Public Input Sought On ‘Metro South’ MetroLink Extension Impact Statement
Citizens for Modern Transit (CMT) sent out the following today:
The St. Louis Metro South MetroLink Extension Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) evaluates light rail transit and other alternatives through South St. Louis County and the southern portion of the City of St. Louis. The DEIS has been reviewed by the East-West Gateway Council of Governments, Metro, the Missouri Department of Transportation and the Federal Transit Administration and is ready for circulation and comment by the public. Your review and comment on this DEIS document is an important part of this study.
The DEIS is being distributed to appropriate local, state and federal agencies, legislative bodies and interested organizations. Additional hard copies of the DEIS are available for public viewing at local libraries and other sites in the study area.
The 45-day public comment period began on November 18, 2005 and ends on January 6, 2006. A public hearing/public open house has been scheduled for December 13, 2005 at the Holiday Inn South County at 6971 South Lindbergh Boulevard in the study area from 4 – 7 PM. Following the public comment period, the Study Team will review all comments and prepare responses to each identified issue. All comments and responses will be reported in the Final Environmental Impact Statement, including any appropriate modifications to the project necessary to respond to the comment.
Written comments about the DEIS can be submitted to the Metro South Study, c/o Vector Communications, 701 N. 15th St., Mailbox 43, St. Louis, MO 63103. All comments are due by January 6, 2006, and will be part of the public record.
To clarify just in case anyone gets the various proposed lines confused, the “Metro South” line would continue into South St. Louis County from the station being completed now in Shrewsbury. It would enter a bit of the City of St. Louis near River Des Peres. This line should not be confused with the “Southside” line which will come out of downtown, make its way through the Hill and then eventually end up at I-55 and River Des Peres. When both lines are finished they would connect. Right now this addresses only the Metro South line extending from Shrewsbury.
The many documents in the DEIS can be found here. If you don’t want to spend hours pouring over lots of technical documents I suggest you start with the Executive Summary and go from there if you need more detail.
I’m still reviewing the executive summary myself. It looks like they have quite a few alternative routes that vary greatly in length, area served and total project cost (in 2010 dollars). I’m planning to attend the public meeting next Tuesday (presentations at 4:30 pm and 6:00 pm) to learn more about the project and I hope to have some clear views following that meeting.
All I know at this point is Metro is going to have to do something different to prove to the public that it can handle another MetroLink expansion project. The budget and time frame must be met.
– Steve
Two things should be made clear to the public interested in Metro South:
1.) Metro is not about to build another extension in the near future.
No funding is currently available. Any future MetroLink extension, in South County or elsewhere, would likely apply for federal funding (FTA New Starts), unlike the entirely locally financed Cross County extension. However, a local match of around half the project cost is still needed, even with federal funding, but no local funding has been identified. If a sales tax levy were sought akin to Prop M, it’s questionable whether City and County voters would see Metro South as the next expansion priority.
2.) No final alignment was selected for Metro South.
Both lines along River Des Peres/I-55 and the BNSF railroad remain competitive options. BNSF requires higher design guidelines for running light-rail within this fairly active rail freight corridor, increasing construction costs per mile. Meanwhile, River Des Peres is a longer route adding to operations cost and having parkland impacts, yet has better bus connections, helping serve existing transit riders.
I’m still not clear where the money will be found for the Metro South extension. I guess they’re doing a DEIS, with the “No Build” and everything, because they want to apply for Federal funds.
The 2nd Prop M, in 1998 I believe, passed in the City but not in the County. If they finish Cross County, then maybe people out there will vote on Prop M again, and say “yeah, ok.” Maybe.
Otherwise, there’s no chance of Metro South, South side, Northside or Daniel Boone corridors being developed in our lifetime.
As for the routing – the “eastern” option along River des Peres does not seem to account for the recently built bike path bridge just northwest of Morganford. Did I miss something? They propose stations at Gravois and at Morganford, but don’t mention possible conflicts with the new bikeway and its planned extension to I-55 via Germania.
I suspect the River des Peres route will be dropped as a result of this bikeway. The only way to avoid the bikeway and flood control facilities would be to take away wide swaths of parkland and/or a lot more houses. That would not be popular.
So, I predict the route along the BNSF tracks due south through Affton and Green Park, to South County Center, then along I-55 to Butler Hill, will be approved in the end.
