M project.

Indy’s Purple line is averaging 3,200 riders per day in March. $188M. STLs NS MetroLink is/was projected (big emphasis on projected) to average 5,000 riders per day on a $1.5B project.

The Purple Line is on pace for ridership being a little higher than 1 million this year, or roughly the same ridership as the 70 Grand, which we did not put $188 million into. It will also generate virtually no economic development and very few people will choose to use it over driving (as seen by the decline in ridership on other routes and the already existing Red Line).

So, for $188 million, they got 42,000 more monthly riders than the previous route. But that's not the whole story, since the Red Line and the 8 Washington both saw ~20% declines in ridership due to the Purple Line siphoning off riders. Which combined makes about 32k riders. Meaning they spent $188 million for ~10,000 new monthly riders.

Despite opening a $188 million expansion, IndyGo is seeing a 2.8% decline in bus ridership.

Seattle, on the other hand, opened a large light rail expansion and has seen both bus and overall ridership increase.

Spencer is more and more of a disappointment with each passing day, and this right pisses me off. I voted for N/S Metrolink. I did not vote for BRT. Metrolink won. BRT wasn't even on the ballot. This is nothing short of a betrayal of the public trust. It's not on a par with what the state legislature has done lately, but it's the same species.

addxb2 wrote: ↑

Sep 24, 2025

Auggie wrote:

addxb2 wrote: ↑

Sep 24, 2025

Indy’s Purple Line is the framework for STL’s Green Line. In 2022, the Purple Line was $188M for 15.2 miles. They brought $69.3M to the party, about 37%, or $4.55M per mile local match.

Assume 20% inflation (not backed by data, just a guess) comes out to $32.76M for six miles of local match on roughly $100M project.

Ok I think I disagree with what you're suggesting. I have no issue with building BRT in certain places, and I wouldn't object to the city doing this in certain places. But it shouldn't be the Green Line's routing.

But why not? When I previously complained about the routing being a concern, I think you were quick to remind me that the route was just the first phase for which additional phases would be built off of and therefore I shouldn’t worry.

I am making another iteration of your argument. That the projects realities and federal landscape are such that it is no longer feasible to ONLY trim routing but STL must now consider adjusting the mode?

A BRT route can be built quicker and cheaper in the Trump reality we live in. One day, with sales tax still earning, STL can lay rail. Further into the future the rail can be extended to the initial promise.

(Did not see this comment earlier)

I might just misunderstand what you're saying.

Here's what you may be saying, and I would be okay with it. The city re-build Jefferson to be LRT-ready once money is available for it. Things like a road diet, sidewalk/ped improvements, etc. And maybe run a new bus line along it with nicer bus stops. But throughout the whole process, the intention is to build the Green Line once funding becomes available from a friendlier federal government.

If this is what you are saying, then sure I would be okay with it. But I don't believe this is what the city will do. My fear is that the city scraps the LRT plans, blows millions on BRT, and years down the line, we start building a BRT alignment and a Dem wins big in 2028, the Senate somehow goes blue, all things are great, but now we are building a BRT line when a new transit infrastructure bill goes through. Added that there has never been a BRT line that has "graduated" to LRT in the US.....I'm a skeptic.

But put forward in good faith, I would be fine with it. I just don't trust the city.

I know people don't ride the bus here if they don't have to, but in cities like DC and Chicago (just two I'm personally familiar with) its much more common for middle class people to ride the bus in addition to the Metro and L respectively.

There are still tens of thousands of people in STL who do ride the bus every day and that makes life hard for them. Does that matter at all to you? With the steep car price inflation of the last few years that number is unlikely to go down, and we deserve better.

PeterXCV wrote: ↑

Sep 24, 2025

I'm a bit undecided on the merits of this decision but I do know that any city with a good transit system doesn't just have urban rail but also frequent bus service. And the bus service Metro provides is very bad. Personally I'd prefer $$ be spent making that a good frequent system first as opposed to investments reliant on an at best fickle federal gov't.

Its worth remembering that the cross county (blue line) metrolink extension was rejected for federal funds, metro went deep into debt to build it and as a result neither metrobus nor metrolink service has completely recovered since 2009. I'm not saying that extension was a mistake, but wishcasting for an improbable extension in the future while we have garbage bus service seems misguided to me.

The cross county extension was not rejected for federal funding. County leadership was just idiotic and didn't apply for federal funding. As far as the Green Line, there was no indication that it would have not received federal funding. In fact, it's low cost compared to other proposed light rail transit expansions would have made it competitive. The FTA already came several times to St. Louis and gave the project it's blessing. It was all about the federal match and local will. Why do people pump out this fake narrative that St. Louis isn't dense enough or wouldn't attracte enough riders to get federal funding? If that were the case we wouldn't have gotten Metrolink in the first place. This is all local decision making that is executed by local political ideology. St. Louis hasn't seen expansion in 20 years because the city, county, and state leaders are not interested in progress or collaboration when it comes to public transit. As far as the busses, St. Louis could have had better bus service years ago. It's not rocket science, it's literally about local political will. Cities can do whatever they want to do. I'm tired of people making excuses for why St. Louis is so dysfunctional and backwards thinking.

I’m fairly confident that the City can tap the sales tax for construction of the new Jefferson MetroLink station regardless.

