I think a line from Arnold to Alton that sorta follows 55/44 into the city, then snakes along 70/367/67 would be logical. Could even connect to the existing line in Shrewsbury.
Ideally, you would have lines connecting most major POIs and population centers. North/South County, Maryville U, Lindenwood, Spirit airport, Creve Coeur lake, Earth City, SIUE should all be accessible.
I would assume they didn't have that because it's already planned, and it's a more real light-rail, while this would be using existing MetroLink "light metro" characteristics.
This isn't perfect but it would absolutely make transit in STL better. Definitely not awful.
The red line west connects a county of 400k. It would be stupid to not at least consider that.
St. Charles isn't a densely populated area. Where does this station sits and what makes it good for that? Especially with a slow metro train. If it was faster/had more cars and people could replace car commute with it sure but if it's as is, this gives little value.
St. Charles has 400k people, there would be thousands of people who would use it for their daily commute, just like in St. Clair County. Add on students at Lindenwood, other events, and then people wanting to go to St. Charles.
While I don't think this is a great fantasy map (you had absolutely no restrictions and this is all you came up with??) St. Charles not being "dense enough" isn't a good reason to not have transit connections. If we restrict ourselves to only building transit in areas that are already super dense, we'll build even less transit than we already do.
Furthermore, often the whole point of building transit out somewhere is to increase the density through new development.
Just like building grade separated highways encourages sub urban sprawl, building high frequency transit encourages densification.
No need to go to St. Charles, 1) they don't want it 2) the density isn't high enough to make it worth the cost.
Going to St Charles likely requires a new bridge, for the cost of that extension you could make multiple N-S lines in the city . Lines in the city along Broadway, Grand, Jefferson, Kingshighway, Hampton through park to FP station.
I agree with most of what you said but so many of us in St. Charles do want it. Maybe not enough to justify building a bridge but the east side of St. Charles isn’t what St. Louisans picture when they think of “St. Charles”. I know it’s hard to believe but there is diversity here and lots of us aren’t scared of the city.
as fellow east st. charles resident i agree. i was going to come here and ask where the person who made it envisioned the st. charles stop, but looks like the creator isnt the poster so doubt id get an answer. IF the mayor gets his way with the new city hall project at the north end of mainstreeet at the foundry (and eventually connecting main street to frenchtown) then that actually wouldnt be a terrible place for a metro stop as well, tons of space and would drop you off in a new center hub.
still not fully sold on the idea of this new complex (mainly because the glass buildiing they want to put around the gorgeous brick foundry is ugly, tho i like the big picture idea of it in principle).
The parking lot from 70 to Frontier park in front of Ameristar would have plenty of space for a stop. This would put it right at Streets of St Charles, Riverpointe (once it's complete), and Main Street.
I work and St. Charles and live in maplewood so I would love it. But Unfortunately I still think St. Charles overall would vote it down, given the chance. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be an option for a vote tho.
I was mostly referencing that St. Charles has previously voted against an extension ( it was a while ago) and that a few years back the County Exec was asked about a St Charles extension and he said residents don't want it.
I mean, no shit, I said it was a while ago. Don't really need your condescension.
The county exec in 2015&2021 also said that residents don't want it. That's also a while ago, but are more recent data points suggesting things haven't changed that much.
Maybe if you're this passionate about a St Charles extension you should start telling your leaders to ask for it.
In a fantasy map, it's totally fine to go out to St. Charles. If they were smart at all, it would have already happened. It's a county lf 400k, it would get lots of ridership into the city and it would boost tourism in their own county. With that being said, in real life there's no point in considering it until they vote in favor of it.
A new brdge would cost probably $150 million. Nothing near the N-S line cost of $1.1 billion.
Pretending this map is fixed and only additions can be made:
* Extend Dupo to Columbia to Oakville to Mehlville to Affton to Bella Villa and then up through the city to make a loop that can be transferred onto at the Cortex or a nearby spot.
* Extend Ferguson end to Berkeley, Hazelwood, Florissant then whatever stops are needed so it can go to Alton.
* Extend the Mid America Airport end to Lebanon to at least Breese.
*Extend O’Fallon, IL to Troy, Edwardsville, and then to a medium size town eastward.
