urbanSTL

^A word of warning to the wait-and-see approach, symphonicpoet:

Name of Metrolink Study	Year Completed	City of St. Louis Population	St. Louis MSA Population	City as Pct. Of MSA
Daniel Boone, Northside, and Southside	2000	348,189	2,698,687	12.9%
Northside-Southside Corridor	2008	309,864	2,801,319	11.1%
Northside-Southside Corridor 2	2018	302,838	2,805,465	10.8%
Northside-Southside Corridor 3 (BRT)	2025	278,445	2,814,421	9.9%

I'm personally thinking that seizing the opportunity to build a gold-standard BRT line while the stars are aligned for it to actually get built, unlike any of the past light rail studies above, is wise given this trajectory. 


St. Louis's best rail corridor has already been utilized (the Central Corridor) and that is where any substantial population growth and densification is likely to occur in the near term. Plus, the region dropped the ball with the Loop Trolley, damaging public perception of in-street rail projects. I'd rather our next federal funding award be for a different transit mode (that St. Louis completely lacks right now) that could shift the narrative away from failures and missteps.

I agree, I've waited too long for north-south metrolink to believe in it. I remember being excited about it as a teen in 2008 and now I'm in my 30s. It's not gonna happen.

symphonicpoet wrote: ↑

6:22 AM - Aug 13

 And right now, I think there's a pretty good chance that the funding outlook will improve and the materials costs will recede somewhat in the next administration, so waiting might actually be more cost effective as well.

I work in public transportation at a national scale and personally know the executive leadership of the largest transit agencies in the US. None of that is projected to happen. Funding outlook is bleak and rapidly worsening. Trump administration has done irreparable harm to the Federal Transit Administration and Department of Transportation. The amount of programmatic knowledge that has escaped will take almost a decade to rebuild. From what lobbyist are saying, there is no appetite among republicans or democrats to fund another infrastructure bill. Material costs are projected to worsen. Agency capital plans project 2-4% annually through 2030 on labor and materials with some components reaching 10% annually. 

I hate that I've taken the role as BRT proponent for St. Louis. I've been on UrbanSTL since I was 16 dreaming of light rail in St. Louis. I just don't know if everyone has come to terms with how devastated the American public transportation industry is following Trump 1 + COVID + Trump 2. 

addxb2 wrote: ↑

3:56 PM - Aug 13

I hate that I've taken the role as BRT proponent for St. Louis. I've been on UrbanSTL since I was 16 dreaming of light rail in St. Louis. I just don't know if everyone has come to terms with how devastated the American public transportation industry is following Trump 1 + COVID + Trump 2. 

I feel this statement acutely...~2006 stldotage would be appalled at 2026 stldotage  .

With all due respect, anyone that thinks material and labor costs (which are the two main components of construction costs) are ever going down are selling themselves a fairy tail.

MattnSTL wrote:With all due respect, anyone that thinks material and labor costs (which are the two main components of construction costs) are ever going down are selling themselves a fairy tail.

The private contractors would never let that happen but don't mention that part

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PeterXCV wrote: ↑

2:35 PM - Aug 13

I agree, I've waited too long for north-south metrolink to believe in it. I remember being excited about it as a teen in 2008 and now I'm in my 30s. It's not gonna happen.

Deleted and replaced with something clearer. Maybe. Hopefully.

StlAlex wrote: ↑

10:21 PM - Aug 13

The paradox of BRT support:

-Have you looked into other ways to raise revenue?

"No."

-Have you considered "lite" BRT as seen in Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Kansas City, or regular bus lines in NYC, Philadelphia, and DC that carry nearly all of the benefits of full BRT at a fraction of the cost?

"No."

-Surely the BRT plan you have doesn't cost nearly half of the LRT plan you scrapped, right?

"No it's nearly half the cost."

-Okay then surely it doesn't cost more than Kansas City's extremely succesful streetcar that is starting to become a hybrid of a streetcar and LRT line?

"No it actually costs more."

-Okay then this must be like a really long 20+ mile corridor, maybe even on new ROW (such as the $500M Minneapolis Gold Line)?