1. Jefferson MetroLink Station & Transfer - $25M
2. Merge the 11 & 4 into a single standard bus operation that does not deviate to downtown.
3. BRT infrastructure between N Grand & Chippewa. Infrastructure and lane alignment similar to eventual LRT.
4. Use sales tax to implement LRT between Cass & Gravois.
5. Replace the BRT with LRT one small section at a time as competitive and funding is available.

goat314 wrote: ↑

Sep 24, 2025

PeterXCV wrote: ↑

Sep 24, 2025

I'm a bit undecided on the merits of this decision but I do know that any city with a good transit system doesn't just have urban rail but also frequent bus service. And the bus service Metro provides is very bad. Personally I'd prefer $$ be spent making that a good frequent system first as opposed to investments reliant on an at best fickle federal gov't.

Its worth remembering that the cross county (blue line) metrolink extension was rejected for federal funds, metro went deep into debt to build it and as a result neither metrobus nor metrolink service has completely recovered since 2009. I'm not saying that extension was a mistake, but wishcasting for an improbable extension in the future while we have garbage bus service seems misguided to me.

The cross county extension was not rejected for federal funding. County leadership was just idiotic and didn't apply for federal funding. As far as the Green Line, there was no indication that it would have not received federal funding. In fact, it's low cost compared to other proposed light rail transit expansions would have made it competitive. The FTA already came several times to St. Louis and gave the project it's blessing. It was all about the federal match and local will. Why do people pump out this fake narrative that St. Louis isn't dense enough or wouldn't attracte enough riders to get federal funding? If that were the case we wouldn't have gotten Metrolink in the first place. This is all local decision making that is executed by local political ideology. St. Louis hasn't seen expansion in 20 years because the city, county, and state leaders are not interested in progress or collaboration when it comes to public transit. As far as the busses, St. Louis could have had better bus service years ago. It's not rocket science, it's literally about local political will. Cities can do whatever they want to do. I'm tired of people making excuses for why St. Louis is so dysfunctional and backwards thinking.

Hmm well this is some interesting new info to me. I certainly agree with the lack of leadership among our elected politicians. I don't think Spencer's position on this is good, she seems pretty much anti-transit in general or she'd have had more of an alternative than just "uh brt i guess" lined up. I suppose I was skeptical of us getting a good enough federal match with the low ridership projections and how the FTA generally funds half of projects while we're generating like $15m/year for a project of over $1 billion. 

Be that as it may, I still maintain that for St. Louis to be a car-optional city we'll need a frequent bus network, regardless of if more metrolink is built or not, and that could be done pretty quickly in contrast to the studied-to-death north-south metrolink. addxb2's proposal may be a good one. 

PeterXCV wrote: ↑

Sep 24, 2025

I know people don't ride the bus here if they don't have to, but in cities like DC and Chicago (just two I'm personally familiar with) its much more common for middle class people to ride the bus in addition to the Metro and L respectively.

There are still tens of thousands of people in STL who do ride the bus every day and that makes life hard for them. Does that matter at all to you? With the steep car price inflation of the last few years that number is unlikely to go down, and we deserve better.

It does matter to me and like I said, I wish it could be better. But buses do not drive transformational change the way trains do and the federal government does not chip in on their operation. That's all I'm really saying.

I would happily vote for a tax increase in the County to improve bus service if I lived there.

I don't think we can overstate the lingering impacts of the Loop Trolley debacle on rail transit/federal grants in this region. Regional/city leadership was always going to face an uphill battle convincing the public of a billion-dollar project serving relatively few riders. I realize the Loop Trolley was a much shorter route and duplicative of existing MetroLink service. Still, the hangover of that bad decision, including the wasted federal dollars and the negative press, still looms large. A "Loop Trolley 2.0" Green Line with less-than-projected ridership would be the official death knell of rail expansion on the Missouri side of this region (if the Loop Trolley 1.0 wasn't already).

Second, the omnipresent crime topic -- do we think Metrolink now has turnstiles because frequent riders demanded them? Or was it an attempt by Metro to silence critics in the media, the vast majority of whom seldom or never ride transit and just consume click-bait news articles reading "Another shooting on Metrolink"?  I think we urbanists on this site forget that a huge portion of the St. Louis market believes Metrolink to be unsafe and worse, that it furthers crime instead of bringing investment. A BRT line being less flashy may be at least partly the point -- it won't be scrutinized the way a new rail line would be with regards to public safety OR return on investment.

This isn't me saying "don't build transit expansions" because a bunch of uninformed suburban non-riders are scared -- but we do have to own up the fact that St. Louis City is already a small percentage of the region's population and is declining/de-densifying. Any pushes for expensive transit dollars allocated at a regional level are going to be scrutinized heavily and sadly need to address concerns of both return on investment and perceptions of crime.

A well-designed BRT (with future LRT conversion capabilities) seems to be the best balance for the moment--especially if it's possible to simultaneously plan an additional BRT line down Grand at still less the cost of a single Green Line rail project.

symphonicpoet wrote:Spencer is more and more of a disappointment with each passing day, and this right pisses me off. I voted for N/S Metrolink. I did not vote for BRT. Metrolink won. BRT wasn't even on the ballot. This is nothing short of a betrayal of the public trust. It's not on a par with what the state legislature has done lately, but it's the same species.

Agreed. I have not seen anything yet that shows Spencer will bring about more change than Jones, and this is a huge mistake.

Transit should ideally come BEFORE density. The fact that ridership was projected to be low means nothing. It is an investment in the future of north and south St. Louis. The best way to rebuild these neighborhoods is for STL to build fixed transit, buy the surrounding properties, and sell it developers with strong incentives for good urban developments. A bus route is not capable of having anywhere near the same impact.

The route could’ve been modified if Spencer wanted to see it resemble the original plan better, but scrapping it ensures there won’t be a north-south metrolink for decades.


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