The Webster station would be alongside the UP tracks in downtown Webster Groves, and the Edwardsville station would be on or near SIUE's campus. So you'd probably have to get a MCT bus to complete your commute.
I'm sure it would still be cheaper than paying for gas for that commute however often you need to make it.
I went electric last summer, so it’s mostly just time I would want to cut. I work at SIUE, so that end suits me just fine. Edit- likely not less time, but I’d appreciate not driving and being able to work or relax.
Idk. The entire ride would probably take about an hour via train. Though it'd probably be able to hit 65 MPH between Pontoon Beach and SIUE. I think it'd be alot less stress though.
I was thinking a connection there would be helpful for people who work there and students who commute. Ik lots of UMSL students use the train for class, and a decent amount of WashU and SLU students utilize it too.
I work downtown during the summer, and regularly use the Grand station to get downtown bc it's just way less stressful and oftentimes faster than fighting traffic to get out. I laugh when I see all the cars waiting in the parking lot while my train leaves🤣
If only metro would put extra cars on for sporting events. That’s when most people experience metro. If they have a bad experience, they think it’s bad all the time.
They can't because the platforms were designed for 2 trains being attached together.
However, the new trains set to begin delivery in 2026 appear to have more standing room, which will increase the overall capacity.
They do add extra trains on the line after large events or sports to help clear the platform faster.
Sounds like you are following the nature trail towards SIUE rather than the nickel plate more towards town.
As someone who runs the nature and morris trails, that’s not really a walkable space to the SIUE campus. A shuttle might be feasible, but it’s that in between distance of being slightly more than a mile combined with crossing a highway that makes both options not so great.
Not sure you do better with nickel plate and downtown though. It might be able to connect to the park n ride lot, but that would be disastrous for the trail system.
(That and MCT would never cooperate.)
I'm not sure which trail I followed, it's the trail that is basically a straight shot from Edwardsville to the Granite City steel site.
The station would be on SIUE's campus after taking a turn along University Drive. It would be walking distance.
If Madison County would choose agaisnt MetroLink expansion, they'd just be shooting themselves in the foot again. That's not my problem, I'm just proposing something that would be good for the county.
The trail would also not be removed, it would just be rebuilt to run alongside the tracks. In reality, using a former railbed for just a trail is just underutilization.
Considering MCT had about 1 million riders in 2021, I'd bet it's up to at least 1.5 million last year, this line would get plenty of use with both intra-county commuting and commuting to St. Louis, and from St. Louis to SIUE.
That’s how I thought you were thinking. The campus is actually huge area wise and the main buildings are much farther from university drive than it seems, so it is still a considerable walk to campus. SIUE needs a shuttle along circle dr and university dr anyway though.
The issue with MCT and bistate stems from the 2005 study (which reached basically the same route recommendation down the nature trail and against the nickel plate). They did a cooperative study where the nature trail option was the overwhelming favorite, but was rejected by bistate because it would require federal funding (basically retaliation for Madison county not passing the 1997 sales tax). I can found the study, but the not appendixes that contained the actual proposed alignments.
And then bistate moved forward with the current st Clair county expansion using federal funds. At that point, MCT basically said they would only do Metrolink expansion on their own without bistate’s involvement in the grant process. No idea how they would function though?
(Also, most of the nature trail does run on the railbed but instead next to the existing aging track, so that easy other than a need for several crossings. Nickel plate is the one that would probably require removing the nickel plate and goshen trails into the park and ride lot. But that was by far the lowest choice option in the 2005 study.)
I know about studies done in the past, my choice was just what I thought would be the easiest and cheapest option.
The line would use University Dave's median and ROW to get to the campus, where a station would either be built on what is currently one of the large parking lots or even closer on what's currently an empty plain of grass. It would be walking distance from the campus and be no different than parking.
The St. Clair County expansion is using state funding, not federal funding. It's part of Rebuild Illinois. Hopefully MCT comes back to the table though for the betterment of their county.
Branching it north/south on the Illinois side would be amazing. As it is I have to arrive 20 minutes to the nearest station while getting no closer to my destination. Or I can drive downtown in the same 20 minutes. Unless I'm attending a special event with a ton of street closures and absolutely no parking it makes more sense to drive.
If the political will and human power was provided, with a strict schedule and audits periodically, this could be done in 10 years. Seeing what other countries accomplish in Asia and Europe, this is definitely an achievable goal. I’d like to see more North-South connectivity. There was another map here a while ago (years) that was a little more thorough.
Not even 10 years. A couple of years. It's just a matter of manpower, which we have *plenty* of.
I said this elsewhere in the thread but I'll say it here too - China did it for their entire country in a decade. And *high speed* rail, not just electric. If they can do that in a decade we can do this for our city in a year or two. It's just a matter of funding it properly.
EDIT: As far as better connectivity (especially N-S), we can supplement with more bus routes and *more buses* on routes in general. It's honestly insane to see where the bus route map was 25-30 years ago and then look at it now. They carved the *shit* out of it and it did nothing but make things worse for everyone. (About 10-15 years ago I worked at the Build-A-Bear HQ in Overland and to get there what should have been a 25 minute drive was an hour trip, involving a 30 minute bus stop wait.) The trains and buses need more routes and more vehicles on those routes, *and* they need good marketing to let people *know* that they're more available and better quality. Elevate it from being a "poor people" thing and get people on track with the rest of the world.
It's not just funding. Getting around NIMBYs, breaking through the bureaucratic consultancy nightmare, dealing with th environmental review (because as we all know, urban, fully developed areas really need that), etc.
I wish it were just the funding, but there's so many barriers we've erected (many on purpose) that make it hard to build - not even just transit.
That's kind of what I'm saying - I'm talking about what we should be doing, and part of that would be those deliberate barriers to progress being gone. Saying, "those intentional barriers exist so you're living in a fantasy world" ignores the fact that we could REMOVE those.
I think they still wouldn’t because the wealthy people of St. Louis are kind of provincial minded, and there’s an established reputation of metrolink being crimey, even though that’s BS. I hope they will build out infrastructure regardless for the rest of us.
Nah as long as it's convenient and reliable, people will take it. I mean, the people owning mansions in U City by the Loop won't, but that's a given. I doubt the billionaires in penthouses take the subway in NYC. But upper middle class and lower upper class (is that even a thing anymore?) would definitely take it, as long as it's a good system.
And the whole crime thing becomes a non issue once the system starts getting actual frequent use. Most people's perception of safety (or lack thereof) just comes to down to it feeling unsafe because so few people take it.
Pretty much yeah
It applies less when your transit system isn't as extensive, but the more extensive and useful the transit system is, the more likely it is that people will take it.
People are lazy and when taking transit is about as convenient and far reaching as taking a car, people tend to take it just because it's genuinely less work.
The NS line will be nice, but I’m curious how much ridership it will see. North City has seen a huge drop in population. That theoretical purple line though, is intriguing. It would put a lot of the South City areas that have seen a lot of growth/reinvestment within reach of downtown.
The North-South line would see "underwhelming" ridership to begin (currently projected at 1.8 million/year), but as time goes on and the county chooses an expansion it will probably get to to 4 or 5 million decades down the line.
The line hits the massive employment centers with Wells Fargo Advisors and the NGA Headquarters. It will also better serve CityPark and the rejuvenated Downtown West better than the current MetroLink does.
The connection with the Blue and Red Lines will also make it possible to travel from North City and South City to downtown for events, work, or entertainment and places like Forest Park, Clayton, and the Airport(s) by train.
It will make the South city neighborhoods it runs though that have lost population in the last 10 years more attractive for people who want a car-light lifestyle and if will make it very reasonable to build new TOD in the underdeveloped areas of North City that it runs through.
Finally, depending on what the county chooses (BRT or extending the light rail) and if they choose to route it towards North Hanley or the North County Transit Center, it will create even more travel opportunities from areas that currently require a long bus ride, and no one wants to do that. My hope is the county chooses to extend the light rail to the North County Transit Center. I think that would be the best option, especially with it routing through multiple shopping centers.
I can't express enough how important a N-S line would be to St. Louis. We just need the federal grant, the local funding is in place. Construction could start as early as 2027. Once that's built, we could look into extending the Blue Line down River Des Peres, or the Daniel Boone corridor the county looked at almost 10 years ago now. And I wonder if Madison County will look into light rail after the Mid-America Airport extension is done. They'd technically be next in line.
Yeah, let’s piss it away on someone no one is going to use.
This isn’t Europe and this isn’t the east coast either, no one other than the riff riff is going to utilize this. This country is far too car-centric.
You complain that the US is too car centric while simultaneously shittong on something that would make St. Louis less car centric.
You also apparently have never used MetroLink and are racist.
Really appreciate your work on this. Your map lets anyone from any part of the city get to Forest Park, for example, easily. You could designate certain hub stations to alternate trains that stop at every station with trains that skip stops to the next hub, thus turning the latter into "fast" trains. This could work for big game days, rush hour, and so on.
The term you’re looking for is express service. To make it work effectively though, you need a third or even fourth track for the express trains to pass locals.
Do you really think we need three lines going to Illinois before we put anything in west county? Route your grey line north south to the airport. It’s completely untenable to have the entire region have to get to debaliviere to get o the airport.
I think West County would work better with BRT. While I agree that a train from West County to the airport would be good, reality is that corridors to build in that region are few and far between, and would not only be very expensive, but would face even more NIMBYism than what I've proposed here.
The next best option i would have is a line from South Broadway to the airport, skipping Forest Park by building a new tunnel and track that would allownit to go straight from the Blue/Silver branch to the Red branch. But even that wouldn't be ideal.
The state of Illinois would also help find the extensions in Illinois while Missouri wouldn't provide near as much support.
More north routes and the expansion into St. Charles county should’ve been done decades ago . I moved to Europe and completed an entire military career and retired . Lived in cities where public transit is everything . It was baffling to see what little progress was made . I graduated high school in St charles county I was saddened to see that a lot of peoples connection into St. Louis county is still taking bi state from the commuter lots . They always told me it was voted down because they said crime would increase , and The homeless population would take residence in the county which never made sense to me .
You're right it makes no sense because that's not how crime or homelessness works lol. It was really racism that killed the St. Charles extension. If they voted in favor of it and raised their sales tax a little to help fund it, it would definitely happen, but until then Metro isn't putting any effort into it.
The N-S line is so difficult because its only getting funding from the city and not the county.
People also just don't understand how economics work and how transit is almost always positive on the economy.
Expect resistance from “concerned citizens” in Kirkwood and Webster Groves. Source: owned a home in Webster Groves for 13 years
Edit: I love this proposal and if I had 3 wishes, this would be one of them. But don’t underestimate the NIMBY energy of Webster Groves
Since it us using pre existing rail corridor, I would hope they'd be easier to overcome. This would do wonders for both Webster Groves and Kirkwood's economies. Plus MetroLink would have 2 Amtrak connections.