"No actually most of the added length is just entirely replacing a pre-existing bus line."

-Okay.....then surely the public is super strongly in favor of this sudden change in plans? Right?

"No actually the proponents of the change are so unsure about public support, they didn't mention it all in the last election and tried to push it through without public approval of the shift in funding."

-So what is the point of this? It costs an extreme amount of money, it's not state of the art technology, there is not overwhelming evidence that it will boost system ridership, raise property values, or generate significant new development....?

"Well, it will repave one of the most neglected roads in the region."

This is so St. Louis the words don't exist to describe it properly.

Sent from my SM-S936U using Tapatalk

If we are going to be fair and make our arguments in good faith, let's please make fair and true statements:

"Have you considered "lite" BRT as seen in Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Kansas City, or regular bus lines in NYC, Philadelphia, and DC that carry nearly all of the benefits of full BRT at a fraction of the cost?"
Yes I have, and I do not agree that they have "nearly all the benefits of BRT" these examples run in mixed traffic and are more incremental upgrades to existing high ridership services. Ultimately most of these examples boil down to expensive stations and paint (which of course are great for riders not denying that), but without dedicated right of way and full signal prioritization, then it does not achieve the most important aspect of both BRT or LRT which rapid transit, which is the true goal of this project. Not "slightly faster and slightly more comfortable", but fully dedicated to being as efficient as possible to get people where they need and want to be.

"Surely the BRT plan you have doesn't cost nearly half of the LRT plan you scrapped, right?"
It does not, it is roughly 35-40% of the cost of the LRT plan for 225% more route length.

"Okay then surely it doesn't cost more than Kansas City's extremely successful streetcar that is starting to become a hybrid of a streetcar and LRT line?"
A) It does not. KCs full streetcar line with extensions cost $567M in today's dollars for a line about half as long as proposed Green Line BRT. B) By definition KCs Streetcar will never be considered LRT because it runs in mixed traffic and stops at nearly every intersection. It is popular and effective in KCs linear layout yes, but it is slow and not considered rapid transit.

"Okay then this must be like a really long 20+ mile corridor, maybe even on new ROW (such as the $500M Minneapolis Gold Line)?"
It will be fully on dedicated ROW, on overly wide streets that have not been significantly updated in over half a century. If the county would get on board and assist in funding as well, it could easily become a 20+ mile corridor, but with the current political buy in, the route is as long as possible within city limits. The Minneapolis Gold Line in question is 9 miles long (78% of proposed Green Line length). Like I've said before, this is not just "replacing a pre-existing bus line", it is creating a fully new corridor that currently is inconsistantly covered by 5+ bus lines today of varying low frequency and do not cross the N/S divide of the city. 

The rest of your statements were pretty pointed and surely are up for debate.. who truly knows what the impacts on development will be between LRT and BRT, especially in most of North City which has been so starved of investment and development in the last 75 years that it's hard to imagine. However what we do know is that the people of this city were avowed decades ago a rapid and reliable connection between North and South City that also connects them to the jobs and services Downtown provides as well as the broader connections MetroLink provides. We have squandered that so far, and I do not wish to be part of any further denying that promise when there is a clear path forward that achieves those goals with the public's support in order to satisfy a desire to require steel rails and overhead wires to make it happen.

StlAlex wrote: ↑

10:21 PM - Aug 13

The paradox of BRT support:

-Have you looked into other ways to raise revenue?

"No."

Can I stop you right there? I'm not aware of any supporter on this forum who is a planner for this project. Supporting an existing proposal is not the same as opposing all alternatives -- those just aren't on the table. As I've noted on this thread before, the hypothetical perfect project will always beat the studied, real proposal.

-Have you considered "lite" BRT as seen in Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Kansas City, or regular bus lines in NYC, Philadelphia, and DC that carry nearly all of the benefits of full BRT at a fraction of the cost?

See above. Also, building a top-of-the-line BRT line could be the basis for eventually building a BRT lite feeder network, no?