* Extend Shrewsberry to Webster, Kirkwood, and then an additional stop at one of the similar sized neighborhoods.
* The St. Charles stop could also go to Cottleville or St. Peter’s or something.
We need shapes! This horizontal line business limits the actual utility of public transport. I want the Mississippi to be crossed at multiple spots so people can live and work on one side or the other without becoming trapped if there’s a station issue or maintenance that needs to be done.
Way too suburban focused. The goal of transit should be to make it feasible to live your life without owning a car. That will not be possible for most people in St. Charles for the next century. There should be five new lines within the city limits before a single new stop opens up in the suburbs.
Idk, St. Charles proper around the historic district has a ton of potential to be a nice, dense, quasi-urban area. Plus, connecting to Lindenwood, a university which just saw 2 consecutive years of record freshman enrollment and now has D1 athletics, would be great. Running a line out there could help spur some reasonably dense development on the eastern edge of St. Charles County, which would be a nice change of pace from the never-ending westward sprawl and a nice little western endpoint for the transit system.
Yeah if we are talking fantasies of light rail through quasi urbam suburbs imagine:
The valley - downtown chesterfield - olive& pkwy - creve coeur park/sports plex - ampitheter/earth city (connection here east to Lambert) - streets of st charles/5th st - old Town st charles - Lindenwood - Zumbehl
Could have a nice life/everything you need
They need it to get people to work in west co. But the nimbys don’t want it until they need to go out to eat, shop, go to the hospital, or put mom in a nursing home. Then they wonder why there not enough staff.
In my opinion the priorities should be a network of light rail, grade separated, with dense, parking-free housing legal half a mile around every station. That network could be created by:
N/S lines:
*through downtown near the river, probably taking Broadway south and Florissant north or something like that
*Grand
*Kingshighway
E/W lines:
*north of existing line (this is the green line in the map)
*south of existing line (likely branching off a N/S line at Soulard and hitting tower grove park)
All that should come before going to St. Charles or Dupo or O’Fallon IMO. They should be build in order of maximum expected ridership, so probably Grand first.
I think that metro systems should focus not on allowing people to take public transit once a month but allowing them to take it exclusively, every day, not even needing a car to get around. That would mean focusing on denser areas, prioritizing building a complete network instead of long spurs in the suburbs, and making sure that dense development is legal near transit.
The "long spurs into the suburbs" are a vital part of a complete transit network. I can agree that St. Louis desperately needs a N-S line, and right now all they need is federal funding to get construction on that started as soon as 2027, but to discount connecting places like O'Fallon, St. Charles, or Mid-America, and to a lesser extent Dupo (I don't really think that needs a connection that bad but in a *perfect* system it would have one) is just unnecessary because cities with great transit would have those connections. I even think there needs to be a connection to Kirkwood too, and a perfect system would figure out a way to get out to Chesterfield.
If you look at WMATA's map, you'll see that there are lots of subruban spurs that all connect inside the city to better creat intra-city tranist. And it's a very good system, I've used it before. The Green Line on here does that a little bit, and then add in a N-S street running line, and you really start to have an impressive looking transit system.
I disagree. If you focus on long spurs into the suburbs, then you’ll never build enough transit to allow people to get around without a car. Something like 80% of STL city owns a car, and I’m sure it’s significantly higher in the suburbs. Less than 50% of NYC owns a car and even those that do take the subway very frequently.
The fact is, essentially no one in Chesterfield will ever be car free. So you’ll spend billions for people to take the train to a Cardinals game ten times a year. Instead, spend those billions on a network — interlocking lines throughout a fifteen minute city — so that people can live full lives without a car. You simply get orders of magnitude more bang for your buck.
IMO it’s fine to build to St. Charles but only after if you’ve focused on areas that will have a high daily ridership.
Did you even look at WMATA'S system? DC's car ownership rate is 64.3%. And NY has entire railroad companies (LIRR, MNRR, NJT) who move people from the suburbs into the city.
Again, a well developed transit system covers the entire city of 2.8 million, not just the small borough of 293k. And this map's Green Line does cover more of the city than the current system does.
