A Look at MetroLink’s Shiloh-Scott Station
This past Sunday I took my time driving back to St. Louis from my bike ride in Illinois. When I drove by the newest MetroLInk station at Shiloh-Scott I pulled in to check it out. When the Eastern leg of MetroLink was extended a few years back the final stop was Belleville Area College.
More recently the line was extended to Shiloh IL and serving Scott Air Force Base. Military and their family at SAFB can now take MetroLink all the way to the airport. A large park-n-ride lot allows area residents to do the same and to make it to downtown St. Louis for work or pleasure. The plan is to extend the line to the underused MidAmerica Airport.
The station is similar to others in Illinois. It is attractive, inviting and highly functional. Particular attention was paid to helping customers with the use of audio reminders about upcoming trains and other little touches. All in all I’m quite pleased.
I’m not a fan of parking lots but as they go this was done well. The pedestrian was given consideration and provided with a clear path to the station.
The MetroLink list of stations indicates they have 645 park-n-ride spaces, 25 long term spaces and an additional 421 park-n-ride spaces on the SAFB side. That is a lot of people and on Sunday afternoon more cars were there than I expected. Great, people are using the system.
Despite being a rural area even bicyclists use the station as this mountain bike confirms. As an aside, a “mountain” bike is a humorous term in Illinois.
Anyway, I couldn’t believe that a bike was locked to a sign post out in the parking lot. Immediately I began to wonder if all this was done and no bike rack was included?
Yes folks, yet another post on bike racks. I think I’m going to call this “Bike Rack Week on Urban Review – St. Louis.”
Walking up to the station I began to understand why the bike was locked to a sign rather than the provided bike rack. To most people this looks fine, right? A nice big bike rack. You are thinking, how can Steve possibly complain about this situation?
Unlike Washington Avenue, this is actually the right rack for the job. These are quite efficient as this model is designed to hold up to seven bikes. Yes, seven!
The idea behind this design is that you get one bike on each end and then you alternate bikes from each side. Refer to this diagram from a rack supplier if you need a visual.
The specifications in the diagram call for 3 feet on each side of rack just for the bikes. Plus you need room to maneuver the bikes into place. This rack was installed way too close to the fence to fully utilize one side. Even putting the bike through the rack from the open side your front tire will likely hit the fence before you get it in far enough to secure the wheel and frame.
In reality, this is a single bike rack because the best way to secure a wheel and frame to this rack is to place the bike parallel to the rack. If you are going to spend the money to buy a 7-bike rack please install the right way.
Maybe they didn’t have enough space you ask?
Actually, they had more than enough room. The design, contractor and/or owner (Metro) didn’t understand the proper placement of the rack. If this is a surface-mount rack that is bolted in place it can be moved. If it is set in the concrete, it is here to stay. They could cut off the rack and toss it in the recycling bin and then install a surface mount rack in the open space.
This is just one station. I haven’t checked out the others to see what issues they have. I’m going to send few emails to some people at Metro and Citizens for Modern Transit in the hopes such mistakes can be avoided in the new stations currently under construction for the Cross-County extension.
– Steve
Another instance of somebody putting a check-mark next to the “Bike rack installed?” slot on some form or other. The check-mark matters more than the ability of bike riders to actually use the rack.
Built into specifications for jobs like this should be a provision for testing by the sorts of consumers who actually will use the bike rack or bench or other so-called amenity. The recruits should come from the ranks of passengers using the station.
I happen to be friends with someone who recently joined the advisory board for Metro and we are both avid cyclists. I’ll see what he can do….
“Urban Review of the Bike Racks of St. Louis”….I like it.
We’re here to eliminate the need for automobiles one bike rack at a time.
I read this on my break earlier today at work (work being the Central Library downtown), and when I walked outside to get some sunshine with the remainder of my break, the first thing I saw outside of the door was a smaller bike rack of the same type, installed right next to a stone fence so that its use was limited the same way.
Yep.