-Surely the BRT plan you have doesn't cost nearly half of the LRT plan you scrapped, right?

"No it's nearly half the cost."

The ~$400 million figure is an estimate of a current project. The $1.1 billion price tag for the shortened, 10-station Green Line Metrolink proposal of 2022 would certainly be a higher figure now and $400 million is considerably less than half of that already -- for a much, much wider service area.

"No actually most of the added length is just entirely replacing a pre-existing bus line."

You simply must realize that new light rail lines primarily draw riders from existing bus lines, right? And also that pre-existing transit lines (of any mode) are typically designed around passenger demand/system efficiency (i.e. that a hypothetical novel, non-bus-line-overlapping line probably isn't of great passenger utility, at least not without a system redesign)?

"No actually the proponents of the change are so unsure about public support, they didn't mention it all in the last election and tried to push it through without public approval of the shift in funding."

This is a fair point (I think? I don't follow local politics as much as I used to) but regardless, the operative word here is "unsure" re: public support. Anecdotally I've heard a good bit of support for it.

Your concluding sentences really need to be broken down carefully though...

-So what is the point of this? It costs an extreme amount of money, ...

It's a lot of money for a BRT, yes. This may be a sidebar here, but hearing transit advocates say "don't spend so much on a transformational transit project" sounds very self-defeating.

it's not state of the art technology...

A) It's difficult to argue both that a ridiculous sum of money will be spent on a project and that it will be somehow be a behind-the-times investment. Also St. Louis has light rail technology currently -- where it needs it and quite a bit of it, actually-- and lacks BRT in any form.

there is not overwhelming evidence that it will boost system ridership...

This begs the question of where the overwhelming evidence of boosted ridership is for an actual light rail proposal? Because the Green Line had poor ridership projections -- that's what doomed it. And those were likely optimistic to begin with.

...raise property values, or generate significant new development....?

Perhaps "repaving one of the most neglected roads in the region" could raise some property values? And as many have pointed out here for decades now, Metrolink-based TOD took its sweet time and was no immediate boon (and of course, is feverishly and negatively covered by the crime beat of local "media").

And look, I know responding line-by-line comes off as extremely sarcastic and aggressive. That's honestly not my point. My point is to civilly discuss the BRT proposal and put forth an honest argument.

kg2024 wrote:

StlAlex wrote: ↑

10:21 PM - Aug 13

The paradox of BRT support:

-Have you looked into other ways to raise revenue?

"No."

-Have you considered "lite" BRT as seen in Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Kansas City, or regular bus lines in NYC, Philadelphia, and DC that carry nearly all of the benefits of full BRT at a fraction of the cost?

"No."

-Surely the BRT plan you have doesn't cost nearly half of the LRT plan you scrapped, right?

"No it's nearly half the cost."

-Okay then surely it doesn't cost more than Kansas City's extremely succesful streetcar that is starting to become a hybrid of a streetcar and LRT line?

"No it actually costs more."

-Okay then this must be like a really long 20+ mile corridor, maybe even on new ROW (such as the $500M Minneapolis Gold Line)?

"No actually most of the added length is just entirely replacing a pre-existing bus line."

-Okay.....then surely the public is super strongly in favor of this sudden change in plans? Right?

"No actually the proponents of the change are so unsure about public support, they didn't mention it all in the last election and tried to push it through without public approval of the shift in funding."

-So what is the point of this? It costs an extreme amount of money, it's not state of the art technology, there is not overwhelming evidence that it will boost system ridership, raise property values, or generate significant new development....?

"Well, it will repave one of the most neglected roads in the region."

This is so St. Louis the words don't exist to describe it properly.

Sent from my SM-S936U using Tapatalk

If we are going to be fair and make our arguments in good faith, let's please make fair and true statements:

"Have you considered "lite" BRT as seen in Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Kansas City, or regular bus lines in NYC, Philadelphia, and DC that carry nearly all of the benefits of full BRT at a fraction of the cost?"
Yes I have, and I do not agree that they have "nearly all the benefits of BRT" these examples run in mixed traffic and are more incremental upgrades to existing high ridership services. Ultimately most of these examples boil down to expensive stations and paint (which of course are great for riders not denying that), but without dedicated right of way and full signal prioritization, then it does not achieve the most important aspect of both BRT or LRT which rapid transit, which is the true goal of this project. Not "slightly faster and slightly more comfortable", but fully dedicated to being as efficient as possible to get people where they need and want to be.