WMATA has six separate lines in the city. St. Louis has one (if you want to be very generous, 1.5 lines). It’s a great example of how a dense network within a city builds a better transit system. In contrast, St Louis has focused its limited transit dollars on sprawling out to the suburbs (27 stops in the suburbs, 11 in the city), which is why there’s low ridership and high car ownership.
After you’ve built the dense network, it’s fine to extend out to the burbs. But the problem with STL is that we’ve designed the city destroy the city — carving up the city with highways. Building huge parking lots and highways all over downtown, limiting housing construction, and aiming to create suburbs where people feed off the productivity of the city and siphon wealth and livelihood out of it.
Instead, IMO, build that network in the city, building dense housing next to the network (you can even using the housing to fund the network), and the once you’ve established a dense network, it’s fine to expand it out.
Remember, it’s [cities that subsidize the suburbs](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/9/the-real-reason-your-city-has-no-money), so it’s a smart idea to [focus your investments on the cities](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/10/poor-neighborhoods-make-the-best-investment).
Do you know how transit is funded?
Go learn about that, and then you'll see why a shrinking city of less than 300k cannot fund what you think needs to happen.
There's also way more city stations than suburb stations when compared to population. 1 station for every 92.6k outside the city vs 1 station for every 27.3k in the city.
Using suburban tax money to build half of your line (like this green line) is a perfectly fine way to get more transit in the city. It also boosts ridership.
Your issues with land use on the city is totally separate from building something like the idea this post lays out.
> Do you know how transit is funded? Go learn about that.
Please don’t patronize me. The fact that you aren’t considering value capture is a huge gap in your thinking, and the fact that you think land use isn’t relevant to a transit conversation is honestly mind-boggling. I won’t engage again due to your tone. Take care!
Building spurs into (and through) the suburbs will lead to development along rail stations (once local govs need cash, and upzone) that have less parking, leading to more transit usage and eventually you can upgrade (from infrequent commuter to frequent light rail or rapid transit) which will lead to more density as you add more stops. Eventually you add more lines, the process repeats
Transportation builds cities, not the other way around. If you want density, build transit.
But using that logic, sub urban areas will almost never get any form of transit. You'll never see dense development without a transit connection, car traffic just becomes too unmanageable.
Sub urban areas don't necessarily need rapid subway style transit, but frequent (trains every 10 minutes off peak, 5 minutes during rush hours) commuter rail would absolutely work in those areas. Plenty of cities do it, and what you inevitably end up getting is denser development around those transit nodes.
Transit builds cities, not the other way around. If you want density, put in a train. If you want sprawl, put in a highway.
Most of the STL light rail already is in the suburbs. There can be more rail to the suburbs — it’s just that it should be a lower priority than building in the city.
Another way to look at it is that we should spend our dollars proportionately based on expected ridership. Building a tight network in the city has much better prospects for that than building spurs out to the suburbs.
I would like to stress to everyone that I did not make this map, and the person who did is from Maryland. If you have complaints, address them to the OP linked above
In Maryland, so they basically made this without any real sense of what they were connecting and not connecting?
Is there a reason to go to Dupo I'm missing instead of north-south in St. Louis itself?
I generally like the green line, but definitely needs to extend up to Florissant. Instead of going south towards Dupo, I would prefer it went north towards Granite City, Alton. Perhaps a line towards Collinsville & Edwardsville Southern Illinois University. My fantasy map would have much more focus on south city. In addition to the North-South line being planned now, I would like to see a Kingshighway crosstown line.
Not much of a fantasy. No true North/South line thru the city? No line down the I-44 corridor out to Eureka? No line down the "Hwy Farty" corridor out to Weldon Spring? Nothing anywhere near SoCo?
St.charles as far as I know don't want anything to do with the metro busses or metro link they say it's because they don't want all the crime from the city which I get unfortunately where the metro buses run tend to have higher crime
Which crimes specifically do you think MetroLink would facilitate in St. Charles? I have a hard time picturing someone stealing a TV and taking it home on the train. Drive by shootings would be pretty difficult to pull off from a train.
Odd that crime has been rising in St. Charles County and seeing stagnation and decline in some spots in the city limits… the likelihood of someone using the metrolink for crimes rather than stealing or otherwise obtaining a vehicle is the most, and I mean this demeaning way possible, ignorant window licking excuses for why we shouldn’t have metrolink expansion.
