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But Will It Pay For Itself?

December 14, 2005 Events/Meetings, Public Transit, St. Louis County, Transportation 12 Comments

Yesterday afternoon I attended the Metro South MetroLink study meeting in South County. This was the final public meeting to close out the study period. Public comment continues until January 6, 2006.

After a short presentation an old man asked about a number within the 2 inch thick report that showed the area currently has 2,400 bus riders. He questioned the need for the light rail and “would it pay for itself?” The presenter did a great job with the comeback, “No, it would not be the first in the country to do so.” This man ignored the estimated ridership numbers which were pretty good. Remember, our MetroLink system has continued to exceed expectations in terms of usage. But why pick on transit?

Do people ask if the billion dollars to be spent on the proposed Mississippi River Bridge will pay for itself? No. What about the hundreds of millions already allocated for the rebuilding of I-64/Hwy 40 in the next few years — will that “pay for itself?” I think not. These are all just taken at face value as something we must do.

Why the public continues to apply a different standard to public transportation than to the subsidizing of private auto transportation I’ll never understand. Is it the love of the car? Is it a generational thing?

Fuel taxes don’t pay for all our road building and repairs and we keep building more and more. So much more we are going to struggle even more to maintain our sprawling region. This is a formula for disaster. I say we abolish all fuel taxes and other means of funding road projects. Then we add up the cost of building & maintaining roads on a state by state basis. As you register your vehicle your mileage is recorded and you pay your share based on miles driven. The more miles you drive the more you pay. If you have a car but drive it rarely you pay proportionately less.

Once people start paying on a per mile basis you’ll see a major drop in driving. Car pooling will increase. Transit ridership would rise along with calls for more service. Sprawl would virtually stop. If only…

The best long term investment in public funds is not rebuilding I-64 or building a massive bridge. No, the best investment we can make is to connect more of our region through good public mass transit.

– Steve

 

Public Input Sought On ‘Metro South’ MetroLink Extension Impact Statement

December 7, 2005 Events/Meetings, Public Transit, St. Louis County 7 Comments

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

 

CBD Traffic Study Presentation Available Online

December 7, 2005 Downtown, Parking, Politics/Policy, Transportation Comments Off on CBD Traffic Study Presentation Available Online

Yesterday’s CBD Traffic Study presentation is now available online (2.8mb PDF). The team is asking for feedback this week as they will be meeting next week to make final recommendations.

My thoughts from the meeting can be found here.

– Steve

 

‘Work Zone’ Speeding Ticket Dismissed

December 6, 2005 South City, Transportation 2 Comments

This afternoon was my court date for the speeding ticket I received on November 4th in an unmarked ‘work zone’ (see post). In short, I got a ticket for doing 56 mph in a 45 mph work zone on I-55 which is normally 60 mph. When I got to the judge I didn’t have to say anything:

“I’m dismissing the ticket. I’ve got 35 pictures here from others showing the work zone was not marked.”

Cool, I thought. I was glad that I didn’t just pay the fine and I’m also glad I didn’t pay an attorney to plead the case to some lesser charge. But then I thought about all the people, like myself, that were inconvenienced as well as the burden to the city courts. I think the contractor that was hired by MoDot to resurface this portion of I-55 should pay a fine to the city to cover these costs.

Since worker safety is the ultimate goal of having work zone laws, I think this situation needs to be investigated to determine why this particular work zone (which is still ongoing) is not properly marked as such. Laws requiring contractors to post reduced speed limits are either missing or lax or it could be that MoDot just doesn’t enforce the rules. If this contractor didn’t follow the rules then they should pay some fines to a fund to help the families of road workers killed or injured on duty.