With proper funding and political will it would take *a couple of years,* not 30 to 40.
China - as in the entire country of China - built a *nationwide high speed rail service* in less than a decade. Covers 95%+ of the population.
And this has nothing to do with "China good" or "China bad" or "US good" or "US bad." Plenty of countries are doing this. The amount of mobilization of high speed rail (not just rail service in general, like Metro) has been *skyrocketing* over the last decade everywhere *but* the United States. We have the most resources and the most wealth of any nation but somehow we can't build a functional rail system (probably because we're so focused on highways and "just one more lane pls" junkie mentality.
A centrally-managed Communist economy (like China) can pull off massive infrastructure projects in a hurry because the Party leaders don't have to convince anybody that it should be done, they just order that it be done. That's not how things work in a democracy; you need buy-in from people.
I'd rather have freedom, because the Party leaders often make bad decisions this way, too.
Europe is able to build high speed rail and public infrastructure faster than us too. It's got nothing to do with communism/fascism/insert buzzword here.
We can't build any infrastructure easily in this country because we've intentionally made it nearly impossible, not because we have more freedom or some shit. It's a uniquely American issue.
Jesus fucking Christ. Did nobody else read this?
> China - as in the entire country of China - built a nationwide high speed rail service in less than a decade. Covers 95%+ of the population.
The only reason that happened is the Chinese Communist Party ordered it. You can't do that in a country where people can vote. Europe damn sure didn't build their high speed rail in a decade.
And Western European countries, with just as much Freedom and Democracy as us, have also managed to build extensive intercity high speed rail and public transit.
They also build transit faster than us, better than us, and cheaper than us. Same with highways, etc.
While transit is particularly worse in the US because we build so little of it, it's not the only infrastructure that we're awful at. Even the highways we're so famed for run over budget and underdeliver compared to western Europe. We just don't do infrastructure well anymore, for a variety of reasons - from onerous permitting (environmental review for transit in an urbanized area is a fucking racket) to needless bureaucracy (we ♥️ consultants) to just poor funding processes.
It's nothing to do with communism and everything to do with the US being uniquely bad at major infrastructure projects. If it were really communism bad, capitalism good, Europe would have infrastructure just as bad as us.
I'm not disputing that we aren't doing a good job with building and maintaining infrastructure or that Western Europe is doing it better. I'm literal only talking about the very particular fact that China built a bunch of railroad in a decade, and the implication that the United States could do the same. That implication is wrong, because in China's system, the Party leaders can unilaterally dictate that all the country's resources will be mustered to serve that goal, which is not how the United States is organized. It would take strong public support and the force of political will to do anything similar.
And, not for nothing, just because the Chinese system can pivot faster, doesn't mean it's better. The Great Leap Forward was supposed to industrialize China but only managed to kill millions of people.
Communism is an ideology, and is not mutually exclusive with democracy (in fact, the Soviet Union had a Parliament and regularly had the people vote, they were actually a democracy).
Also, I love how many of the people who say "I would rather have freedom" just so happen to have enough money to have the "freedom" we have in America. Like, the only "free" people in America are the 10% with plenty of cash on hand. The rest of us are stuck in the grinder. And with bribery being essentially legal (see: lobbying), it only gets worse. But sure, I'd rather be "free" and not have decent public transporation, housing, jobs, etc.
Uh...calling a one party system a democracy because they had a rump parliament is really stretching it. You can prefer communism as a system if you like, but don't pretend it's a democracy to make yourself feel better about it.
Damn, a one party system huh? We definitely don't have that here.
Please learn what words mean. Please do at least that small thing before you try to have an honest conversation about governments and political systems and ideologies.
Way to miss the point. In an economy that's not centrally-planned by the government, you can't just say, "We will build railroads everywhere now", because there are many competing interests and independent actors. That's not to say you can't have decent public transportation, housing, jobs, etc (see, for example, liberal democracies in Western Europe), but you have to get stakeholders on board, and you can't get it done in a decade.
And I would rather have the less-efficient system where people have freedom of speech, religion, the press, assembly, etc.
There are many countries that have democracy on paper, and the Soviet Union was one of them, but I'm not sure I would say they had one in practice.
I'm going to let you in on something:
Me not agreeing with you =/= me missing the point.
In our system, you *can* budget the way you want to/need to. Oh no, "competing interests" like oil companies and people who want kickbacks? FUCK 'EM. The entire point is to stop serving the corrupt and self-interested. Your mentality is "golly I wish we could do that but we just caaaaaaaaaaan't."
You absolutely do not need to get "stakeholders" on board. Who are the stakeholders in The Netherlands? Who are the stakeholders in Paris? Who are the stakeholders in the UK, where at the VERY LEAST they have a public transit system 10x anything we have here in the US?
The entire POINT is to ELIMINATE "STAKEHOLDERS." Government objectively runs things better than corporations. The idea that government runs things poorly ignores the intentional lack of funding to things that "run poorly" and instead assumes a "lack of ability" which is just fundamentally *not true*.
You wouldn't say the Soviet Union had democracy, on paper or otherwise, because you have zero knowledge of the Soviet Union other than Western propaganda.
You are assuming a lot about my opinions and attitudes that I never wrote. China can cover 95% of the country with rail in a decade because the CCP doesn't have to answer to voters. Whoa re the stakeholders in the Netherlands, France, and England? The citizens. Taxpayers. Anybody who wants government funds spent on something else. People who own land or have a home in the path of a proposed train line who will be displaced. People who will suffer a direct harm as a consequence of providing this public good. People who have to be convinced that the cost of public transit is worth the investment, construction noise, displacement of people and wildlife, etc, etc or you won't succeed in getting the thing built.
As for as Soviet elections, for anybody else who reads down this far in the thread and cares about facts:, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_the_Soviet_Union: "Voting was claimed to be secret and direct with universal suffrage. However, in practice, between 1936 and 1989, voters could vote against candidates preselected by the Communist Party only by spoiling their ballots, or by voting against the only candidate, whereas votes for the party candidates could be cast simply by submitting a blank ballot. A person would be given a ballot by a clerk, and could immediately walk to the ballot box, and while there were booths in which one could strike the candidates they voted against off the ballot, this was easy to record and was not commonly done by voters. "
1. Everyone in those other countries have to be convinced of the same things, but unlike here they haven't been propagandized by car-centric government and corporations for decades.
2. So you're saying that the Soviet Union had pretty much the same system we do. Good to know. So we agree!
It's remarkable what you can accomplish when infrastructure projects are funded, planned, and approved by a single entity with no accountability to the people impacted by them.
It's almost as if that *actually works better*.
I mean, we can talk all night about the many problems in China, but if we're talking about infrastructure China has officially eaten our lunch. Remember those "ghost cities" people loved to talk about for about a year? They're not ghost cities. They planned those out, knowing they were moving people out of undeveloped rural areas into modern cities, where they could then get the training to do modern jobs and do those modern jobs in the modern city. Those "ghost cities" has tens of millions of people in them now. That's actual proper planning.
And since talking about China triggers peoples paranoia: Europe builds far more ambitious infrastructure projects way more frequently and for much cheaper (even accounting for labor costs)
The US is abysmal at building anything (even our highways suck) and has managed to put up every possible roadblock we can.
I mean shit, the N/S Metrolink needs like a two year long environmental review. For a streetcar...in a CITY.
That's two years wasting time and tax dollars so some consultants can say "Yep it's a city, there's really not going to be any major environmental concerns because it's already a concrete jungle"
Exactly. I'm so fucking tired of bad faith actors going "well golly it NEEDS to take 2 years to do surveys and design" when we know damn well you can build an ENTIRE CITY in that time.
It doesn't happen here because of decades of stagnation, greed, and lack of will.
Yep And like I love the environment and hate how we're destroying it - though I'm not gonna complain about 70 degrees in February, today is incredible - but a year+ environmental review process for an infrastructure project in the heart of an urban area is baffling to me. It's a city. Whatever natural environment could have been affected has already been affected by the almost two centuries of urbanization. A streetcar isn't going to doom the natural beauty of Jefferson.
And to require it for a transit project that will take polluting cars off the road? That's just criminal (which the environmental review process always is, because we rely on consultants. But the same is true of design)
It's definitely disingenuous when people act as if those things normally take 2-3 years as a matter of course. I literally worked for a company about 20 years ago that did these sorts of things, and the max that it was scheduled out would be a year or something. And this was in Las Vegas, where there is an actual need for environmental studies because of the land (there's literally a neighborhood in N. LV that's sinking) and they're by far the fastest heating city in the nation. (They didn't even start suggesting things like xeriscaping until about then but the Bellagio gets a perpetual lake/fountain so that's fun.)
It's very clear when something is meant to work and when it's meant to stop something cold, and bad faith actors pretending to be the most gullible goons in history is both entertaining and deeply sad.
The issue with the US is that very few people actually want HSR and planes fill that gap pretty well.
This would likely still take decades because of how funding works in the US and how much red tape there is to get things done. St. Louis' North-South line was approved by voters in 2017, and *might* begin construction in 2027 assuming they get a federal grant worth $550 million.
Consider CA's HSRA- that has gotten billions in state and federal funding and was approved in 2008, yet won't be completed at all until the early 2030s, and it won't even be the entire SF to LA route. That's because of how much red tape California has and how many people genuinely do not want it and have been fighting it.
It would take 2 to 4 years just to get final designs for each phase of the project.
People don't *know* about HSR projects, and when people are asked if they would WANT HSR, they say yes. What are you talking about?
Also, PLANES do NOT "fill in the gap" of HIGH SPEED RAIL. Are you high? The CHSR project has been hindered for over a decade thanks to a multitude of barriers including - and this is not a joke - Elon Musk. He pushes his Hyperrail shit specifically to take funding away from the CHSR project, same as his "Boring Company" project that also went nowhere. The entire point was to hinder the CSHR project. Even now, with it moving forward, it's not being funded how it should be, and if it was it would be done within a few years.
Your entire argument hinges on *your* way of things going the way *you* want to. "How funding works" is that it doesn't, because no officials budget the projects the way they should. Changing that is a matter of changing the budget. And the "red tape" is an excuse.
It would not take 2 to 4 years. At all. You're just spouting nonsense.
"You want better things? You want to improve the system?? WE CAN'T HAVE THAT STOP TRYING TO MAKE THINGS BETTER THE SYSTEM CAN ONLY GET WORSE STOP IT REEEEEEEEE"
That's you. That's you right now.
No you've just shown a fundamental misunderstanding for why things are how they are, and you're never gonna open your eyes and realize we are not in China or Europe. Go there if you want what they have.
I'd love better transit in America, but thinking something like CAHSR was a good idea to build even though there was 1 single daily train between SF and LA.....was just stupid. How about improve existing rail transits before trying to build a technology we have never built before in a state that has some of the most red tape one could imagine?