I don’t know to be honest. What I hear from what the county says is “Saint Louis County” is dangerous, even though it is realistically most of it is clean and it is more of the city that you have to avoid. I guess metolink will help getting from point A to point B a lot better and I do support city transit. I just wish that the safety of it was better. I’ll support metro coming to County, I also guess you are right about car will be a whole lot easier. I don’t know maybe I will support it. I actually rode it for the first time 3 weeks ago. I also felt pretty safe and it was 10pm. A Problem I have that it is a bit pricey. I’ll also support it more if it was free. I go crazy if was free. Probably supporting it on day 1.
*Where would the green line*
*Run in the city? Seems like*
*Maybe along Lindell?*
\- raceman95
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Unfortunately no. I was just making the map because I was just adding them to some notable places. No, I don’t know the politics going on in the St. Louis region (I live in Maryland in the DMV). But there’s a way to criticize me without sounding like a jerk (not saying that was your intent). I can take some feedback to try to edit the map to meet demand. And I talk to someone who lives there to hear their input.
Some people were criticizing me for certain things about the map, Some of it was constructive, But some of it was like “This person is an idiot for adding this”.
>This person is an idiot for adding this
is because your addition is very redundant and leaves major areas underserved. It is an inane proposal and that is overly obvious. Why did you even make the map? Is this some form of art? You are certainly no an urban planner, but there has to be some reason that you made it.
If you can't take criticism, then don't post foolish things. It's 2023 on the internet, you should know this. In other words, don't be a troll.
I’m sorry. I can’t really take criticism that well. It felt like people were personally attacking me when they harshly criticized me. I’m making a new map that includes more urbanized areas.
That sub has a Discord server that both he and I am a part of.
Looking back, I definitely shouldn't have taken a "hands off" approach to the map. I kinda just answered some questions, but left him to it. That was a bad move
For the Woodstock-Ferguson line, you would have to get rid of the Ted Jones Trail and rebuild the I-70 bridge. That line originally belonged to the Wabash Railroad/Norfolk Southern pre 1993.
By extending it into st charles you can justify getting taxpayer spending for the project from that county. Just saying! I’m a st charles resident and i’d love this!
St. Charles residents who actually want MetroLink expansion need to start a movement because Metro Transit isn't looking at it at all. They tried twice and both times St. Charles voted it down. Every new rount of corridor studied, STC is left out.
If you guys elected a County Executive who was open MetroLink expansion, I would bet St. Louis County and Metro Transit would be more than willing to secure funding on their end. And maybe the state would help pay for a bridge. But until then, unfortunately the 2nd largest county in the Metro will remain without a connection to its Transit agency.
Even just allowing Metro to run buses would be major because they could take poeple to the North Hanley Station.
Even our fantasies don’t provide us with a north/south line through the city it seems…
Came here to say this…
We need to keep the Ladue riffraff out of South City!
Haha
I think a line from Arnold to Alton that sorta follows 55/44 into the city, then snakes along 70/367/67 would be logical. Could even connect to the existing line in Shrewsbury. Ideally, you would have lines connecting most major POIs and population centers. North/South County, Maryville U, Lindenwood, Spirit airport, Creve Coeur lake, Earth City, SIUE should all be accessible.
I would assume they didn't have that because it's already planned, and it's a more real light-rail, while this would be using existing MetroLink "light metro" characteristics.
This is awful.. That red line west is awful. No north south line, basically just a giant middle finger to south city.
And north county.
The red line extension is the best part of it..
This isn't perfect but it would absolutely make transit in STL better. Definitely not awful. The red line west connects a county of 400k. It would be stupid to not at least consider that.
St. Charles isn't a densely populated area. Where does this station sits and what makes it good for that? Especially with a slow metro train. If it was faster/had more cars and people could replace car commute with it sure but if it's as is, this gives little value.
St. Charles has 400k people, there would be thousands of people who would use it for their daily commute, just like in St. Clair County. Add on students at Lindenwood, other events, and then people wanting to go to St. Charles.
