Obscure Transit: St. Louis Metrolink
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- Опубликовано: 12 сен 2023
- Let's take a look at Metrolink! The light rail system of St. Louis is a growing system for a city that has had some struggles in the past.
Obscure Transit is a series covering transit systems in North America that often don't get the attention or respect they deserve!
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just realized i used the greater than sign in the beginning 🤦
Well, you weren't all that wrong. We are pretty much at 300K in the City of St. Louis. Though the population numbers are a bit misleading. Due to the way the City and St. Louis County are split up, the boundaries for the City of St. Louis are unchanged for the past 150 years, and didn't grow like they did in most cities. There's another million people in St. Louis County, at least some of which would be part of the city if not for the weird historical split.
I really need to visit St Louis eventually
It’s an incredibly underrated city!
There is a lot of places to get good food here if you ever make it out
If you do our local urbanist group would love to show you around 😃
St Louis has some interesting museums.
Add it to your itinerary for your next Chicago trip and you can use the newly 110mph upgraded Amtrak Lincoln Service
One thing I want I want to point out is that while the city proper has 301,000 people as of the 2020 census, MetroLink services St. Louis, St. Louis County and St. Clair County…with a combined 2020 population of 1,559,000 people. The overall Metro has 2.9 million.
Also the BLV extension is in full swing.
Word. It's not like the light rail doesn't leave the City of STL or the State of Missouri so I'm not sure what the point of quoting the population of one the cities in the system would've been.
It also has the bones of a much larger city since it used to be one. St. Louis suffered even worse population loss than Detroit, percentage-wise (Detroit lost more people in total numbers).
Is it because St. Louis like Detroit was a manufacturing centre and these manufacturing companies gone and left? And like Detroit many nieghbourhoods have fallen into urban decay especially East St. Louis. I don't know much about the city but I know there is a strong connection to baseball and the working class that goes back to the 1800s. Greetings from Quebec Canada. @@Rubycon99
@@oldgordo61 St. Louis has a parochialism that exist almost no where else - well perhaps in Cincinnati - think of parochialism as a form of provincialism on steroids. In the 1860s the South tried but failed to secede from the Union. In the 1870s the City of St. Louis did successfully seceded from St. Louis County. The city left because they didn't want to pay for the county. This left St. Louis extremely underbounded, not a big initially, it had as many as 900,000 people packed into its high density. After WWII, the mass migration out to the county was on, and the people left behind were the least able financially. Though St. Louisans moved to the suburburbs, they took their parochialism with them. Now affluent St. Louis Countians didn't want to send their money into the the City. After 1985, people started to move to St. Charles and other western counties with the same vigor they moved to St. Louis county.
St. Louis style parochialism pretty much means that people don't want to have to think about whatever goes on beyond their backyard -or at least their neighborhood. I grew up there - but I was born in Chicago - even though we moved there when I was 5, I realized that I was an outsider: you have to be born there or they suspect you are not one of them - though they are always polite. You no doubt heard of Ferguson and the incident that caused riots there. Outsiders think of it as racist based situation, and it is to a degree, but there's something else there - the real thing is the parochialism. People who live in Afton (South County) or Baldwin (West County) don't want to know or hear about what's going on in Ferguson (north county) and they are willing to pay the police and back the police as long as they keep North County in North County and West County in West County and South County in South county. They can't deal with geographical complexity - be it human geography or physical geography.
At age 9 I fell in love with geography (and history) and majored in it. At age 30 I finally got to start traveling to Europe - so rich in history and geography - and all people ever asked me was "why would you ever want to go to Europe?" - which was really code for why would you ever want to wander out of your back yard? (Why would anyone from Afton ever want to leave Afton, let alone St. Louis County?). (Dorothy [Judy Garland] could have been from St. Louis - in fact she was from St. Louis in the movie "Meet me In St. Louis"). There's this thing about St. Louisans, they can never understand why someone would move there, but at the same time they can't imagine themselves living any place else. (Probably because they think people are from bigger better places that are even harder to move from than St. Louis).
Metrolink is a strangely progressive thing. It's probably because the St. Louis rich are more cosmopolitan than the ordinary St. Louisans. There used to be, and probably still is, a group called Civic Progress, which is the local huddle of the rich and powerful - if they get behind things, things seem to get done.
If you go to St. Louis, check out the Catholic "New Cathedral" it has the largest collection of mosaics in the world and is truly stunning (and many locals are unaware of it - because its outside their neighborhood) and other architecture in the City. Also the Zoo and the Botanical Gardens (a zoo for plants), the City museum (especially if you have kids), Washington University's campus where the 1904 Olympics were held, and eat Italian food in the Hill neighborhood - toasted raviolis, gooey-butter cake, barbeque, Ted Drewes Frozen Custard, just to name a few noteworthy things.
@@oldgordo61yeah, STL like most Midwestern cities got screwed starting in the 80s when they started shipping jobs overseas. It used to be a nice place. Now you’re barely safe in broad daylight in a group with 30 other people.
I recently went to St Louis because it's the closest Amtrak station to me, and I didn't even know the city had one until I got there. It was basically midnight at the time so I can confirm there seems to be good lighting at most of the stations and the trains are quite clean. 9/10
Also want to make another note about headways. In July 2022, the system was impacted by a massive flash flooding event that flooded out the Delmar Loop and Forest Park stations. 3 signal houses were damaged, as were two communications houses, and 5 miles of track bed. One signal house is left to repair and it’s the one that controls switching between the four tracks that switch to two tracks at Forest Park. Metro is currently rebuilding the signal house on an elevated platform and once that’s done frequency should return to original levels. Roughly every 5-7 minutes on the shared alignment and every 17 minutes on the outer branches. It’s expected original schedules will return this fall, probably October sometime.