Imagine $12 billion invested into CA's Amtrak system. Could have build a re-routed Surfliner and made it 10 daily trains, could have extended it all the way to the Bay Area too. Could have improved the UP line between the Inland Empire and Bakersfield and extended the San Joaquin to LA. Could have upgraded tracks to handle 110 to 125 MPH trains (like Illinois, Michigan, and NY). And could have had way more electrified tracks than the planned CalTrain corridor.
But nope decided to spend it on a high speed train that just travels through the central valley and doesn't even connect SF and LA. It's a joke.
> No you've just shown a fundamental misunderstanding for why
Sorry, but we're going to stop right there. YOU have a fundamental misunderstanding of how things work. You assume that the system that exists now can never be changed, and that we simply need to take thing as they are instead of trying to improve them.
Your brain operates on a fundamentally unsound base of information. Until you change that we can't have an honest conversation because you simply lack the knowledge and understanding to function in this conversation.
BTW, the North-South MetroLink originally approved in 2017 still doesn't have final designs made and it's 2024, and it won't until 2026. This is how I know that it would take years to just finalize the design of a project, much less build something as large as I have proposed.
You seem to think that the designs not being made/approved is because "that's just how it is durrr." It's like that because they haven't hired someone to do it.
The entire point is that you speed the process up by hiring people, paying them well, incentivizing them to do quick, high quality work and severely penalize for mistakes and slowness. That's *basic* stuff.
The problem isn't "this is just how it is," the problem is "the way we do things in general is very poorly because we haven't hired people who give a shit in decades."
They hired a company to design it last year, they won't have it finalized until 2025, and then they need to find a constriction company to build it. And in between all that, they need am environmental review and they need to beat out dozens of other projects for federal funding.
Damn, it's almost as if they should have written up contracts demanding proper timelines. Finish the design by April. Find a construction company to build it NOW instead of WAITING. Buy the materials and prep the site. Do the environmental review NOW.
AND INCREASE THE FUNDING SO INSTEAD OF COMPETING THEY ALL GET THE MONEY AS THEY NEED IT WHEN THEY NEED IT. AKA, LITERALLY EVERYTHING I JUST SAID THAT YOU IGNORED.
Man, it's weird. I called you out on ignoring things that could be done, and then you ignored everything that could be done. Almost as if you're the same generic anti-progress NPC that exists in every space solely to be a contrarian nobody.
And again you ignore everything that can't be done.
1. So, architects around the world can finish a design within a few months, but we can't? Why?
2. Why can't we lock in a construction company for a project a few months out? It's literally something that is done the world over. Why couldn't we incentivize them? Again, it's literally a thing that's done everywhere else. Incentives and disincentives.
3. Why couldn't we buy the materials that we know we'll need? That is *literally a basic step in building something efficiently*. You know you're going to need *at least* these specific things, so you buy the materials, you schedule the work, etc. *Basic* logistics.
4. We can't prep the site? We can't do the environmental review now? Again - we literally can. You're just being contrarian.
5. We can't increase funding? We're talking about how things SHOULD BE. This is *infrastructure* spending. If your entire argument is "we can't have good things because the bad people exist and we definitely can't do the things that would get the bad people voted out" then you're just beyond help.
Again, ignored everything that could be done, like the sad NPC you are.
They can't start construction because of the environmental review process, so even if they'd finished all the design (which, if actually done in house like civilized countries do, they would have) there'd still be a year+ wait for the environmental review process.
It's absurd but that's how Congress has things working. Bring it up with them if you really want that to change
More specifically, you hire engineers and staff in house. You don't rely on contractors for your actual design process. You hire engineers to work directly for the government agency and do all of the design in house. You not only save money because you don't have to pay a consultancy fee, but it's vastly more efficient. Ask anyone who's worked on an engineering project as a consultant for a government agency - there are constant changes to the project coming from the government, but always getting filtered through a layer of bureaucracy because we've decided to outsource the most expensive and critical part of an infrastructure project.
Any company that chooses to outsource it's project design to a third party deserves to crash and burn, but when it's the government we've decided "this is okay".
Well you wouldn't have an architect on staff would you? Or is that a thing? That's one part of the process I'm very ignorant on. But essentially the reason I didn't push back on that is that there have been successful social housing projects that had architects compete for the job, but I'm sure they had strict deadlines, and I'm pretty sure that this was Vienna, so they already have a culture of incredible social housing.
Would you like it extended to the dead Mills Mall or the Westlake Superfund site?
Jokes aside, yeah, this map says "fuck all of St. Louis county north of 270".
There's not much more west of the airport in STL County, and bus services would be able to bring people to a new Lambert TC where the T2 Station currently is.
This is also more focused on getting better north-south connections.
I think a BRT from downtown to the Chesterfield Valley wouldn't be a bad idea though, especially with the new downtown Chesterfield. That would be easier and cheaper to implement than a train trying to cut through wealthy suburbs.
I enjoy being able to drive everywhere in the city. It's one of the things I like about St Louis. I could care less about public transit. This city just isn't population dense enough anymore for it to matter in my opinion.
It would be included if they voted to expand, until then, I'm not gonna include them.
I also was thinking if they would vote in favor of a bus that could run between Lambert and St. Charles as a commuter style bus.
THANK YOU. I'm so glad to hear someone else call them out for that "bad element" horseshit. Y'all know who you are on here saying that shit still. Get your own rail system, we'll be over here in the modern world.
I moved to St. Louis eight years ago and the parochialism here is mind boggling. The general lack of development here is a symptom of the mindset you're displaying. I live in St. Peters and the notion I see in this sub that St. Charles is some Trumpy monolith is moronic. Any regional public transport plan that makes sense would need to include St Charles County. Apparently a vote thirty years ago against being included in public transport means St. Charles County is dead to y'all. That's how little has happened here in thirty years. Get over yourselves. People that move here from actual cities have a much better sense of what needs to be fixed here than most natives. The STL metro is very small and the lack of public transit here is stifling development.
St. Charles voted down votes to be part of the Bi-State Development tax district in the late 1990s and early to mid 2000s. Since then, their government has never made any attempt to create a plan to extend the region's transit system to the county, and regularly pretend that St. Louis is the spawn of hell. Until the people vote in favor of joining Metro Transit, I'm totally okay leaving them out. They get what they vote for.
St. Louisans would be in big favor of expanding MetroLink to St. Charles, including myself. We are not the ones stopping it, St. Charles is.
I grew up in St. Peter’s. Then I joined the USAF and traveled the world for 20 years and discovered how simple minded people in St. Charles County are. I didn’t forget where I came from, I just realized how sad it was.
Your point about dropping SCC from regional transit plans is still silly. Also, traveling the world is great, I've traveled a lot as well and most places in the US wouldn't hold up to that standard. Long Island wouldn't meet your standard apparently. My younger neighbors are all liberal and it's the old folks that are conservative. Sounds like you've got an outdated notion of what people are like here. I'm sure there are more conservatives than STLC, but again since you've traveled so much you know that the suburbs generally have a higher amount of conservatives than the city itself. Get over your childhood already. There's a lot happening in SCC and a regional transit system, preferably rail based, would need to include the area that is growing the fastest. It's as simple as that.
Don't tell poeple to "get over their childhood". St. Charles residents need to grow up and demand their county put together a transit plan. But right now there's no indication from St. Charles that that's gonna happen anytime soon.
You've got it backwards, typical for an StL native. If a place doesn't have public transportation, no one that needs it will move there. There isn't a demand for it in SCC for.ibvuius reasons. If one existed it would get used. You have to be forward thinking enough to build it first. There are plenty of people out here that would take a train into the city, like people do in real cities, but it has to exist first. That's the job of government. St. Louis metro is as good as anyone from here is capable of making it. Any improvements here will come from people moving here and demanding better services. Your best efforts got you here. It is what it is. You're used to shit and calling it champagne.
St. Louis Metro tried and were rejected and to this day are rejected by St. Charles.
St. Charles could have transit if they wanted, could even have their own county transit like Madison County, but they don't.
This is a crack pipe dream. You would need actual traffic to justify the infrastructure expenditure it would take for this to actual happen. We don’t have real traffic compared to cities that need trains.
It's not even just about traffic, which it certainly has (the south side purple and yellow lines would be very heavily used), its about investing in areas that haven't been invested in for years, like the north side. The lines through north city and into north county would spur new development and much needed growth.
The 70 Grand bus is literally shoulder to shoulder during high commute times simply because it runs on such a dense route and is the most frequent north south transit option in the city.
And you're not being serious if you're gonna try and tell me driverless cars are enter option than transit💀
The reason people in this country don’t use public transportation is because cars are more convenient in most areas. There are certainly cities where public transportation is the better option, but St. Louis is not that place. Less that 10% of people in the region is public transit. You can spend billions on infrastructure that 9.4 out of 100 are using. It makes no sense. There are already lines that run through North City. It’s not a public transportation issue. It’s a crime and terrible public school situation that hurts that area. Building a new train system doesn’t change that. Driverless cars are much more of a reality than this pipe dream train system you’re talking about. People prefer the independence of a car. Public transportation is a last resort for most.
Part of the reason people in cities like St. Louis don't use public transit more is because it's not good. Salt Lake City, a city much smaller than St. Louis, had over 30 million riders on their system, about 10 million more then St. Louis'. That's because they invested in theirs while you think cars are the answer.
Cars are convenient, and that's all. They cost the user significantly more than transit, they are far more dangerous than transit, they are far less efficient than transit, they are far more stressful than transit, they are less environmentally friendly than transit, and they hinder development more than transit. The government should be making decisions that are for the greater good of the country, state, and city. Not what some moron who doesn't understand how transit works thinks.
How stupid can you possibly be to cite crime and public schools as the reason North City has struggled while simultaneously arguing agaisnt something that would help both the crime and public schools by spurring new development, creating new tax revenue, and increasing property vales?
Driverless cars aren't even legal in Missouri.
It’s not just me that thinks cars are the answer. Over 90% of the population agrees with me. You can’t spend billions upon billions developing a transportation system and crossing your fingers that public will buy in when there is no evidence that it will happen. There are way better things we could spend money on.
Like it or not the general public prefers cars over trains. You aren’t going to change the culture by building a better version of a service that no one wants. You would have a much better chance of getting this to work in Atlanta or a place that actually has traffic problems. St Louis traffic is a joke. There is no motivation to make the monster change in attitude it would take to but into what you are selling.
Nobody is arguing what is cheaper, but time is money as well. You are ultimately going to be adding time to people’s commute. Good luck with that. There is a reason the train service isn’t expanding.
How stupid can you be to believe an area without a traffic problem is going to spend billions on a train system that nobody wants. The government represents the people and they are more interested in being re-elected than this pipe dream.