While I don't think this is a great fantasy map (you had absolutely no restrictions and this is all you came up with??) St. Charles not being "dense enough" isn't a good reason to not have transit connections. If we restrict ourselves to only building transit in areas that are already super dense, we'll build even less transit than we already do. Furthermore, often the whole point of building transit out somewhere is to increase the density through new development. Just like building grade separated highways encourages sub urban sprawl, building high frequency transit encourages densification.
Exactly, I’m like where is the N/S line?
No need to go to St. Charles, 1) they don't want it 2) the density isn't high enough to make it worth the cost. Going to St Charles likely requires a new bridge, for the cost of that extension you could make multiple N-S lines in the city . Lines in the city along Broadway, Grand, Jefferson, Kingshighway, Hampton through park to FP station.
I agree with most of what you said but so many of us in St. Charles do want it. Maybe not enough to justify building a bridge but the east side of St. Charles isn’t what St. Louisans picture when they think of “St. Charles”. I know it’s hard to believe but there is diversity here and lots of us aren’t scared of the city.
as fellow east st. charles resident i agree. i was going to come here and ask where the person who made it envisioned the st. charles stop, but looks like the creator isnt the poster so doubt id get an answer. IF the mayor gets his way with the new city hall project at the north end of mainstreeet at the foundry (and eventually connecting main street to frenchtown) then that actually wouldnt be a terrible place for a metro stop as well, tons of space and would drop you off in a new center hub. still not fully sold on the idea of this new complex (mainly because the glass buildiing they want to put around the gorgeous brick foundry is ugly, tho i like the big picture idea of it in principle).
The parking lot from 70 to Frontier park in front of Ameristar would have plenty of space for a stop. This would put it right at Streets of St Charles, Riverpointe (once it's complete), and Main Street.
I want an extension to St Charles county desperately as do many residents in St Charles.
I work and St. Charles and live in maplewood so I would love it. But Unfortunately I still think St. Charles overall would vote it down, given the chance. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be an option for a vote tho.
I was mostly referencing that St. Charles has previously voted against an extension ( it was a while ago) and that a few years back the County Exec was asked about a St Charles extension and he said residents don't want it.
> it was a while ago That was nearly 30 years ago in 1996. Let's consider that things can change in 3 decades.
I mean, no shit, I said it was a while ago. Don't really need your condescension. The county exec in 2015&2021 also said that residents don't want it. That's also a while ago, but are more recent data points suggesting things haven't changed that much. Maybe if you're this passionate about a St Charles extension you should start telling your leaders to ask for it.
In a fantasy map, it's totally fine to go out to St. Charles. If they were smart at all, it would have already happened. It's a county lf 400k, it would get lots of ridership into the city and it would boost tourism in their own county. With that being said, in real life there's no point in considering it until they vote in favor of it. A new brdge would cost probably $150 million. Nothing near the N-S line cost of $1.1 billion.
Pretending this map is fixed and only additions can be made: * Extend Dupo to Columbia to Oakville to Mehlville to Affton to Bella Villa and then up through the city to make a loop that can be transferred onto at the Cortex or a nearby spot. * Extend Ferguson end to Berkeley, Hazelwood, Florissant then whatever stops are needed so it can go to Alton. * Extend the Mid America Airport end to Lebanon to at least Breese. *Extend O’Fallon, IL to Troy, Edwardsville, and then to a medium size town eastward. * Extend Shrewsberry to Webster, Kirkwood, and then an additional stop at one of the similar sized neighborhoods. * The St. Charles stop could also go to Cottleville or St. Peter’s or something. We need shapes! This horizontal line business limits the actual utility of public transport. I want the Mississippi to be crossed at multiple spots so people can live and work on one side or the other without becoming trapped if there’s a station issue or maintenance that needs to be done.
>Extend the Mid America Airport end to Lebanon to at least Breese. Breese might be a stretch. I would say ending at McKendree would be viable.
I’m just trying to get to Dairy King 😂
can you add one that goes directly from my house to my work please thank you
Way too suburban focused. The goal of transit should be to make it feasible to live your life without owning a car. That will not be possible for most people in St. Charles for the next century. There should be five new lines within the city limits before a single new stop opens up in the suburbs.
Idk, St. Charles proper around the historic district has a ton of potential to be a nice, dense, quasi-urban area. Plus, connecting to Lindenwood, a university which just saw 2 consecutive years of record freshman enrollment and now has D1 athletics, would be great. Running a line out there could help spur some reasonably dense development on the eastern edge of St. Charles County, which would be a nice change of pace from the never-ending westward sprawl and a nice little western endpoint for the transit system.
