full image - Repost: What St. Louis's 50 year Transit Plan should look like (from Reddit.com, What St. Louis's 50 year Transit Plan should look like)
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While the North South Metrolink line in St. Louis City is nice, and I would never go against an expansion of a higher order transit system in St. Louis. I think we as a region need to be more forward looking than just a tram. We should design our system with the goal in mind of building an interconnected network, so that the point to point needs of the people of STL can be met. We also need to make sure that whatever is built will be an attractive option to riders. This means we need high frequency and fast speeds, with frequency being honestly the most important, as people weight the negative costs of sitting around 2 times as much as time spent in motion. Finally we need to build ridership up gradually, right now our city has been transformed to have the car rule, and that will not change just by adding new transit options. It will take a concerted effort to increase density, and create lived in environments where humans on their own two feet and bikes are not just tolerated but encouraged. This would need to happen through changes to our current zoning/tax/regulatory situation especially around potential stations.Overview of system in the cityNetworkFirstly, the Network. I think in an ideal world we would build 3 light metro, 3ish regional rail lines (with potential for more if St. Charles would ever like to enter the whole regionalism party) and tram lines sprouting up as time goes, 1 good one would be to repurpose the Loop trolley lines and send a tram further down Delmar onto olive where it would run into downtown and then soulard. (Darker Yellow)For the light metro lines:NOTE: All stations are mentioned on the maps(Purple)One should run along Kingshighway from the mark Twain Neighborhood, down to a little north of Forest Park Parkway where a cross platform transfer with the existing Metrolink would set up and then down to Gravois where it would shoot down to the river Des Peres, with possible extension all the way to grants farm.Kingshighway line with potential station locations(Light Yellow) The Next should run along grand from College Hill, to a transfer at the grand Metrolink Station, down to Carondelet park, with a possible extension through Mehlville to the south county center, where a fair amount of development could happen.Grand Line in the city with potential station loacationsGrand County Extension to Mehlville with potential station locations(Black) The final one Would be a sort of U around the city starting at the current Shrewberry Station, run along Lansdowne to Chippewa where it would interchange with the Kingshighway before hitting Gravois and then interchanging with the Grand line before continuing along grand to the55-44 interchange where it would cross to 14th street create an interchange with the Metrolink at the transportation center/a new regional rail station, Head up tucker to either Cass or North Florissant, if Cass is chosen it would run to the current Page dale red line station otherwise, it would run along Natural bridge road to somewhere along the Mark Twain Industrial Complex( this route follows the old North South line route. Both these options would interchange with the Grand and Kingshighway lines.https://ift.tt/FTtRadV the Regional Rail Lines(White) We should also build regional rail lines from a main station with thru running near the current Union station all the way out to Six Flags thru Kirkood and Webster Groves. We could potentially utilize the UP right of way with a sort of buy and swap arrangement with the railroad terminal association of STL, UP and BNSF. Another line could Run from Festus again utilizing current right of ways to meet up with the other line around Deer creek before continuing into the city and finally a line that runs east out of the main station up to Alton.https://ift.tt/iogPH45 and SpecsThe station spacings would be about 1 stop every 1.5 KM for the metro with larger spacing in the county, and a minimum of 5 km for the regional rail outside of the city. Inside the city the regional rail would stop about every 2.5 km.In the long run it would also be nice to switch the Illinois Red Line Metrolink over to the Regional Rail system as its station spacings are more in line with a regional rail and it would also allow for more comfortable trains for the longer rides. I think it could work well if the Metrolink continued to an East St. Louis Station where it would interchange with the new Regional Rail lines as they head off to alton and the former Red line alignment.The Metro would be built like the Vancouver Skytrain. It would also utilize automated cars that do not require drivers. We could still put attendants on the trains for safety if that is a concern. The trains would be small 2 - 4 cars long, and come with headways of max about every 6 minutes, with the potential to get down to around every 90 seconds.https://ift.tt/qxKifvl trains means small stations which means cheap stations! Following the costs of something like the Vancouver sky train Canada line we could build all the metro lines(about 34 miles) for about 8 billion dollars (200 million per mile + cost overruns cause there are always cost overruns). That would require cut and cover tunneling and lots of elevated rail, but these are much cheaper options than super expensive tunnel boring machines. Also, not having drivers also means, less variable costs, and fewer human made errors, so it is safer and overall operating costs are lower.Sky Train viaductDifferent Sky Train viaduct in Richmond Canada(next to Vancouver)A typical Sky train station usually they also have bike parking below. These are also standardized to keep costs low.The regional rail would require vast amounts of electrification and dealing with freight operators to get them to sell the rights to some of their right of ways, but all these right of ways either have loops around them, or space for additional rail lines. The rolling stock would look something like the current S-Bahn in Vienna, but would probably use smaller trains. We could target headways of every 15 minutes on branches with 7 1/2 in the city. Depending on demand however, that may have to be closer to every 30 minutes (ie who knows how much demand six flags would actually draw, or a place like Festus or Alton.)S bahn EMUTo maximize ridership, we should also build out pedestrian and bike infrastructure. Forcing people into uncomfortable and dangerous situations just to get to work or get groceries would make this fail so we would have to be very cognizant of making sure that the infrastructure around stations is people oriented and not car oriented.We should also explore the possibility of BRT light setups in the near term. IT could be a stop gap between all this new rail and our current situation. BRT could give a pre built rider base for a lot of these routes. Given the nature of funding it would also allow a lot of routes to splinter out into the county from the central condensed BRT routes in the city therefore giving coverage in the county where a lot of funding comes form) while giving small headways in the more condensed city. BRT however, is a bad long term strategy because it can be very expensive operationally and is demanded by passengers far less than rail based options. In a region our size we should absolutely be building out an extensive rail system.Final thoughts: We as a region have spent many years building car infrastructure galore. Generally it is pretty ugly and takes up vast amount of space. There are 8 parking spaces per car in America. They are also expensive: When a parking lot costs anywhere from $1500 to $8,000 per space and a parking garage costs about $31,000 per space to build, someone has to pay that, and it comes out of everybody's pay checks whether directly or through inflated prices. Add in the fact that cars cost directly on average about$10,700 per year to own, run and maintain. Also add in the costs of a sedentary lifestyle, car accident deaths, wasted time in traffic, etc... and the car, at least to me, seems like the worst investment ever. So that's why I propose we dump these liabilities called cars and build a world class transit system.If you have made it down this far congrats! Let me know what you think!
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