"Surely the BRT plan you have doesn't cost nearly half of the LRT plan you scrapped, right?"
It does not, it is roughly 35-40% of the cost of the LRT plan for 225% more route length.

"Okay then surely it doesn't cost more than Kansas City's extremely successful streetcar that is starting to become a hybrid of a streetcar and LRT line?"
A) It does not. KCs full streetcar line with extensions cost $567M in today's dollars for a line about half as long as proposed Green Line BRT. B) By definition KCs Streetcar will never be considered LRT because it runs in mixed traffic and stops at nearly every intersection. It is popular and effective in KCs linear layout yes, but it is slow and not considered rapid transit.

"Okay then this must be like a really long 20+ mile corridor, maybe even on new ROW (such as the $500M Minneapolis Gold Line)?"
It will be fully on dedicated ROW, on overly wide streets that have not been significantly updated in over half a century. If the county would get on board and assist in funding as well, it could easily become a 20+ mile corridor, but with the current political buy in, the route is as long as possible within city limits. The Minneapolis Gold Line in question is 9 miles long (78% of proposed Green Line length). Like I've said before, this is not just "replacing a pre-existing bus line", it is creating a fully new corridor that currently is inconsistantly covered by 5+ bus lines today of varying low frequency and do not cross the N/S divide of the city. 

The rest of your statements were pretty pointed and surely are up for debate.. who truly knows what the impacts on development will be between LRT and BRT, especially in most of North City which has been so starved of investment and development in the last 75 years that it's hard to imagine. However what we do know is that the people of this city were avowed decades ago a rapid and reliable connection between North and South City that also connects them to the jobs and services Downtown provides as well as the broader connections MetroLink provides. We have squandered that so far, and I do not wish to be part of any further denying that promise when there is a clear path forward that achieves those goals with the public's support in order to satisfy a desire to require steel rails and overhead wires to make it happen.

-I'm arguing from a place of actually looking into and comparing various BRT lines across the country. Take the Albuquerque ART or Cleveland Health Line, those are two of the highest rated BRT lines in the country, yet sit at ~6k riders per day, only slightly more than the Green Line's projected ridership (despite both being much longer and in better corridor) and not a ton more than the 70 Grand's (a regular bus line) ridership. Then I looked at various lines in Minneapolis, regular lines in DC, etc., and discovered that something like the D Line in Mpls cost $75M to build and gets more than 13k riders per day. Reality is that you don't need to spend hundreds of millions on fancy stations and dedicated lanes to generate ridership, you need frequency and a good corrdior. And actually, they do have dedicated ROW in certain, high traffic areas and they have significant signal priority. And I think I mentioned this but the Minneapolis lite BRT lines, and all the others I looked at, made the trip 20-25% faster than they previously were.

The point is that you can build a really good bus line for far cheaper than a pretend light rail, while getting the same ridership results. Or you could be like Indianapolis, spend hundreds of millions on a pretend light rail, and have ridership DROP in the first year of operation for a $200M capital project. Seattle opens LRT expansions and ridership across the system booms, Indianapolis opens what's considered a good BRT and ridership drops by 4%.

-A) First, the given high end estimate of this project is $590M, which comes in higher than KC's entire streetcar. Second, I was referring to their 3.5 mile extension that came in tens of millions of dollars less than the given $400-$450M for this fancy bus. The streetcar will also almost certainly have more ridership than this fancy bus. B) The latest extension of the streetcar is entirely dedicated lanes, making over half the route now using dedicated lanes. This is why I said "streetcar LRT hybrid". BRT is also not considered rapid tranist in real life, just in pretend LRT fantasy world.

