Poll: Best Way To Improve Public Transit In North & South St. Louis?
Lately I’ve been posting about the St. Louis Streetcar, a proposed modern streetcar line that’d primarily serve the central corridor from Downtown west to the Central West End. Though the proposed streetcar route includes a spur into North St. Louis, I believe north & south sides of the city have tended to get the short end of the transit infrastructure stick. Our Metrolink light rail opened 20 years ago serving the central part of the city, and the streetcar will double-down on this area.
I’ll personally benefit since I live downtown, but I’d like better transit options for reaching destinations in north & south city. I recognize many people might live say in north city but work in south city, or vice versa. Existing bus routes like the #70 (Grand) only partially fills the transit needs of the city.
Improvement options I’ve listed in the poll are:
- Nothing, doesn’t need improving
- Run existing buses more frequently
- Reduce/eliminate fares
- Bigger articulated buses for the busiest routes
- Buses that go from diesel in the county to electric via overhead wires in the city
- Bus rapid transit (BRT) lines serving city neighborhoods
- In-street modern streetcar lines serving city neighborhoods
- In-street light rail lines running through the city to connect to the county
These answers will be presented in random order in the poll (right sidebar), you can select up to 3 choices. You’ll have the option to provide your own answer as well.
A number of years ago East-West Gateway Council of Governments studied light rail lines through North & South St. Louis to reach North & South St. Louis County, respectively, but it went no further.
So please vote in the poll, located to the right, and share your thoughts in the comments below. I’ll share my views when I post the poll results on Wednesday July 3rd.
— Steve Patterson
I want to poke my eyes out when I see your poll results. How on Earth is the city supposed to pay for streetcar lines. I am sorry, but I would rather have an additional 2000 police on the street. That would do far more to improve the city than silly streetcars that can’t be easily relocated when population shifts.
There was and never will be a need for light rail or any other fixed public transit in a city the size and more importantly the density of St. Louis. Get real, more efficient buses make a world of sense, but then we would have to give up the little crusade to waste money (I know, it is never the crusaders’ money) on rail. Rail is the past.
The only opportunity to have rail be a sensible solution was wasted when the Shrewsbury Line was built. They should have done the politically difficult thing and built a West County Line instead. However, that was not feasible largely due to the folks out that way not wanting the “element” to have easy access to their neighborhoods. So instead, why not build a silly rail to nowhere (Shrewsbury).
Considering all of the above…of course the majority of the people who visit this site would vote for “In-street light rail lines running through the city to connect to the county.” How crazy do you have to be to think that it makes more sense to spend a bunch of money to stick long strands of metal in the ground to allow the operation of vehicles no larger than two-four buses, than to allow energy and pollution efficient buses to do the same work without the rails?
This site is sometimes very frustrating in its disregard for economic reality.
Steve,
I still love reading your site, I am just weary of the polls due to the obvious outcomes. I could pretty much tell you how they will turn out from the moment I read the possible replies. It is maddening.
Had I included the phrase “MetroLink” in the light rail answer I bet it would be getting the most votes.