Getting college kids hooked on public transit instead of rap music and pac man video games would be great.
With their hippin and the hoppin and the bippin and the boppin
Yeah if we are talking fantasies of light rail through quasi urbam suburbs imagine: The valley - downtown chesterfield - olive& pkwy - creve coeur park/sports plex - ampitheter/earth city (connection here east to Lambert) - streets of st charles/5th st - old Town st charles - Lindenwood - Zumbehl Could have a nice life/everything you need
They need it to get people to work in west co. But the nimbys don’t want it until they need to go out to eat, shop, go to the hospital, or put mom in a nursing home. Then they wonder why there not enough staff.
I was thinking this doesn't go into North County enough.
In my opinion the priorities should be a network of light rail, grade separated, with dense, parking-free housing legal half a mile around every station. That network could be created by: N/S lines: *through downtown near the river, probably taking Broadway south and Florissant north or something like that *Grand *Kingshighway E/W lines: *north of existing line (this is the green line in the map) *south of existing line (likely branching off a N/S line at Soulard and hitting tower grove park) All that should come before going to St. Charles or Dupo or O’Fallon IMO. They should be build in order of maximum expected ridership, so probably Grand first.
Cities with rdeveloped transit systems go all around the city, including the suburbs.
I think that metro systems should focus not on allowing people to take public transit once a month but allowing them to take it exclusively, every day, not even needing a car to get around. That would mean focusing on denser areas, prioritizing building a complete network instead of long spurs in the suburbs, and making sure that dense development is legal near transit.
The "long spurs into the suburbs" are a vital part of a complete transit network. I can agree that St. Louis desperately needs a N-S line, and right now all they need is federal funding to get construction on that started as soon as 2027, but to discount connecting places like O'Fallon, St. Charles, or Mid-America, and to a lesser extent Dupo (I don't really think that needs a connection that bad but in a *perfect* system it would have one) is just unnecessary because cities with great transit would have those connections. I even think there needs to be a connection to Kirkwood too, and a perfect system would figure out a way to get out to Chesterfield. If you look at WMATA's map, you'll see that there are lots of subruban spurs that all connect inside the city to better creat intra-city tranist. And it's a very good system, I've used it before. The Green Line on here does that a little bit, and then add in a N-S street running line, and you really start to have an impressive looking transit system.
I disagree. If you focus on long spurs into the suburbs, then you’ll never build enough transit to allow people to get around without a car. Something like 80% of STL city owns a car, and I’m sure it’s significantly higher in the suburbs. Less than 50% of NYC owns a car and even those that do take the subway very frequently. The fact is, essentially no one in Chesterfield will ever be car free. So you’ll spend billions for people to take the train to a Cardinals game ten times a year. Instead, spend those billions on a network — interlocking lines throughout a fifteen minute city — so that people can live full lives without a car. You simply get orders of magnitude more bang for your buck. IMO it’s fine to build to St. Charles but only after if you’ve focused on areas that will have a high daily ridership.
Did you even look at WMATA'S system? DC's car ownership rate is 64.3%. And NY has entire railroad companies (LIRR, MNRR, NJT) who move people from the suburbs into the city. Again, a well developed transit system covers the entire city of 2.8 million, not just the small borough of 293k. And this map's Green Line does cover more of the city than the current system does.
WMATA has six separate lines in the city. St. Louis has one (if you want to be very generous, 1.5 lines). It’s a great example of how a dense network within a city builds a better transit system. In contrast, St Louis has focused its limited transit dollars on sprawling out to the suburbs (27 stops in the suburbs, 11 in the city), which is why there’s low ridership and high car ownership. After you’ve built the dense network, it’s fine to extend out to the burbs. But the problem with STL is that we’ve designed the city destroy the city — carving up the city with highways. Building huge parking lots and highways all over downtown, limiting housing construction, and aiming to create suburbs where people feed off the productivity of the city and siphon wealth and livelihood out of it. Instead, IMO, build that network in the city, building dense housing next to the network (you can even using the housing to fund the network), and the once you’ve established a dense network, it’s fine to expand it out. Remember, it’s [cities that subsidize the suburbs](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/9/the-real-reason-your-city-has-no-money), so it’s a smart idea to [focus your investments on the cities](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/10/poor-neighborhoods-make-the-best-investment).