-Fully dedicated ROW =/= new ROW. The Minneapolis Gold Line included entire new highway-style overpass infrastructure and yet only comes in marginally more expensive. If the county got on board, the cost would go up substantially to get to 20 miles, the point is $400M+ should get you 20 miles of BRT, not 11. Reality is that STL will be using these transit funds to repave roads that should be getting fixed and reconstructed regardless of whatever transit gets built and it's beyond a joke that people are pitching THAT as a big benefit as if it should even be part of the equation.

Just some perspective on KC's streetcar extension that featured fully dedicated lanes across 3.5 miles for about $100M per mile: That could get you from 12th and Russell in Soulard all the way to Florrisant and St. Louis in Old North.

Sent from my SM-S936U using Tapatalk

StlAlex wrote: ↑

5:05 PM - Aug 14

kg2024 wrote:

StlAlex wrote: ↑

10:21 PM - Aug 13

The paradox of BRT support:

-Have you looked into other ways to raise revenue?

"No."

-Have you considered "lite" BRT as seen in Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Kansas City, or regular bus lines in NYC, Philadelphia, and DC that carry nearly all of the benefits of full BRT at a fraction of the cost?

"No."

-Surely the BRT plan you have doesn't cost nearly half of the LRT plan you scrapped, right?

"No it's nearly half the cost."

-Okay then surely it doesn't cost more than Kansas City's extremely succesful streetcar that is starting to become a hybrid of a streetcar and LRT line?

"No it actually costs more."

-Okay then this must be like a really long 20+ mile corridor, maybe even on new ROW (such as the $500M Minneapolis Gold Line)?

"No actually most of the added length is just entirely replacing a pre-existing bus line."

-Okay.....then surely the public is super strongly in favor of this sudden change in plans? Right?

"No actually the proponents of the change are so unsure about public support, they didn't mention it all in the last election and tried to push it through without public approval of the shift in funding."

-So what is the point of this? It costs an extreme amount of money, it's not state of the art technology, there is not overwhelming evidence that it will boost system ridership, raise property values, or generate significant new development....?

"Well, it will repave one of the most neglected roads in the region."

This is so St. Louis the words don't exist to describe it properly.

Sent from my SM-S936U using Tapatalk

If we are going to be fair and make our arguments in good faith, let's please make fair and true statements:

"Have you considered "lite" BRT as seen in Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Kansas City, or regular bus lines in NYC, Philadelphia, and DC that carry nearly all of the benefits of full BRT at a fraction of the cost?"
Yes I have, and I do not agree that they have "nearly all the benefits of BRT" these examples run in mixed traffic and are more incremental upgrades to existing high ridership services. Ultimately most of these examples boil down to expensive stations and paint (which of course are great for riders not denying that), but without dedicated right of way and full signal prioritization, then it does not achieve the most important aspect of both BRT or LRT which rapid transit, which is the true goal of this project. Not "slightly faster and slightly more comfortable", but fully dedicated to being as efficient as possible to get people where they need and want to be.

"Surely the BRT plan you have doesn't cost nearly half of the LRT plan you scrapped, right?"
It does not, it is roughly 35-40% of the cost of the LRT plan for 225% more route length.

"Okay then surely it doesn't cost more than Kansas City's extremely successful streetcar that is starting to become a hybrid of a streetcar and LRT line?"
A) It does not. KCs full streetcar line with extensions cost $567M in today's dollars for a line about half as long as proposed Green Line BRT. B) By definition KCs Streetcar will never be considered LRT because it runs in mixed traffic and stops at nearly every intersection. It is popular and effective in KCs linear layout yes, but it is slow and not considered rapid transit.

"Okay then this must be like a really long 20+ mile corridor, maybe even on new ROW (such as the $500M Minneapolis Gold Line)?"
It will be fully on dedicated ROW, on overly wide streets that have not been significantly updated in over half a century. If the county would get on board and assist in funding as well, it could easily become a 20+ mile corridor, but with the current political buy in, the route is as long as possible within city limits. The Minneapolis Gold Line in question is 9 miles long (78% of proposed Green Line length). Like I've said before, this is not just "replacing a pre-existing bus line", it is creating a fully new corridor that currently is inconsistantly covered by 5+ bus lines today of varying low frequency and do not cross the N/S divide of the city. 