In response to Brian’s comment: The connections to existing transit via the River des Peres routing are only marginally better. It wouldn’t be that hard to extend the #10 Gravois bus from the existing Transit Center (aka Hampton Loop) out to Reavis Road at White-Rodgers. The #90 Hampton may be a little harder, but not impossible.
The BNSF issues with heavy rail are significant, but I think there’s enough AmerenUE right-of-way adjacent in much of the corridor to make up for it. There might be some impact on backyards of houses, but nothing like the taking of front yards that would be needed along Carondelet Blvd.
Thus, unless somebody really, really advocates strongly for the River des Peres route, I still predict the BNSF route will win out.
The short extension to Kenrick Plaza is a joke. I wouldn’t care if the route ended at South County Center, but since they don’t want a park-ride there, it has to go a little further. Butler Hill would be a good place to pick up Jeffco commuters at a mega park-ride akin to North Hanley.
[REPLY – Joe, I agree dead-on with your takes. Funding is a big question but what people must realize is that rail transit is more than transportation, it is an economic develoment tool. St. Louis County needs this as it will be facing loss of population in the coming decades due to sprawl.
I can picture in 20 years razing the existing and South County Center and turning that site into a new urbanist transit oriented development complete with retail, office and residential. The urbanity of it could spread beyond the site to improve the density and sustainability of that portion of South County and the MetroLink line could easily get people to and from work & play in other parts of the region. – SLP]
Joe, more than just the Gravois and Hampton buses converge at this Southwest City transfer center. In addition to these main lines, you also have Kingshighway (a very busy line), Shaw-Southampton and I-44 Shuttle as well.
Plus, more transit-dependents live within walking distance of the River Des Peres option. Of course, Steve is right in that BSNF serves more TOD sites, but how soon these sites would see mixed-use redevelopment is somewhat a gamble. Even Cross County has such TOD potential like the Sunnen-Deer Creek area, but developers seem to have been slow in realizing this coming asset.
Finally, the new bridge and Christy trail connections near Morganford and Germania do not ultimately prevent a new line. The bike-ped bridge was set in place and could be lifted to higher elevation to line up with a new bridge over Germania and MetroLink. Such mitigation is done all the time in later stages of a project, as the new Des Peres Avenue ped bridge over Cross County shows.
But since there is no funding identified for either Metro South option and voters may not back it as the next priority, there is no immediate pressure to currently pick a final alignment.
Please note too that Tuesday is an official public hearing, not an open house. Many open houses were held over the course of the Metro South Study and its alternatives analysis. The focus of this official hearing then is ultimately the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) portion of the Study.
The DEIS is a formal document of public record following a federally mandated process. Essentially, the potential use of federal funding requires significant impacts (environmental, social, etc.) to be addressed.
Thus, while past open houses afforded the public opportunities to comment generally on the study, this official public hearing Tuesday is the formal opportunity for specific comments on the DEIS document itself.
If you look at Section 2.0 or Appendix A of the on-line DEIS, you will read or see that Joe’s concerns about pumping stations and residential takings are not true with the River Des Peres option, called the Orange line alternative in the Metro South Study.
South of Gravois, the line would take the two current southbound lanes of Germania, changing the road to one-lane each way with a center left-turn lane, thereby avoiding the pumping stations. However, current plans would require an at-grade bike-ped crossing for the new Christy trail connection, but this is really no different than the Throop crossing on Cross County near WashU.
Also, the orange line crosses over River Des Peres just north of Gravois, since Germania is wider than Carondelet, on the other side of RDP. Just under nine linear acres of passive green space yet public parkland would be taken between the Lansdowne and Gravois stations, with residential takings within the City immediately about these stations, both immediately across Lansdowne from the Shrewsbury station, as well as next to and including the existing Gravois-Hampton Steak’n’Shake.
Also Joe, though the BNSF right-of-way is wide across much of South County, the railroad requires the parallel blue alternative line to be built on fill or elevated structure for feared liability, adding substantially to construction cost from Lansdowne all the way south to almost Lindbergh.
If interested in finding out actual details for yourself, scaled plans of the alternatives as well as evaluation of their performance and impacts will be available on Tuesday’s (Dec.13) public hearing in South County.
You’re right, I forgot about the Kingshighway bus; the times I’ve ridden it to Hampton/Gravois, though, it was pretty much empty since that’s the end of the line.
Thanks for the info about the BNSF corridor.
I think I was looking at an earlier version of the document online, dated 2003. It, of course, did not reflect the bikeway.