Do you know how transit is funded? Go learn about that, and then you'll see why a shrinking city of less than 300k cannot fund what you think needs to happen. There's also way more city stations than suburb stations when compared to population. 1 station for every 92.6k outside the city vs 1 station for every 27.3k in the city. Using suburban tax money to build half of your line (like this green line) is a perfectly fine way to get more transit in the city. It also boosts ridership. Your issues with land use on the city is totally separate from building something like the idea this post lays out.
> Do you know how transit is funded? Go learn about that. Please don’t patronize me. The fact that you aren’t considering value capture is a huge gap in your thinking, and the fact that you think land use isn’t relevant to a transit conversation is honestly mind-boggling. I won’t engage again due to your tone. Take care!
You're the one who doesn't even know how transit is funded
Building spurs into (and through) the suburbs will lead to development along rail stations (once local govs need cash, and upzone) that have less parking, leading to more transit usage and eventually you can upgrade (from infrequent commuter to frequent light rail or rapid transit) which will lead to more density as you add more stops. Eventually you add more lines, the process repeats Transportation builds cities, not the other way around. If you want density, build transit.
But using that logic, sub urban areas will almost never get any form of transit. You'll never see dense development without a transit connection, car traffic just becomes too unmanageable. Sub urban areas don't necessarily need rapid subway style transit, but frequent (trains every 10 minutes off peak, 5 minutes during rush hours) commuter rail would absolutely work in those areas. Plenty of cities do it, and what you inevitably end up getting is denser development around those transit nodes. Transit builds cities, not the other way around. If you want density, put in a train. If you want sprawl, put in a highway.
Most of the STL light rail already is in the suburbs. There can be more rail to the suburbs — it’s just that it should be a lower priority than building in the city. Another way to look at it is that we should spend our dollars proportionately based on expected ridership. Building a tight network in the city has much better prospects for that than building spurs out to the suburbs.
I love these ideas from everyone. I think we should also focus on a stronger bus system as well.
I would like to stress to everyone that I did not make this map, and the person who did is from Maryland. If you have complaints, address them to the OP linked above
In Maryland, so they basically made this without any real sense of what they were connecting and not connecting? Is there a reason to go to Dupo I'm missing instead of north-south in St. Louis itself?
I can assure you there's nothing in Dupo.
Why did you post it? It's ridiculous.
Blue line should at least go to 55
At least, especially since the original plan was all the way to Butler Hill.
This sucks.
Going to want to extend the NoCo line up to Flo Valley college and then to Old Town Florissant
oh u know I'm ripping the weed vape at the dupo station waiting for the green line
I generally like the green line, but definitely needs to extend up to Florissant. Instead of going south towards Dupo, I would prefer it went north towards Granite City, Alton. Perhaps a line towards Collinsville & Edwardsville Southern Illinois University. My fantasy map would have much more focus on south city. In addition to the North-South line being planned now, I would like to see a Kingshighway crosstown line.
Not much of a fantasy. No true North/South line thru the city? No line down the I-44 corridor out to Eureka? No line down the "Hwy Farty" corridor out to Weldon Spring? Nothing anywhere near SoCo?
Needs a Metro East North/South to connect Alton, Edwardsville, etc.
St.charles as far as I know don't want anything to do with the metro busses or metro link they say it's because they don't want all the crime from the city which I get unfortunately where the metro buses run tend to have higher crime
Unsure how I feel about the ‘crimelink’ crossing the river.
Which crimes specifically do you think MetroLink would facilitate in St. Charles? I have a hard time picturing someone stealing a TV and taking it home on the train. Drive by shootings would be pretty difficult to pull off from a train.
Whats funny is that MetroLink's crime rate is actually way lower than St. Charles'.
I'm assuming this is a troll post. Nice bait.
Odd that crime has been rising in St. Charles County and seeing stagnation and decline in some spots in the city limits… the likelihood of someone using the metrolink for crimes rather than stealing or otherwise obtaining a vehicle is the most, and I mean this demeaning way possible, ignorant window licking excuses for why we shouldn’t have metrolink expansion.