The rest of your statements were pretty pointed and surely are up for debate.. who truly knows what the impacts on development will be between LRT and BRT, especially in most of North City which has been so starved of investment and development in the last 75 years that it's hard to imagine. However what we do know is that the people of this city were avowed decades ago a rapid and reliable connection between North and South City that also connects them to the jobs and services Downtown provides as well as the broader connections MetroLink provides. We have squandered that so far, and I do not wish to be part of any further denying that promise when there is a clear path forward that achieves those goals with the public's support in order to satisfy a desire to require steel rails and overhead wires to make it happen.

-I'm arguing from a place of actually looking into and comparing various BRT lines across the country. Take the Albuquerque ART or Cleveland Health Line, those are two of the highest rated BRT lines in the country, yet sit at ~6k riders per day, only slightly more than the Green Line's projected ridership (despite both being much longer and in better corridor) and not a ton more than the 70 Grand's (a regular bus line) ridership. Then I looked at various lines in Minneapolis, regular lines in DC, etc., and discovered that something like the D Line in Mpls cost $75M to build and gets more than 13k riders per day. Reality is that you don't need to spend hundreds of millions on fancy stations and dedicated lanes to generate ridership, you need frequency and a good corrdior. And actually, they do have dedicated ROW in certain, high traffic areas and they have significant signal priority. And I think I mentioned this but the Minneapolis lite BRT lines, and all the others I looked at, made the trip 20-25% faster than they previously were.

The point is that you can build a really good bus line for far cheaper than a pretend light rail, while getting the same ridership results. Or you could be like Indianapolis, spend hundreds of millions on a pretend light rail, and have ridership DROP in the first year of operation for a $200M capital project. Seattle opens LRT expansions and ridership across the system booms, Indianapolis opens what's considered a good BRT and ridership drops by 4%.

-A) First, the given high end estimate of this project is $590M, which comes in higher than KC's entire streetcar. Second, I was referring to their 3.5 mile extension that came in tens of millions of dollars less than the given $400-$450M for this fancy bus. The streetcar will also almost certainly have more ridership than this fancy bus. B) The latest extension of the streetcar is entirely dedicated lanes, making over half the route now using dedicated lanes. This is why I said "streetcar LRT hybrid". BRT is also not considered rapid tranist in real life, just in pretend LRT fantasy world.

-Fully dedicated ROW =/= new ROW. The Minneapolis Gold Line included entire new highway-style overpass infrastructure and yet only comes in marginally more expensive. If the county got on board, the cost would go up substantially to get to 20 miles, the point is $400M+ should get you 20 miles of BRT, not 11. Reality is that STL will be using these transit funds to repave roads that should be getting fixed and reconstructed regardless of whatever transit gets built and it's beyond a joke that people are pitching THAT as a big benefit as if it should even be part of the equation.

Just some perspective on KC's streetcar extension that featured fully dedicated lanes across 3.5 miles for about $100M per mile: That could get you from 12th and Russell in Soulard all the way to Florrisant and St. Louis in Old North.

Sent from my SM-S936U using Tapatalk

Again, the Minneapolis D Line is not a good comparison to our St. Louis situation - it simply replaced the already existing highest ridership route in the city/state by building fancy stations every few stops. And this didn't necessarily massively increase ridership it maintained it and gave it better amenities and skips more stops.

This would be comparable to if we chose to upgrade the 70 Grand which is sorely needed, but there isn't room along that corridor to truly speed things up with dedicated lanes. We're also not bridging between two metro downtowns like the Gold Line does with bridges and overpasses, this is a dense urban line we're building with lots of old infrastructure to contend with and design around so also not a good comparison.