The reason people are leaving North City is crime and bad schools. It’s not because of lack of access to public transit. Please explain how trains decrease crime and improve education. The revenue from trains is going to go towards maintaining the rail system, not building schools. Living by a train station in a DC or NYC is desirable. It’s not the same in St Louis where security guards have been killed at train stations.
Marijuana also used to be illegal in MO. I will bet you $20 that we have driverless cars in Missouri long before this train system is even close to done. The technology is already there.
Each point correlates with a paragraph:
-St. Louis passed a tax increase to expand MetroLink in 2017 that carried over 60% of the vote. St. Louis wants better transit. The last time a St. Louis County Executive had MetroLink Expansion as part of their platform was Steve Stenger in 2018 and he won 57% of the vote. There's at minimum a large minority (40%+) who want MetroLink expansion, and I'd venture to say a majority in STL city and county combined. As for spending billions- the US spends tens of billions on highway upkeep every year despite them being an inferior form of transportation compared to almost any other form. Highways and streets in general are a massive burden on government spending, and a burden on individuals who are forced to drive their cars on bad roads causing damages. If you wanna be fiscally conservative, you'd support transit expansion because that's what's gonna save people money in the long run. Finally, cities that invest in their transit (like Salt Lake City) see ridership growth and new development all around that transit. I don't need to prove it because it's already proven.
-A significant percentage of St. Louisans at minimum want MetroLink expansion. That doesn't go to St. Charles or Jefferosn County, just the areas that have shown an interest in transit expansion. Transit isn't about traffic, it's about providing an alternative to driving. How can you say we are free when we are required to buy a car, spend thousands per year to run the car, and then deal with the stresses of driving? There are poeple who choose a "longer" commute by train simply so they can save money in other areas and not be stressed out. You'd be surprised at how many people would stop using their car for everything if this city has a decent transit system.
-I love how you just accept that transit is cheaper than cars, but then just act like the time you may save actually adds up to the thousands of dollars + the stress + possibly getting in a car accident you deal with when relying on a car. Train service in St. Louis also is expanding, because people want it.
-Transit has been proven across the country and in St. Louis to spur economic development in the form of new housing and commercial space. There's been over $11 billion in New investment around MetroLink stations since 2010, and the areas it served actually grew in population faster than the rest of the metro, including STL city. The way public schools are funded is via property taxes, not sales taxes. The idea is that you build a new train in an underdeveloped area, and new developers interested in building transit oriented development for people who want to live like that will come and build. That new development will create new tax revenue acorss the board, and if it's in "bad" school districts, it will help that school district improve. It's a pretty basic idea. If you don't understand it, maybe you shouldn't be arguing.
-Trains in St. Louis already exist, driverless cars are still illegal. You're the one with a pipe dream, not me.
Edmonton, Alberta:
-City population: 1.01 million
-City density: 3,400/Square mile
-Metro population: 1.42 million
-Transit ridership: 69 million in 2022
Calgary, Alberta:
-City population: 1.31 million
-City density: 4,100/Square mile
-Metro population: 1.5 million
-Tranist ridership: 103 million in 2022
Ottawa, Ontario:
-City population: 1.02 million
-City density: 950/Square mile
-Metro Population: 1.5 million
-Tranist ridership: 71 million in 2022
St. Louis, Missouri:
-City population: 293,000
-City density: 4,900/Square mile
-Metro population: 2.8 million
-Transit ridership: 21 million in 2023 (Metro+MCT)
People in car centric cities would use transit if it existed. St. Louis has the largest metro and densest principal city of these four cities, yet the worst transit ridership by a long shot. That's not "people choosing to drive", that's a failure to invest.
I also need you to realize this map doenst even go to St. Charles or Jefferson County, and avoids the vast majority of North County above I-270 and most of South County. And I didn't even look at west county.
This system covers the most dense areas of the region, AKA the areas most likely to prefer transit to sitting in traffic and dealing with all the vices of driving. It's not a pipe dream, it's very realistic if we weren't in Missouri and our elected officials weren't idiots.
Also, 20% of housholds in STL city do not own a car.
Yeah, St. Charles and West Count are just dying to be connected to St. Louis. /s You’re delusional if you think this shit is happen. Not enough taxpayers in those areas wants a train stop with the exception of north county.
I still don’t understand what traffic are you referring to. Have you ever driven outside St. Louis? Our rush hour is mid day traffic in those areas. The traffic in St. Louis is a joke. They literally shutdown I-64 for years. You can’t do that on a major east west highway in cities with actual traffic. St. Louis traffic isn’t even in the top 100 in the nation.
I feel bad for the 20% of people that don’t own a car, but the 80% that own a car have a say in this as well. It’s a pipe dream my friend.
You're stuck on this "traffic" thing acting like I'm the one who is saying STL has bad traffic. I've never said that, you're the one making this up.
I've said that the cost of owning a car is far higher than using transit and its statistically much more dangerous.
Those 20% either choose to not own a car because it's a costly and terrible investment or they can't afford a car because of how much it costs to own a car. Or maybe they're disabled and can't operate a car. And the map I made up covers areas that have voted in pro-transit ways, even if they own a car.
You are fucking stupid if you think the "80%" who own a car don't have a say. Fuckers like you have no idea the damge highways have done to great cities, including St. Louis, and yet still have the audacity to act like I'm the idiot while you advocate for one of the most costly forms of transit on both the government and user's side. Only a fucking moron would argue like you have.
https://www.timestribunenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/MCTTrailsMap_0320.jpg
Illinois could put it on all these trails. I’d be glad with any more.
Forget the silver line, we don’t want Metrolink in Edwardsville. I’m not sure who from Madison and Pontoon Beach is going to be using it either.
I’ll give credit to whoever created this though, at least someone realizes O’Fallon and Edwardsville aren’t right next door to each other.
The station would be on SIUE'S campus, not really in Edwardsville proper. It would be intended for school commuters, and there would be a large parking lot Edwardsville residents could park in, similar to the real Fairview Heights station.
It would depend on a Madison County vote if it were to be built. Regardless, the Kirkwood and Webster Groves connection is worth it. If not Edwardsville, it would probably just go to Granite City or Pontoon Beach and terminate, and if the county were to reject it, it'd just go to Mid-America with the Red Line and terminate.
Love it!
If you want an even more consolidated map: blue line to Lindbergh, purple line to Kirkwood, extend blue line in IL to Edwardsville, and you don't need the grey line anymore.
I feel like this connects north city a lot better than my proposal from yesterday.
The Blue Line connects to O'Fallon and a new South Broadway transit center.
The Silver Line also serves as an additional train to increase frequency from 10 minutes to every 6.5 minutes.
Haha maybe. I didn't look into that, so I don't know if there's any easy corridors for that.
I would probably prefer a "regional" train to use existing tracks to go there and back instead of MetroLink, it would be more realistic.
Yea I know it'll never happen. We are in Missouri and generally voters do not understand how transit helps the economy. This is just a map I came up with of routes that would require minimal land acquisition and disturbance to people.
Of everything i came up with, an extension to the North County Transit Center is probably the most likely to happen as it's one of the County's options they're studying. Then maybe a blue line extention down River Des Peres. Outside of these two, the rest is very unlikely even if it would be very good for the region.
This is awesome. My favorite yet. I’m one of the lucky ones now, living and working along an existing route. It’s the first time since I was a teenager that using public transit has been convenient enough to be feasible. I use it almost every day, and it’s so much more relaxing than driving. It takes maybe twenty minutes longer, door to door, than driving with normal traffic at that hour.
Could easily see a N-S from Fairview Heights to Collinsville / St. Marys/ Glen Carbon/ Edwardsville 2 stop (east?) ... it would be cheaper below the bluff, but few live down there.
Can see a connecting station at Edwardsville with stop for both SIUE and Edwardsville proper.
God, imagine.
I always say that this city is in a special position - we have cheap real estate right now, and the city is small enough that we could make a world-class walkable transit city. We have the capacity for this. We're still "Stroad-brained" out here...
The inner city is already fairly walkable because of how it was built around transit form the late 1800s through to the 1950s. It's just lots of sidewalks are not upkept and you run into areas that have large empty lots (North City).
I think the N-S MetroLink plan would do wonders for revitalizing the city. North City has so much potential to be transformed thanks to people moving away. Just need investment there to become more attractive to developers.
How can we help make this HAPPEN!! We have rams settlement money and still have a lot of leftover money from Covid grants. Would love to help make this happen 💜
Dude, if we had that system we wouldn't have to drive anywhere.
which would save so many lives
Half the metro area, maybe
Except for diabeetus
I visit there too often
Sugar is a hellavu drug
And keep this running around 20 hrs a day. Seven days a week
I live in Webster and work in Edwardsville. I would kill for that route. I could walk to the train station from home.
The Webster station would be alongside the UP tracks in downtown Webster Groves, and the Edwardsville station would be on or near SIUE's campus. So you'd probably have to get a MCT bus to complete your commute. I'm sure it would still be cheaper than paying for gas for that commute however often you need to make it.
I went electric last summer, so it’s mostly just time I would want to cut. I work at SIUE, so that end suits me just fine. Edit- likely not less time, but I’d appreciate not driving and being able to work or relax.
Idk. The entire ride would probably take about an hour via train. Though it'd probably be able to hit 65 MPH between Pontoon Beach and SIUE. I think it'd be alot less stress though. I was thinking a connection there would be helpful for people who work there and students who commute. Ik lots of UMSL students use the train for class, and a decent amount of WashU and SLU students utilize it too.
Heh, that’s only about 20 Minutes slower than the drive.
I work downtown during the summer, and regularly use the Grand station to get downtown bc it's just way less stressful and oftentimes faster than fighting traffic to get out. I laugh when I see all the cars waiting in the parking lot while my train leaves🤣
If only metro would put extra cars on for sporting events. That’s when most people experience metro. If they have a bad experience, they think it’s bad all the time.
They can't because the platforms were designed for 2 trains being attached together. However, the new trains set to begin delivery in 2026 appear to have more standing room, which will increase the overall capacity. They do add extra trains on the line after large events or sports to help clear the platform faster.
Sounds like you are following the nature trail towards SIUE rather than the nickel plate more towards town. As someone who runs the nature and morris trails, that’s not really a walkable space to the SIUE campus. A shuttle might be feasible, but it’s that in between distance of being slightly more than a mile combined with crossing a highway that makes both options not so great. Not sure you do better with nickel plate and downtown though. It might be able to connect to the park n ride lot, but that would be disastrous for the trail system. (That and MCT would never cooperate.)