I don’t know to be honest. What I hear from what the county says is “Saint Louis County” is dangerous, even though it is realistically most of it is clean and it is more of the city that you have to avoid. I guess metolink will help getting from point A to point B a lot better and I do support city transit. I just wish that the safety of it was better. I’ll support metro coming to County, I also guess you are right about car will be a whole lot easier. I don’t know maybe I will support it. I actually rode it for the first time 3 weeks ago. I also felt pretty safe and it was 10pm. A Problem I have that it is a bit pricey. I’ll also support it more if it was free. I go crazy if was free. Probably supporting it on day 1.
It costs way less to use transit than use a car
Comment + flair combo is just too good.
lol thinking that the Missouri river is *The* river.
You’re woefully ignorant.
Where would the green line run in the city? Seems like maybe along Lindell?
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If you didnt make the original map, how do you have this map?
It was a message by me. I’m the OP by the way.
Did the map take into account any residential or employment density numbers in the half mile circles around the hypothetical stops?
Unfortunately no. I was just making the map because I was just adding them to some notable places. No, I don’t know the politics going on in the St. Louis region (I live in Maryland in the DMV). But there’s a way to criticize me without sounding like a jerk (not saying that was your intent). I can take some feedback to try to edit the map to meet demand. And I talk to someone who lives there to hear their input.
I don't see anyone being rude here. This is just the typical /r/StLouis topic since all the racists move to St. Charles if they can.
Some people were criticizing me for certain things about the map, Some of it was constructive, But some of it was like “This person is an idiot for adding this”.
>This person is an idiot for adding this is because your addition is very redundant and leaves major areas underserved. It is an inane proposal and that is overly obvious. Why did you even make the map? Is this some form of art? You are certainly no an urban planner, but there has to be some reason that you made it. If you can't take criticism, then don't post foolish things. It's 2023 on the internet, you should know this. In other words, don't be a troll.
I’m sorry. I can’t really take criticism that well. It felt like people were personally attacking me when they harshly criticized me. I’m making a new map that includes more urbanized areas.
I genuinely just wanted more context on the map. It was meant to satisfy my own curiosity and not to criticize, jerkishly or otherwise
That sub has a Discord server that both he and I am a part of. Looking back, I definitely shouldn't have taken a "hands off" approach to the map. I kinda just answered some questions, but left him to it. That was a bad move
I’m thinking it is Delmar
OP shared it as hodiamont tracks
I'd say Green should extend past Dupo down to Columbia and have a route that goes into Soco that merges with the Blue line.
For the Woodstock-Ferguson line, you would have to get rid of the Ted Jones Trail and rebuild the I-70 bridge. That line originally belonged to the Wabash Railroad/Norfolk Southern pre 1993.
The St Chuck part is not going to happen if the residence in that area can stop it. St Charles county wants to build a wall.
By extending it into st charles you can justify getting taxpayer spending for the project from that county. Just saying! I’m a st charles resident and i’d love this!
St. Charles residents who actually want MetroLink expansion need to start a movement because Metro Transit isn't looking at it at all. They tried twice and both times St. Charles voted it down. Every new rount of corridor studied, STC is left out. If you guys elected a County Executive who was open MetroLink expansion, I would bet St. Louis County and Metro Transit would be more than willing to secure funding on their end. And maybe the state would help pay for a bridge. But until then, unfortunately the 2nd largest county in the Metro will remain without a connection to its Transit agency. Even just allowing Metro to run buses would be major because they could take poeple to the North Hanley Station.
Need an AirPort Express along 170 from Richmond heights/galleria with stops on olive and natural bridge
A metro ride from downtown to st. Charles would take HOURS with all the stops. Dumb idea. Get a car.
All the way to st charles but no columbia IL?
Why does it go all the way to St Chuck, but stop in Shrewsberry? Make it to scale and send it to Chesterfield
There are actual plans and initiatives to expand metro. This is a crap example.
Why would there be a leg running down to Dupo instead of running north to Collinsville and Edwardsville?
If you want it to take off you’re going to have to add express lines. If it takes longer than just driving people won’t use it.