Whether it's light rail or full-scale BRT, St. Louis' proposals are definitely more speculative and with the hope that "if you build it and they will come", while also needing to serve as many existing non-car household residents as possible (like in North City and parts of South City)

I'm not understanding your argument that we should not be celebrating the combined value of also transforming deteriorated corridors... you're saying you'd want either shiny new bus stations or light rail stations sitting in the middle of the 8 crumbling asphalt lanes of N Florissant for example and not care about the nonexistant sidewalks and lack of safe bike facilities on these streets either? Good transit should also create positive transformation through the experience of getting to the stations and having alternate modes of transportation to travel to them. You're right BRT-Lite is successful in places with good built up corridors like Minneapolis, but we're trying to build the spine for those corridors to build up to. 

kg2024 wrote:

StlAlex wrote: ↑

5:05 PM - Aug 14

kg2024 wrote: If we are going to be fair and make our arguments in good faith, let's please make fair and true statements:

"Have you considered "lite" BRT as seen in Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Kansas City, or regular bus lines in NYC, Philadelphia, and DC that carry nearly all of the benefits of full BRT at a fraction of the cost?"
Yes I have, and I do not agree that they have "nearly all the benefits of BRT" these examples run in mixed traffic and are more incremental upgrades to existing high ridership services. Ultimately most of these examples boil down to expensive stations and paint (which of course are great for riders not denying that), but without dedicated right of way and full signal prioritization, then it does not achieve the most important aspect of both BRT or LRT which rapid transit, which is the true goal of this project. Not "slightly faster and slightly more comfortable", but fully dedicated to being as efficient as possible to get people where they need and want to be.

"Surely the BRT plan you have doesn't cost nearly half of the LRT plan you scrapped, right?"
It does not, it is roughly 35-40% of the cost of the LRT plan for 225% more route length.

"Okay then surely it doesn't cost more than Kansas City's extremely successful streetcar that is starting to become a hybrid of a streetcar and LRT line?"
A) It does not. KCs full streetcar line with extensions cost $567M in today's dollars for a line about half as long as proposed Green Line BRT. B) By definition KCs Streetcar will never be considered LRT because it runs in mixed traffic and stops at nearly every intersection. It is popular and effective in KCs linear layout yes, but it is slow and not considered rapid transit.

"Okay then this must be like a really long 20+ mile corridor, maybe even on new ROW (such as the $500M Minneapolis Gold Line)?"
It will be fully on dedicated ROW, on overly wide streets that have not been significantly updated in over half a century. If the county would get on board and assist in funding as well, it could easily become a 20+ mile corridor, but with the current political buy in, the route is as long as possible within city limits. The Minneapolis Gold Line in question is 9 miles long (78% of proposed Green Line length). Like I've said before, this is not just "replacing a pre-existing bus line", it is creating a fully new corridor that currently is inconsistantly covered by 5+ bus lines today of varying low frequency and do not cross the N/S divide of the city. 

The rest of your statements were pretty pointed and surely are up for debate.. who truly knows what the impacts on development will be between LRT and BRT, especially in most of North City which has been so starved of investment and development in the last 75 years that it's hard to imagine. However what we do know is that the people of this city were avowed decades ago a rapid and reliable connection between North and South City that also connects them to the jobs and services Downtown provides as well as the broader connections MetroLink provides. We have squandered that so far, and I do not wish to be part of any further denying that promise when there is a clear path forward that achieves those goals with the public's support in order to satisfy a desire to require steel rails and overhead wires to make it happen.

-I'm arguing from a place of actually looking into and comparing various BRT lines across the country. Take the Albuquerque ART or Cleveland Health Line, those are two of the highest rated BRT lines in the country, yet sit at ~6k riders per day, only slightly more than the Green Line's projected ridership (despite both being much longer and in better corridor) and not a ton more than the 70 Grand's (a regular bus line) ridership. Then I looked at various lines in Minneapolis, regular lines in DC, etc., and discovered that something like the D Line in Mpls cost $75M to build and gets more than 13k riders per day. Reality is that you don't need to spend hundreds of millions on fancy stations and dedicated lanes to generate ridership, you need frequency and a good corrdior. And actually, they do have dedicated ROW in certain, high traffic areas and they have significant signal priority. And I think I mentioned this but the Minneapolis lite BRT lines, and all the others I looked at, made the trip 20-25% faster than they previously were.