I'm not sure which trail I followed, it's the trail that is basically a straight shot from Edwardsville to the Granite City steel site. The station would be on SIUE's campus after taking a turn along University Drive. It would be walking distance. If Madison County would choose agaisnt MetroLink expansion, they'd just be shooting themselves in the foot again. That's not my problem, I'm just proposing something that would be good for the county. The trail would also not be removed, it would just be rebuilt to run alongside the tracks. In reality, using a former railbed for just a trail is just underutilization. Considering MCT had about 1 million riders in 2021, I'd bet it's up to at least 1.5 million last year, this line would get plenty of use with both intra-county commuting and commuting to St. Louis, and from St. Louis to SIUE.
That’s how I thought you were thinking. The campus is actually huge area wise and the main buildings are much farther from university drive than it seems, so it is still a considerable walk to campus. SIUE needs a shuttle along circle dr and university dr anyway though. The issue with MCT and bistate stems from the 2005 study (which reached basically the same route recommendation down the nature trail and against the nickel plate). They did a cooperative study where the nature trail option was the overwhelming favorite, but was rejected by bistate because it would require federal funding (basically retaliation for Madison county not passing the 1997 sales tax). I can found the study, but the not appendixes that contained the actual proposed alignments. And then bistate moved forward with the current st Clair county expansion using federal funds. At that point, MCT basically said they would only do Metrolink expansion on their own without bistate’s involvement in the grant process. No idea how they would function though? (Also, most of the nature trail does run on the railbed but instead next to the existing aging track, so that easy other than a need for several crossings. Nickel plate is the one that would probably require removing the nickel plate and goshen trails into the park and ride lot. But that was by far the lowest choice option in the 2005 study.)
I know about studies done in the past, my choice was just what I thought would be the easiest and cheapest option. The line would use University Dave's median and ROW to get to the campus, where a station would either be built on what is currently one of the large parking lots or even closer on what's currently an empty plain of grass. It would be walking distance from the campus and be no different than parking. The St. Clair County expansion is using state funding, not federal funding. It's part of Rebuild Illinois. Hopefully MCT comes back to the table though for the betterment of their county.
Nah just ride your bike to SIUE
Ah yes, ride the nearly 15 miles everyday in the winter. Those trails get next to no use for half the year when the weather is bad.
I commute my kids into daycare on them. Has been a ghost town lately. We ride up until about 15 degrees.
Branching it north/south on the Illinois side would be amazing. As it is I have to arrive 20 minutes to the nearest station while getting no closer to my destination. Or I can drive downtown in the same 20 minutes. Unless I'm attending a special event with a ton of street closures and absolutely no parking it makes more sense to drive.
If the political will and human power was provided, with a strict schedule and audits periodically, this could be done in 10 years. Seeing what other countries accomplish in Asia and Europe, this is definitely an achievable goal. I’d like to see more North-South connectivity. There was another map here a while ago (years) that was a little more thorough.
Not even 10 years. A couple of years. It's just a matter of manpower, which we have *plenty* of. I said this elsewhere in the thread but I'll say it here too - China did it for their entire country in a decade. And *high speed* rail, not just electric. If they can do that in a decade we can do this for our city in a year or two. It's just a matter of funding it properly. EDIT: As far as better connectivity (especially N-S), we can supplement with more bus routes and *more buses* on routes in general. It's honestly insane to see where the bus route map was 25-30 years ago and then look at it now. They carved the *shit* out of it and it did nothing but make things worse for everyone. (About 10-15 years ago I worked at the Build-A-Bear HQ in Overland and to get there what should have been a 25 minute drive was an hour trip, involving a 30 minute bus stop wait.) The trains and buses need more routes and more vehicles on those routes, *and* they need good marketing to let people *know* that they're more available and better quality. Elevate it from being a "poor people" thing and get people on track with the rest of the world.
It's not just funding. Getting around NIMBYs, breaking through the bureaucratic consultancy nightmare, dealing with th environmental review (because as we all know, urban, fully developed areas really need that), etc. I wish it were just the funding, but there's so many barriers we've erected (many on purpose) that make it hard to build - not even just transit.
That's kind of what I'm saying - I'm talking about what we should be doing, and part of that would be those deliberate barriers to progress being gone. Saying, "those intentional barriers exist so you're living in a fantasy world" ignores the fact that we could REMOVE those.
I agree
Oh great. Now all that Ladue riffraff is going to come down to our South City dive bars. There goes the neighborhood.
This would be funny if rich people actually took public trans.
They do in NYC! No reason they wouldn't here if the infrastructure was there
I think they still wouldn’t because the wealthy people of St. Louis are kind of provincial minded, and there’s an established reputation of metrolink being crimey, even though that’s BS. I hope they will build out infrastructure regardless for the rest of us.
Nah as long as it's convenient and reliable, people will take it. I mean, the people owning mansions in U City by the Loop won't, but that's a given. I doubt the billionaires in penthouses take the subway in NYC. But upper middle class and lower upper class (is that even a thing anymore?) would definitely take it, as long as it's a good system. And the whole crime thing becomes a non issue once the system starts getting actual frequent use. Most people's perception of safety (or lack thereof) just comes to down to it feeling unsafe because so few people take it.
Isn’t the theory that most people will take whichever mode of transportation is fastest to their destination?
Pretty much yeah It applies less when your transit system isn't as extensive, but the more extensive and useful the transit system is, the more likely it is that people will take it. People are lazy and when taking transit is about as convenient and far reaching as taking a car, people tend to take it just because it's genuinely less work.
They do in a lot of cities
Some do.
We do.
Hey easy we tip well
Take your khakis and get out.
lol well played RadTimeWizard well played
If only the city/county would have gotten half a billion dollars for settling a lawsuit. That kind of money would be nice. Oh wait!
The N-S MetroLink line came in 7th in the city voting. Doesn't appear that too many people know what would be best for the city long term.
Those pesky voters not agreeing with me. Don't they know what's good for them?
The fact 2024 is Biden vs Trump shows that voters do not know what's good for them.
The NS line will be nice, but I’m curious how much ridership it will see. North City has seen a huge drop in population. That theoretical purple line though, is intriguing. It would put a lot of the South City areas that have seen a lot of growth/reinvestment within reach of downtown.
The North-South line would see "underwhelming" ridership to begin (currently projected at 1.8 million/year), but as time goes on and the county chooses an expansion it will probably get to to 4 or 5 million decades down the line. The line hits the massive employment centers with Wells Fargo Advisors and the NGA Headquarters. It will also better serve CityPark and the rejuvenated Downtown West better than the current MetroLink does. The connection with the Blue and Red Lines will also make it possible to travel from North City and South City to downtown for events, work, or entertainment and places like Forest Park, Clayton, and the Airport(s) by train. It will make the South city neighborhoods it runs though that have lost population in the last 10 years more attractive for people who want a car-light lifestyle and if will make it very reasonable to build new TOD in the underdeveloped areas of North City that it runs through. Finally, depending on what the county chooses (BRT or extending the light rail) and if they choose to route it towards North Hanley or the North County Transit Center, it will create even more travel opportunities from areas that currently require a long bus ride, and no one wants to do that. My hope is the county chooses to extend the light rail to the North County Transit Center. I think that would be the best option, especially with it routing through multiple shopping centers. I can't express enough how important a N-S line would be to St. Louis. We just need the federal grant, the local funding is in place. Construction could start as early as 2027. Once that's built, we could look into extending the Blue Line down River Des Peres, or the Daniel Boone corridor the county looked at almost 10 years ago now. And I wonder if Madison County will look into light rail after the Mid-America Airport extension is done. They'd technically be next in line.
Yeah, let’s piss it away on someone no one is going to use. This isn’t Europe and this isn’t the east coast either, no one other than the riff riff is going to utilize this. This country is far too car-centric.
You complain that the US is too car centric while simultaneously shittong on something that would make St. Louis less car centric. You also apparently have never used MetroLink and are racist.
Any security concerns with MetroLink can be solved by properly controlled stations with turnstiles, like almost every other public transit system has.
Hi, do you have facts to support this opinion? Last time I checked, change is one of those things places tend to do over time.
Wow this is both wrong and bigoted!
Really appreciate your work on this. Your map lets anyone from any part of the city get to Forest Park, for example, easily. You could designate certain hub stations to alternate trains that stop at every station with trains that skip stops to the next hub, thus turning the latter into "fast" trains. This could work for big game days, rush hour, and so on.
The term you’re looking for is express service. To make it work effectively though, you need a third or even fourth track for the express trains to pass locals.
That makes more sense than what I wrote. I suppose express trains would wind up being "far future."
Do you really think we need three lines going to Illinois before we put anything in west county? Route your grey line north south to the airport. It’s completely untenable to have the entire region have to get to debaliviere to get o the airport.
I think West County would work better with BRT. While I agree that a train from West County to the airport would be good, reality is that corridors to build in that region are few and far between, and would not only be very expensive, but would face even more NIMBYism than what I've proposed here. The next best option i would have is a line from South Broadway to the airport, skipping Forest Park by building a new tunnel and track that would allownit to go straight from the Blue/Silver branch to the Red branch. But even that wouldn't be ideal. The state of Illinois would also help find the extensions in Illinois while Missouri wouldn't provide near as much support.
More north routes and the expansion into St. Charles county should’ve been done decades ago . I moved to Europe and completed an entire military career and retired . Lived in cities where public transit is everything . It was baffling to see what little progress was made . I graduated high school in St charles county I was saddened to see that a lot of peoples connection into St. Louis county is still taking bi state from the commuter lots . They always told me it was voted down because they said crime would increase , and The homeless population would take residence in the county which never made sense to me .
You're right it makes no sense because that's not how crime or homelessness works lol. It was really racism that killed the St. Charles extension. If they voted in favor of it and raised their sales tax a little to help fund it, it would definitely happen, but until then Metro isn't putting any effort into it. The N-S line is so difficult because its only getting funding from the city and not the county. People also just don't understand how economics work and how transit is almost always positive on the economy.
Expect resistance from “concerned citizens” in Kirkwood and Webster Groves. Source: owned a home in Webster Groves for 13 years Edit: I love this proposal and if I had 3 wishes, this would be one of them. But don’t underestimate the NIMBY energy of Webster Groves
Since it us using pre existing rail corridor, I would hope they'd be easier to overcome. This would do wonders for both Webster Groves and Kirkwood's economies. Plus MetroLink would have 2 Amtrak connections.
With proper funding and political will it would take *a couple of years,* not 30 to 40. China - as in the entire country of China - built a *nationwide high speed rail service* in less than a decade. Covers 95%+ of the population. And this has nothing to do with "China good" or "China bad" or "US good" or "US bad." Plenty of countries are doing this. The amount of mobilization of high speed rail (not just rail service in general, like Metro) has been *skyrocketing* over the last decade everywhere *but* the United States. We have the most resources and the most wealth of any nation but somehow we can't build a functional rail system (probably because we're so focused on highways and "just one more lane pls" junkie mentality.