– Steve

 

Initial Thoughts on CBD Traffic Study

December 6, 2005 Downtown, Events/Meetings, Parking, Politics/Policy, Transportation 9 Comments

I attended the presentation today on the downtown traffic study. Here are my initial thoughts:

  • Boundary for study should have included Cole on the North rather than Lucas. Other boundaries includes Memorial on the East, Spruce on the South, and Tucker on the West.
  • Doug Shatto, President of the consulting firm Crawford, Bunte, Brammeier did an excellent job of explaining the tradeoffs between various methods such as one-way vs. two-way streets. I felt he understands what it takes to create a pedestrian & retail-friendly environment. What I didn’t get was a sense that he will fight for that. Instead I think he’ll do whatever the city tells him.
  • The steering committee is still undecided on many aspects of the project and they are looking for feedback before making a final decision most likely next week. I will review some of the things up for debate and a few others that should be.
  • Washington Avenue East of Tucker. While they say that on-street parking has not been ruled out I’m suspicious. They hinted at allowing parking except during peak hours. I pointed out after the meeting to Doug Shatto how KitchenK will not use their sidewalk cafe license until they have a row of parked cars to make sidewalk dining more hospitable to their patrons. I also pointed out that Copia is allowed to take a traffic lane for valet parking. If we can take a lane for a valet we can certainly take the balance of the lane for parking as the flow is already restricted. I still want to see on-street parking all the way from Tucker to at least Broadway.

    I asked at the end of the meeting about Cole street being abel to take some of the traffic off Washington Avenue. Shatto did indicate that if Washington Avenue was restricted from four lanes to two lanes through drivers would likely alter their route and use the nearly vacant Cole. Another factor that may reduce some traffic on Washington Avenue is people going around the block due to one-way streets. They are recommending changing 8th & 11th from one-way to two-way (more later).

  • Streets they deemed “appropriate” to change from one-way to two-way were 8th, 11th (North of Market only), and Walnut (from Tucker to either to 4th or Broadway).
  • Streets they deemed “inappropriate” to change from one-way to two-way were 9th, 10th and Pine.
  • Streets they deemed “inappropriate but viable” to change from one-way to two-way were 6th, 7th, and Locust.
  • One-way streets not even mentioned were Broadway or Chestnut.
  • The immediate plan (2006) is to change the controllers for the existing signals. This will allow them greater flexibility in controlling the signals via computer. This might include changing the timing for game days or setting the signals to flash after a certain time. I think changing the timing makes sense as this could help with special events. I’m not sure how I feel about the flashing signals after hours. Does this say we have so little going on that we don’t need normal timing? Or does it say that we change over to a pedestrian environment after hours?
  • They mentioned trying to change Missouri law to allow a left turn on red on one-way streets. Apparently this is allowed in 16 or so states but not Missouri. It is commonplace downtown to see drivers do this.
  • I think they did an excellent job of evaluating pedestrian concerns and will do a good job upgrading the system and reducing conflicts. One of the changes it to go to a simple two-phase system where pedestrians are permitted to cross with the flow of traffic. Currently some intersections are considered scrambled where pedestrians can cross any direction while cars wait. While this sounds good that also means that they are generally not allowed to cross with the flow. It seems more natural to have the simpler system.
  • Conversion of streets to two-way is a long term goal and may take a number of years, mostly due to lack of funding.
  • One part of the plan was looking at a 2004 Streetscape plan for downtown. This called for a wider median on Tucker. This would reduce the total number of lanes two three in each direction — including parking lanes. The drawings shown did not include parking although on-street parking could be included. While I agree that Tucker is way too wide I think not having on-street parking at times is a mistake.
  • The proposed Mississippi River bridge was considered as part of the plan but the future MetroLink loop through downtown was not considered. Hmmmm.
  • As Shutte said in the presentation different users have conflicting demands. The CEO wants his/her employees getting to/from work quickly while the retailer wants a great environment for customers to stroll and spend. It is a trade off and we must “strike a balance.” For the last 50 years or so the balance has been decidedly off balance with the emphasis toward moving cars quickly, people be damned. My first reaction is that we need to tilt the scale dramatically the other way and screw traffic flow as retribution for the last 50 years. But that will just cause other problems that will need to be solved in time. Currently the scale is out of balance big time in favor of cars and the proposed changes bring it much closer to the middle ground they just don’t go quite far enough to create a true balance. Just a little more guys!

    • – Steve

     

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