The point is that you can build a really good bus line for far cheaper than a pretend light rail, while getting the same ridership results. Or you could be like Indianapolis, spend hundreds of millions on a pretend light rail, and have ridership DROP in the first year of operation for a $200M capital project. Seattle opens LRT expansions and ridership across the system booms, Indianapolis opens what's considered a good BRT and ridership drops by 4%.

-A) First, the given high end estimate of this project is $590M, which comes in higher than KC's entire streetcar. Second, I was referring to their 3.5 mile extension that came in tens of millions of dollars less than the given $400-$450M for this fancy bus. The streetcar will also almost certainly have more ridership than this fancy bus. B) The latest extension of the streetcar is entirely dedicated lanes, making over half the route now using dedicated lanes. This is why I said "streetcar LRT hybrid". BRT is also not considered rapid tranist in real life, just in pretend LRT fantasy world.

-Fully dedicated ROW =/= new ROW. The Minneapolis Gold Line included entire new highway-style overpass infrastructure and yet only comes in marginally more expensive. If the county got on board, the cost would go up substantially to get to 20 miles, the point is $400M+ should get you 20 miles of BRT, not 11. Reality is that STL will be using these transit funds to repave roads that should be getting fixed and reconstructed regardless of whatever transit gets built and it's beyond a joke that people are pitching THAT as a big benefit as if it should even be part of the equation.

Just some perspective on KC's streetcar extension that featured fully dedicated lanes across 3.5 miles for about $100M per mile: That could get you from 12th and Russell in Soulard all the way to Florrisant and St. Louis in Old North.

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Again, the Minneapolis D Line is not a good comparison to our St. Louis situation - it simply replaced the already existing highest ridership route in the city/state by building fancy stations every few stops. And this didn't necessarily massively increase ridership it maintained it and gave it better amenities and skips more stops.Screenshot 2026-08-14 121822.png This would be comparable to if we chose to upgrade the 70 Grand which is sorely needed, but there isn't room along that corridor to truly speed things up with dedicated lanes. We're also not bridging between two metro downtowns like the Gold Line does with bridges and overpasses, this is a dense urban line we're building with lots of old infrastructure to contend with and design around so also not a good comparison.

Whether it's light rail or full-scale BRT, St. Louis' proposals are definitely more speculative and with the hope that "if you build it and they will come", while also needing to serve as many existing non-car household residents as possible (like in North City and parts of South City)

I'm not understanding your argument that we should not be celebrating the combined value of also transforming deteriorated corridors... you're saying you'd want either shiny new bus stations or light rail stations sitting in the middle of the 8 crumbling asphalt lanes of N Florissant for example and not care about the nonexistant sidewalks and lack of safe bike facilities on these streets either? Good transit should also create positive transformation through the experience of getting to the stations and having alternate modes of transportation to travel to them. You're right BRT-Lite is successful in places with good built up corridors like Minneapolis, but we're trying to build the spine for those corridors to build up to. 

1) You can pick literally any of the lite BRT lines in Minneapolis, I just picked the D Line because it was the most recently completed. In the past I also picked a random regular bus line in DC that makes the same point.

2) My argument is actually Florrisant should be rebuilt with or without transit, and transit funds should not be used to do it. It's not standard anywhere for such a thing to be done. The FTA should absolutely laugh in our face at such an idea.

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symphonicpoet wrote: ↑

1:42 PM - Aug 14

Before I say anything else, I do want to say I think the temperature has gotten a little high here. We're talking past one another. I think there are good arguments in favor of building, waiting, of BRT, of LRT, and even of simply expanding bus service. I think people can respectably hold any of the above positions.

I agree. I don't think most of us are interested in getting heated and/or disrespectful. I have advocated for different solutions over the years and will again if the circumstances change. I understand the frustration with the change to BRT and only offer my input if I feel it might be helpful.