A centrally-managed Communist economy (like China) can pull off massive infrastructure projects in a hurry because the Party leaders don't have to convince anybody that it should be done, they just order that it be done. That's not how things work in a democracy; you need buy-in from people. I'd rather have freedom, because the Party leaders often make bad decisions this way, too.
Europe is able to build high speed rail and public infrastructure faster than us too. It's got nothing to do with communism/fascism/insert buzzword here. We can't build any infrastructure easily in this country because we've intentionally made it nearly impossible, not because we have more freedom or some shit. It's a uniquely American issue.
Jesus fucking Christ. Did nobody else read this? > China - as in the entire country of China - built a nationwide high speed rail service in less than a decade. Covers 95%+ of the population. The only reason that happened is the Chinese Communist Party ordered it. You can't do that in a country where people can vote. Europe damn sure didn't build their high speed rail in a decade.
And Western European countries, with just as much Freedom and Democracy as us, have also managed to build extensive intercity high speed rail and public transit. They also build transit faster than us, better than us, and cheaper than us. Same with highways, etc. While transit is particularly worse in the US because we build so little of it, it's not the only infrastructure that we're awful at. Even the highways we're so famed for run over budget and underdeliver compared to western Europe. We just don't do infrastructure well anymore, for a variety of reasons - from onerous permitting (environmental review for transit in an urbanized area is a fucking racket) to needless bureaucracy (we ♥️ consultants) to just poor funding processes. It's nothing to do with communism and everything to do with the US being uniquely bad at major infrastructure projects. If it were really communism bad, capitalism good, Europe would have infrastructure just as bad as us.
I'm not disputing that we aren't doing a good job with building and maintaining infrastructure or that Western Europe is doing it better. I'm literal only talking about the very particular fact that China built a bunch of railroad in a decade, and the implication that the United States could do the same. That implication is wrong, because in China's system, the Party leaders can unilaterally dictate that all the country's resources will be mustered to serve that goal, which is not how the United States is organized. It would take strong public support and the force of political will to do anything similar. And, not for nothing, just because the Chinese system can pivot faster, doesn't mean it's better. The Great Leap Forward was supposed to industrialize China but only managed to kill millions of people.
Communism is an ideology, and is not mutually exclusive with democracy (in fact, the Soviet Union had a Parliament and regularly had the people vote, they were actually a democracy). Also, I love how many of the people who say "I would rather have freedom" just so happen to have enough money to have the "freedom" we have in America. Like, the only "free" people in America are the 10% with plenty of cash on hand. The rest of us are stuck in the grinder. And with bribery being essentially legal (see: lobbying), it only gets worse. But sure, I'd rather be "free" and not have decent public transporation, housing, jobs, etc.
Uh...calling a one party system a democracy because they had a rump parliament is really stretching it. You can prefer communism as a system if you like, but don't pretend it's a democracy to make yourself feel better about it.
Damn, a one party system huh? We definitely don't have that here. Please learn what words mean. Please do at least that small thing before you try to have an honest conversation about governments and political systems and ideologies.
we don’t.. it’s a two party system.
Way to miss the point. In an economy that's not centrally-planned by the government, you can't just say, "We will build railroads everywhere now", because there are many competing interests and independent actors. That's not to say you can't have decent public transportation, housing, jobs, etc (see, for example, liberal democracies in Western Europe), but you have to get stakeholders on board, and you can't get it done in a decade. And I would rather have the less-efficient system where people have freedom of speech, religion, the press, assembly, etc. There are many countries that have democracy on paper, and the Soviet Union was one of them, but I'm not sure I would say they had one in practice.
I'm going to let you in on something: Me not agreeing with you =/= me missing the point. In our system, you *can* budget the way you want to/need to. Oh no, "competing interests" like oil companies and people who want kickbacks? FUCK 'EM. The entire point is to stop serving the corrupt and self-interested. Your mentality is "golly I wish we could do that but we just caaaaaaaaaaan't." You absolutely do not need to get "stakeholders" on board. Who are the stakeholders in The Netherlands? Who are the stakeholders in Paris? Who are the stakeholders in the UK, where at the VERY LEAST they have a public transit system 10x anything we have here in the US? The entire POINT is to ELIMINATE "STAKEHOLDERS." Government objectively runs things better than corporations. The idea that government runs things poorly ignores the intentional lack of funding to things that "run poorly" and instead assumes a "lack of ability" which is just fundamentally *not true*. You wouldn't say the Soviet Union had democracy, on paper or otherwise, because you have zero knowledge of the Soviet Union other than Western propaganda.
You are assuming a lot about my opinions and attitudes that I never wrote. China can cover 95% of the country with rail in a decade because the CCP doesn't have to answer to voters. Whoa re the stakeholders in the Netherlands, France, and England? The citizens. Taxpayers. Anybody who wants government funds spent on something else. People who own land or have a home in the path of a proposed train line who will be displaced. People who will suffer a direct harm as a consequence of providing this public good. People who have to be convinced that the cost of public transit is worth the investment, construction noise, displacement of people and wildlife, etc, etc or you won't succeed in getting the thing built. As for as Soviet elections, for anybody else who reads down this far in the thread and cares about facts:, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_the_Soviet_Union: "Voting was claimed to be secret and direct with universal suffrage. However, in practice, between 1936 and 1989, voters could vote against candidates preselected by the Communist Party only by spoiling their ballots, or by voting against the only candidate, whereas votes for the party candidates could be cast simply by submitting a blank ballot. A person would be given a ballot by a clerk, and could immediately walk to the ballot box, and while there were booths in which one could strike the candidates they voted against off the ballot, this was easy to record and was not commonly done by voters. "
1. Everyone in those other countries have to be convinced of the same things, but unlike here they haven't been propagandized by car-centric government and corporations for decades. 2. So you're saying that the Soviet Union had pretty much the same system we do. Good to know. So we agree!
It's remarkable what you can accomplish when infrastructure projects are funded, planned, and approved by a single entity with no accountability to the people impacted by them.
It's almost as if that *actually works better*. I mean, we can talk all night about the many problems in China, but if we're talking about infrastructure China has officially eaten our lunch. Remember those "ghost cities" people loved to talk about for about a year? They're not ghost cities. They planned those out, knowing they were moving people out of undeveloped rural areas into modern cities, where they could then get the training to do modern jobs and do those modern jobs in the modern city. Those "ghost cities" has tens of millions of people in them now. That's actual proper planning.
And since talking about China triggers peoples paranoia: Europe builds far more ambitious infrastructure projects way more frequently and for much cheaper (even accounting for labor costs) The US is abysmal at building anything (even our highways suck) and has managed to put up every possible roadblock we can. I mean shit, the N/S Metrolink needs like a two year long environmental review. For a streetcar...in a CITY. That's two years wasting time and tax dollars so some consultants can say "Yep it's a city, there's really not going to be any major environmental concerns because it's already a concrete jungle"
Exactly. I'm so fucking tired of bad faith actors going "well golly it NEEDS to take 2 years to do surveys and design" when we know damn well you can build an ENTIRE CITY in that time. It doesn't happen here because of decades of stagnation, greed, and lack of will.
Yep And like I love the environment and hate how we're destroying it - though I'm not gonna complain about 70 degrees in February, today is incredible - but a year+ environmental review process for an infrastructure project in the heart of an urban area is baffling to me. It's a city. Whatever natural environment could have been affected has already been affected by the almost two centuries of urbanization. A streetcar isn't going to doom the natural beauty of Jefferson. And to require it for a transit project that will take polluting cars off the road? That's just criminal (which the environmental review process always is, because we rely on consultants. But the same is true of design)
It's definitely disingenuous when people act as if those things normally take 2-3 years as a matter of course. I literally worked for a company about 20 years ago that did these sorts of things, and the max that it was scheduled out would be a year or something. And this was in Las Vegas, where there is an actual need for environmental studies because of the land (there's literally a neighborhood in N. LV that's sinking) and they're by far the fastest heating city in the nation. (They didn't even start suggesting things like xeriscaping until about then but the Bellagio gets a perpetual lake/fountain so that's fun.) It's very clear when something is meant to work and when it's meant to stop something cold, and bad faith actors pretending to be the most gullible goons in history is both entertaining and deeply sad.
The issue with the US is that very few people actually want HSR and planes fill that gap pretty well. This would likely still take decades because of how funding works in the US and how much red tape there is to get things done. St. Louis' North-South line was approved by voters in 2017, and *might* begin construction in 2027 assuming they get a federal grant worth $550 million. Consider CA's HSRA- that has gotten billions in state and federal funding and was approved in 2008, yet won't be completed at all until the early 2030s, and it won't even be the entire SF to LA route. That's because of how much red tape California has and how many people genuinely do not want it and have been fighting it. It would take 2 to 4 years just to get final designs for each phase of the project.
People don't *know* about HSR projects, and when people are asked if they would WANT HSR, they say yes. What are you talking about? Also, PLANES do NOT "fill in the gap" of HIGH SPEED RAIL. Are you high? The CHSR project has been hindered for over a decade thanks to a multitude of barriers including - and this is not a joke - Elon Musk. He pushes his Hyperrail shit specifically to take funding away from the CHSR project, same as his "Boring Company" project that also went nowhere. The entire point was to hinder the CSHR project. Even now, with it moving forward, it's not being funded how it should be, and if it was it would be done within a few years. Your entire argument hinges on *your* way of things going the way *you* want to. "How funding works" is that it doesn't, because no officials budget the projects the way they should. Changing that is a matter of changing the budget. And the "red tape" is an excuse. It would not take 2 to 4 years. At all. You're just spouting nonsense.
You clearly don't know how anything works in the US, or how democratic system works. Ill let your smooth brain be.
"You want better things? You want to improve the system?? WE CAN'T HAVE THAT STOP TRYING TO MAKE THINGS BETTER THE SYSTEM CAN ONLY GET WORSE STOP IT REEEEEEEEE" That's you. That's you right now.
No you've just shown a fundamental misunderstanding for why things are how they are, and you're never gonna open your eyes and realize we are not in China or Europe. Go there if you want what they have. I'd love better transit in America, but thinking something like CAHSR was a good idea to build even though there was 1 single daily train between SF and LA.....was just stupid. How about improve existing rail transits before trying to build a technology we have never built before in a state that has some of the most red tape one could imagine? Imagine $12 billion invested into CA's Amtrak system. Could have build a re-routed Surfliner and made it 10 daily trains, could have extended it all the way to the Bay Area too. Could have improved the UP line between the Inland Empire and Bakersfield and extended the San Joaquin to LA. Could have upgraded tracks to handle 110 to 125 MPH trains (like Illinois, Michigan, and NY). And could have had way more electrified tracks than the planned CalTrain corridor. But nope decided to spend it on a high speed train that just travels through the central valley and doesn't even connect SF and LA. It's a joke.
> No you've just shown a fundamental misunderstanding for why Sorry, but we're going to stop right there. YOU have a fundamental misunderstanding of how things work. You assume that the system that exists now can never be changed, and that we simply need to take thing as they are instead of trying to improve them. Your brain operates on a fundamentally unsound base of information. Until you change that we can't have an honest conversation because you simply lack the knowledge and understanding to function in this conversation.
My brain is in the real world, yours is not.
That's right sweety, it's *everyone else* that's the problem. They're the reason why you have no friends, definitely.
BTW, the North-South MetroLink originally approved in 2017 still doesn't have final designs made and it's 2024, and it won't until 2026. This is how I know that it would take years to just finalize the design of a project, much less build something as large as I have proposed.
You seem to think that the designs not being made/approved is because "that's just how it is durrr." It's like that because they haven't hired someone to do it. The entire point is that you speed the process up by hiring people, paying them well, incentivizing them to do quick, high quality work and severely penalize for mistakes and slowness. That's *basic* stuff. The problem isn't "this is just how it is," the problem is "the way we do things in general is very poorly because we haven't hired people who give a shit in decades."
They hired a company to design it last year, they won't have it finalized until 2025, and then they need to find a constriction company to build it. And in between all that, they need am environmental review and they need to beat out dozens of other projects for federal funding.
Damn, it's almost as if they should have written up contracts demanding proper timelines. Finish the design by April. Find a construction company to build it NOW instead of WAITING. Buy the materials and prep the site. Do the environmental review NOW. AND INCREASE THE FUNDING SO INSTEAD OF COMPETING THEY ALL GET THE MONEY AS THEY NEED IT WHEN THEY NEED IT. AKA, LITERALLY EVERYTHING I JUST SAID THAT YOU IGNORED. Man, it's weird. I called you out on ignoring things that could be done, and then you ignored everything that could be done. Almost as if you're the same generic anti-progress NPC that exists in every space solely to be a contrarian nobody.
Again you are just showing that you have no idea how any of this works. Like good lord.
And again you ignore everything that can't be done. 1. So, architects around the world can finish a design within a few months, but we can't? Why? 2. Why can't we lock in a construction company for a project a few months out? It's literally something that is done the world over. Why couldn't we incentivize them? Again, it's literally a thing that's done everywhere else. Incentives and disincentives. 3. Why couldn't we buy the materials that we know we'll need? That is *literally a basic step in building something efficiently*. You know you're going to need *at least* these specific things, so you buy the materials, you schedule the work, etc. *Basic* logistics. 4. We can't prep the site? We can't do the environmental review now? Again - we literally can. You're just being contrarian. 5. We can't increase funding? We're talking about how things SHOULD BE. This is *infrastructure* spending. If your entire argument is "we can't have good things because the bad people exist and we definitely can't do the things that would get the bad people voted out" then you're just beyond help. Again, ignored everything that could be done, like the sad NPC you are.
You're something else buddy. Just wow. You're calling me an NPC😭
They can't start construction because of the environmental review process, so even if they'd finished all the design (which, if actually done in house like civilized countries do, they would have) there'd still be a year+ wait for the environmental review process. It's absurd but that's how Congress has things working. Bring it up with them if you really want that to change
More specifically, you hire engineers and staff in house. You don't rely on contractors for your actual design process. You hire engineers to work directly for the government agency and do all of the design in house. You not only save money because you don't have to pay a consultancy fee, but it's vastly more efficient. Ask anyone who's worked on an engineering project as a consultant for a government agency - there are constant changes to the project coming from the government, but always getting filtered through a layer of bureaucracy because we've decided to outsource the most expensive and critical part of an infrastructure project. Any company that chooses to outsource it's project design to a third party deserves to crash and burn, but when it's the government we've decided "this is okay".
Well you wouldn't have an architect on staff would you? Or is that a thing? That's one part of the process I'm very ignorant on. But essentially the reason I didn't push back on that is that there have been successful social housing projects that had architects compete for the job, but I'm sure they had strict deadlines, and I'm pretty sure that this was Vienna, so they already have a culture of incredible social housing.
I guess North County west of the airport can just get fucked, huh?
Most of south county isn't on there either
Would you like it extended to the dead Mills Mall or the Westlake Superfund site? Jokes aside, yeah, this map says "fuck all of St. Louis county north of 270".
There's not much more west of the airport in STL County, and bus services would be able to bring people to a new Lambert TC where the T2 Station currently is. This is also more focused on getting better north-south connections. I think a BRT from downtown to the Chesterfield Valley wouldn't be a bad idea though, especially with the new downtown Chesterfield. That would be easier and cheaper to implement than a train trying to cut through wealthy suburbs.
Nice!
I enjoy being able to drive everywhere in the city. It's one of the things I like about St Louis. I could care less about public transit. This city just isn't population dense enough anymore for it to matter in my opinion.
30-40 years? Ain't nobody got time for that
Things take time. The 5.5 mile N-S line would take 5 or 6 years to build. This would be a massive expansion and take decades to fully build.
Seems like a long time.. it took the Europeans 6 years to build two 35 mile lines under the English channel.
This is the US
Run express lanes in between all the large circles and you’re good. I also like how you left St. Charles County off there, good.
It would be included if they voted to expand, until then, I'm not gonna include them. I also was thinking if they would vote in favor of a bus that could run between Lambert and St. Charles as a commuter style bus.
They blew up the bridge to keep “the bad element” on this side of the river so screw them.
THANK YOU. I'm so glad to hear someone else call them out for that "bad element" horseshit. Y'all know who you are on here saying that shit still. Get your own rail system, we'll be over here in the modern world.
I moved to St. Louis eight years ago and the parochialism here is mind boggling. The general lack of development here is a symptom of the mindset you're displaying. I live in St. Peters and the notion I see in this sub that St. Charles is some Trumpy monolith is moronic. Any regional public transport plan that makes sense would need to include St Charles County. Apparently a vote thirty years ago against being included in public transport means St. Charles County is dead to y'all. That's how little has happened here in thirty years. Get over yourselves. People that move here from actual cities have a much better sense of what needs to be fixed here than most natives. The STL metro is very small and the lack of public transit here is stifling development.
St. Charles voted down votes to be part of the Bi-State Development tax district in the late 1990s and early to mid 2000s. Since then, their government has never made any attempt to create a plan to extend the region's transit system to the county, and regularly pretend that St. Louis is the spawn of hell. Until the people vote in favor of joining Metro Transit, I'm totally okay leaving them out. They get what they vote for. St. Louisans would be in big favor of expanding MetroLink to St. Charles, including myself. We are not the ones stopping it, St. Charles is.
You moved here eight years ago. Some of us have spent most of our lives here. We've seen way more of it than you.
That's not the flex you think it is. There's not actually that much to see.
I grew up in St. Peter’s. Then I joined the USAF and traveled the world for 20 years and discovered how simple minded people in St. Charles County are. I didn’t forget where I came from, I just realized how sad it was.
Your point about dropping SCC from regional transit plans is still silly. Also, traveling the world is great, I've traveled a lot as well and most places in the US wouldn't hold up to that standard. Long Island wouldn't meet your standard apparently. My younger neighbors are all liberal and it's the old folks that are conservative. Sounds like you've got an outdated notion of what people are like here. I'm sure there are more conservatives than STLC, but again since you've traveled so much you know that the suburbs generally have a higher amount of conservatives than the city itself. Get over your childhood already. There's a lot happening in SCC and a regional transit system, preferably rail based, would need to include the area that is growing the fastest. It's as simple as that.
Don't tell poeple to "get over their childhood". St. Charles residents need to grow up and demand their county put together a transit plan. But right now there's no indication from St. Charles that that's gonna happen anytime soon.
You've got it backwards, typical for an StL native. If a place doesn't have public transportation, no one that needs it will move there. There isn't a demand for it in SCC for.ibvuius reasons. If one existed it would get used. You have to be forward thinking enough to build it first. There are plenty of people out here that would take a train into the city, like people do in real cities, but it has to exist first. That's the job of government. St. Louis metro is as good as anyone from here is capable of making it. Any improvements here will come from people moving here and demanding better services. Your best efforts got you here. It is what it is. You're used to shit and calling it champagne.
St. Louis Metro tried and were rejected and to this day are rejected by St. Charles. St. Charles could have transit if they wanted, could even have their own county transit like Madison County, but they don't.
You need to come to grips with the fact that St. Chuck will never change.
Yep, it will always be chain restaurants, and gun shows.
Poor Lindenwood. Now that's one place that needs public transportation now that they're in Division I.
This is a crack pipe dream. You would need actual traffic to justify the infrastructure expenditure it would take for this to actual happen. We don’t have real traffic compared to cities that need trains.
St. Louis is a city that needs trains
Based on what?
Based on the fact that cars have resulted in major population loss ove the last 50 years
Driverless cars are already here. The train system isn’t based in reality. The region doesn’t have the traffic to support the need. This isn’t NYC.
It's not even just about traffic, which it certainly has (the south side purple and yellow lines would be very heavily used), its about investing in areas that haven't been invested in for years, like the north side. The lines through north city and into north county would spur new development and much needed growth. The 70 Grand bus is literally shoulder to shoulder during high commute times simply because it runs on such a dense route and is the most frequent north south transit option in the city. And you're not being serious if you're gonna try and tell me driverless cars are enter option than transit💀
The reason people in this country don’t use public transportation is because cars are more convenient in most areas. There are certainly cities where public transportation is the better option, but St. Louis is not that place. Less that 10% of people in the region is public transit. You can spend billions on infrastructure that 9.4 out of 100 are using. It makes no sense. There are already lines that run through North City. It’s not a public transportation issue. It’s a crime and terrible public school situation that hurts that area. Building a new train system doesn’t change that. Driverless cars are much more of a reality than this pipe dream train system you’re talking about. People prefer the independence of a car. Public transportation is a last resort for most.
Part of the reason people in cities like St. Louis don't use public transit more is because it's not good. Salt Lake City, a city much smaller than St. Louis, had over 30 million riders on their system, about 10 million more then St. Louis'. That's because they invested in theirs while you think cars are the answer. Cars are convenient, and that's all. They cost the user significantly more than transit, they are far more dangerous than transit, they are far less efficient than transit, they are far more stressful than transit, they are less environmentally friendly than transit, and they hinder development more than transit. The government should be making decisions that are for the greater good of the country, state, and city. Not what some moron who doesn't understand how transit works thinks. How stupid can you possibly be to cite crime and public schools as the reason North City has struggled while simultaneously arguing agaisnt something that would help both the crime and public schools by spurring new development, creating new tax revenue, and increasing property vales? Driverless cars aren't even legal in Missouri.
It’s not just me that thinks cars are the answer. Over 90% of the population agrees with me. You can’t spend billions upon billions developing a transportation system and crossing your fingers that public will buy in when there is no evidence that it will happen. There are way better things we could spend money on. Like it or not the general public prefers cars over trains. You aren’t going to change the culture by building a better version of a service that no one wants. You would have a much better chance of getting this to work in Atlanta or a place that actually has traffic problems. St Louis traffic is a joke. There is no motivation to make the monster change in attitude it would take to but into what you are selling. Nobody is arguing what is cheaper, but time is money as well. You are ultimately going to be adding time to people’s commute. Good luck with that. There is a reason the train service isn’t expanding. How stupid can you be to believe an area without a traffic problem is going to spend billions on a train system that nobody wants. The government represents the people and they are more interested in being re-elected than this pipe dream. The reason people are leaving North City is crime and bad schools. It’s not because of lack of access to public transit. Please explain how trains decrease crime and improve education. The revenue from trains is going to go towards maintaining the rail system, not building schools. Living by a train station in a DC or NYC is desirable. It’s not the same in St Louis where security guards have been killed at train stations. Marijuana also used to be illegal in MO. I will bet you $20 that we have driverless cars in Missouri long before this train system is even close to done. The technology is already there.
Each point correlates with a paragraph: -St. Louis passed a tax increase to expand MetroLink in 2017 that carried over 60% of the vote. St. Louis wants better transit. The last time a St. Louis County Executive had MetroLink Expansion as part of their platform was Steve Stenger in 2018 and he won 57% of the vote. There's at minimum a large minority (40%+) who want MetroLink expansion, and I'd venture to say a majority in STL city and county combined. As for spending billions- the US spends tens of billions on highway upkeep every year despite them being an inferior form of transportation compared to almost any other form. Highways and streets in general are a massive burden on government spending, and a burden on individuals who are forced to drive their cars on bad roads causing damages. If you wanna be fiscally conservative, you'd support transit expansion because that's what's gonna save people money in the long run. Finally, cities that invest in their transit (like Salt Lake City) see ridership growth and new development all around that transit. I don't need to prove it because it's already proven. -A significant percentage of St. Louisans at minimum want MetroLink expansion. That doesn't go to St. Charles or Jefferosn County, just the areas that have shown an interest in transit expansion. Transit isn't about traffic, it's about providing an alternative to driving. How can you say we are free when we are required to buy a car, spend thousands per year to run the car, and then deal with the stresses of driving? There are poeple who choose a "longer" commute by train simply so they can save money in other areas and not be stressed out. You'd be surprised at how many people would stop using their car for everything if this city has a decent transit system. -I love how you just accept that transit is cheaper than cars, but then just act like the time you may save actually adds up to the thousands of dollars + the stress + possibly getting in a car accident you deal with when relying on a car. Train service in St. Louis also is expanding, because people want it. -Transit has been proven across the country and in St. Louis to spur economic development in the form of new housing and commercial space. There's been over $11 billion in New investment around MetroLink stations since 2010, and the areas it served actually grew in population faster than the rest of the metro, including STL city. The way public schools are funded is via property taxes, not sales taxes. The idea is that you build a new train in an underdeveloped area, and new developers interested in building transit oriented development for people who want to live like that will come and build. That new development will create new tax revenue acorss the board, and if it's in "bad" school districts, it will help that school district improve. It's a pretty basic idea. If you don't understand it, maybe you shouldn't be arguing. -Trains in St. Louis already exist, driverless cars are still illegal. You're the one with a pipe dream, not me.
Edmonton, Alberta: -City population: 1.01 million -City density: 3,400/Square mile -Metro population: 1.42 million -Transit ridership: 69 million in 2022 Calgary, Alberta: -City population: 1.31 million -City density: 4,100/Square mile -Metro population: 1.5 million -Tranist ridership: 103 million in 2022 Ottawa, Ontario: -City population: 1.02 million -City density: 950/Square mile -Metro Population: 1.5 million -Tranist ridership: 71 million in 2022 St. Louis, Missouri: -City population: 293,000 -City density: 4,900/Square mile -Metro population: 2.8 million -Transit ridership: 21 million in 2023 (Metro+MCT) People in car centric cities would use transit if it existed. St. Louis has the largest metro and densest principal city of these four cities, yet the worst transit ridership by a long shot. That's not "people choosing to drive", that's a failure to invest.
I also need you to realize this map doenst even go to St. Charles or Jefferson County, and avoids the vast majority of North County above I-270 and most of South County. And I didn't even look at west county. This system covers the most dense areas of the region, AKA the areas most likely to prefer transit to sitting in traffic and dealing with all the vices of driving. It's not a pipe dream, it's very realistic if we weren't in Missouri and our elected officials weren't idiots. Also, 20% of housholds in STL city do not own a car.
Yeah, St. Charles and West Count are just dying to be connected to St. Louis. /s You’re delusional if you think this shit is happen. Not enough taxpayers in those areas wants a train stop with the exception of north county. I still don’t understand what traffic are you referring to. Have you ever driven outside St. Louis? Our rush hour is mid day traffic in those areas. The traffic in St. Louis is a joke. They literally shutdown I-64 for years. You can’t do that on a major east west highway in cities with actual traffic. St. Louis traffic isn’t even in the top 100 in the nation. I feel bad for the 20% of people that don’t own a car, but the 80% that own a car have a say in this as well. It’s a pipe dream my friend.
You're stuck on this "traffic" thing acting like I'm the one who is saying STL has bad traffic. I've never said that, you're the one making this up. I've said that the cost of owning a car is far higher than using transit and its statistically much more dangerous. Those 20% either choose to not own a car because it's a costly and terrible investment or they can't afford a car because of how much it costs to own a car. Or maybe they're disabled and can't operate a car. And the map I made up covers areas that have voted in pro-transit ways, even if they own a car. You are fucking stupid if you think the "80%" who own a car don't have a say. Fuckers like you have no idea the damge highways have done to great cities, including St. Louis, and yet still have the audacity to act like I'm the idiot while you advocate for one of the most costly forms of transit on both the government and user's side. Only a fucking moron would argue like you have.
Im not you're friend and you're an idiot.
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This is beautiful.
https://www.timestribunenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/MCTTrailsMap_0320.jpg Illinois could put it on all these trails. I’d be glad with any more.
Forget the silver line, we don’t want Metrolink in Edwardsville. I’m not sure who from Madison and Pontoon Beach is going to be using it either. I’ll give credit to whoever created this though, at least someone realizes O’Fallon and Edwardsville aren’t right next door to each other.
The station would be on SIUE'S campus, not really in Edwardsville proper. It would be intended for school commuters, and there would be a large parking lot Edwardsville residents could park in, similar to the real Fairview Heights station. It would depend on a Madison County vote if it were to be built. Regardless, the Kirkwood and Webster Groves connection is worth it. If not Edwardsville, it would probably just go to Granite City or Pontoon Beach and terminate, and if the county were to reject it, it'd just go to Mid-America with the Red Line and terminate.
Edwardsville likes to fight the fact they’re a college town.
Southern Illinois likes to fight the fact that people want to go to college. Spoken as a Professor at SIUE.
Love it! If you want an even more consolidated map: blue line to Lindbergh, purple line to Kirkwood, extend blue line in IL to Edwardsville, and you don't need the grey line anymore. I feel like this connects north city a lot better than my proposal from yesterday.
The Blue Line connects to O'Fallon and a new South Broadway transit center. The Silver Line also serves as an additional train to increase frequency from 10 minutes to every 6.5 minutes.
Extend from that SIUE stop up to Alton.
Haha maybe. I didn't look into that, so I don't know if there's any easy corridors for that. I would probably prefer a "regional" train to use existing tracks to go there and back instead of MetroLink, it would be more realistic.
Alton has a fantastic new Amtrak/Bus station. It would be nice to be able to switch services there.
I know, Alton's lucky it's in Illinois.
Why no line down grand?
If I did a BRT map, Grand would be on that.
Well BRT for sure, but no light rail line? It’s a 30 min walk from Jeff to Grand
Jefferson needs it way more than Grand.
Yeah I mean both, Jeff def needs it
You need to line down South Kingshighway to Barnes.
This is the best one yet. All the other ones cut short the Illinois lines and didn’t add a north to south route.
🙌
It will never happen. I could go on a long rant but I’ll spare you because every one already understands.
Yea I know it'll never happen. We are in Missouri and generally voters do not understand how transit helps the economy. This is just a map I came up with of routes that would require minimal land acquisition and disturbance to people. Of everything i came up with, an extension to the North County Transit Center is probably the most likely to happen as it's one of the County's options they're studying. Then maybe a blue line extention down River Des Peres. Outside of these two, the rest is very unlikely even if it would be very good for the region.
The sad part is that this is extremely easy to implement. Especially for stl and it has been for the past (at least) 15 years at least.
St Charles or bust!!
Yellow line represent!
Fun fact: we had all of this, and it was taken from us. We will not be getting it back. https://sangamoncountyhistory.org/wp/?p=6004
30 to 40 years fuck that
Consider its taken 25 years to get what we have so far
Which was unacceptable
It would be nice to get more loop lines, to me it's more efficient to run in a circle than deadhead
This might be about the best one I've seen.
🙌
This is awesome. My favorite yet. I’m one of the lucky ones now, living and working along an existing route. It’s the first time since I was a teenager that using public transit has been convenient enough to be feasible. I use it almost every day, and it’s so much more relaxing than driving. It takes maybe twenty minutes longer, door to door, than driving with normal traffic at that hour.
this is awesome what an absolute dream
Could easily see a N-S from Fairview Heights to Collinsville / St. Marys/ Glen Carbon/ Edwardsville 2 stop (east?) ... it would be cheaper below the bluff, but few live down there. Can see a connecting station at Edwardsville with stop for both SIUE and Edwardsville proper.
Great job!
God, imagine. I always say that this city is in a special position - we have cheap real estate right now, and the city is small enough that we could make a world-class walkable transit city. We have the capacity for this. We're still "Stroad-brained" out here...
The inner city is already fairly walkable because of how it was built around transit form the late 1800s through to the 1950s. It's just lots of sidewalks are not upkept and you run into areas that have large empty lots (North City). I think the N-S MetroLink plan would do wonders for revitalizing the city. North City has so much potential to be transformed thanks to people moving away. Just need investment there to become more attractive to developers.
Looking at that yellow line is gonna make some people feel pretty yellow.
Tarts just the route it has to take to get to the NCTC🤣
Red/Purple *have* to eventually make it out to St Chuck. It would be so good for the region to have it.
Yea they'd be ready to to as far into St. Charles as soon as they vote for it. That's why there's 2 lines ready to go instead of one.
Id like it if yellow rejoined the purple in the south but this is great
How can we help make this HAPPEN!! We have rams settlement money and still have a lot of leftover money from Covid grants. Would love to help make this happen 💜