This has resulted in speed restrictions and single tracking between Forest Park and U-City on the Blue Line. It’s been a huge pain.
It’s wild how they have to go into speed restrictions there since they have to go off visuals and not off of signals
Metrolink is a great system-esp. if arriving by plane into STL. Safe, clean, efficient & affordable. Remembering what that ROW looked like before Bi-State's TOD took hold is amazing.
It isn’t safe 😂
@@gj1234567899999 statistically, it's safer to take the metrolink from the airport to downtown than taking 70 from the airport to downtown
@@ozarkharshnoisescene if you get a black eye because you got into a car accident and the air bag deployed and hit your face, that won’t stop you from driving cars in the future. If you get a black eye because a crazed person assaulted you on metrolink, you aren’t going to take metrolink again.
@ozarkharshnoisescene what statistics?
It’s a great system! Surprisingly clean, frequent, and efficient. Perfect for a day trip from Chicago - and don’t forget to see the City Museum while you’re there!
If you're going to drive here from Chicago, why not just continue into the city? Everything has its own parking you can park at.
"You might think of the NYC Subway" proceeds to show the PATH...which I actually think is a better comparison to the Metrolink since the PATH serves two states just like Metrolink does! The views of the Arch from Laclede's Landing are amazing! What a way to impress! Another US light-rail system that runs in a similar way to Metrolink is the HBLR! Portions of the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail is also a repurposed right-of-way. When the HBLR wraps around the western side of Hoboken was once part of Conrail's River Line. This portion of the River Line is for the HBLR now, but the former River Line portion between North Bergen Yard and Selkirk, NY is still for freight for the CSX River Subdivision.
The Weehawken Tunnel it uses to go through the Palisades to North Bergen and Union City was once used by West Shore Railroad/New York Central trains that terminated at the now demolished Weehawken terminal (which is now the Port Imperial NY Waterway terminal). And the HBLR service to Bayonne is also repurposed. CNJ once had service to Bayonne (beginning in the 1860s with four stations) but Bayonne service was truncated when the Aldene Connection allowed CNJ trains access to Newark Penn via the Lehigh Valley Railroad (now Norfolk Southern). Service stopped altogether in the 1960s, but the HBLR revived service to Bayonne starting in April 2000 and ending with the opening of 8th Street in January 2011.
Metro link is great where it is, but the north south and other routes are sorely needed.
With high platforms the Metrolink light rail can be upgraded to a light metro simply by upgrading the rolling stock and automating the tracks for driverless operation.
Why do you need high platforms? Low platforms are not common for metros but nothing is actually against using them
@@jan-lukashigh platforms allow for level boarding, which makes it both accessible (federal law) and makes stops faster.
@@jan-lukas Low platforms generally don't work as well for metros because the design requirements of a low floor train make them unsuitable for metro service
For example, low floor trains tend to have doors that are poorly placed due to the bogies incurring into the cabin space which slows down boarding and deboarding and also obstructs passenger flow through the train. Bogies which incur into the cabin space also create narrow aisles and force transverse seating areas which eats up your capacity.
So in a metro-style operation with full grade-separation, you don't use perhaps the only tangible benefit of low floor- easy access from street level- since you'll need to climb steps or whatever to get to the platform anyways, with all the disadvantages of low floor- worse passenger flow, lower capacity (by 30-50%) and complex train designs that are more expensive to maintain.
Yes, you can technically have low floor trains in a metro environment like Seattle's light rail, but it won't work as well as a high floor system and it probably won't be much cheaper either. In other words, you pay slightly less (or even more) for a system that's worse. The proper place for low floor light rail is on routes which feature some amount of running at grade where easy access from street level will actually be utilised. So STL's light rail plan actually uses the appropriate types of train for the routes- the new north-south line will use low floor and likely feature at-grade running where the benefits of low floor can be realised, while the existing lines that operate more like a metro use high floor trains that perform better in a metro environment.
Going to college in St Louis. The Metrolink is pretty neat, and a good way to get around for free because my college(visible in the background around 4:24) gives me a card for it. It takes longer than a car during most hours, but thats fine for me because it has good hours and frequency.
You college students love free things, for sure. I imagine you want your debt cancelled, also.
@@AgathaLOutaherewtf, so random and tangential
I grew up in the StL area. I don’t live there anymore but I have fond memories from childhood of getting on the MetroLink at the UMSL stop and riding downtown to see Cardinals’ games during the summer with my family. Definitely beats paying for parking. I would love to see it expanded. Unfortunately the only other transit in the area is the Metro buses and kind of a very short, heritage streetcar line the runs along a popular street called Delmar Loop. As far as I can tell that streetcar is kind of just for touristy purposes because they didn’t do anything about all the car traffic on Delmar, which kind of negates the purpose of having a streetcar in the first place
Maybe its high time we actually do something about car traffic on Delmar then
I commuted from downtown STL to Scott AFB on the MetroLink every day from 2017 to 2020. Even though it took 55 minutes door to door, it was incredibly convenient and much better than getting on the interstate (I-64) every morning for a 25-30 minute drive. There were a few sketchy moments with people acting the fool through the East St. Louis stations on those commutes, but overall I liked having the option to not take a car and go from directly below my building to Busch Stadium, the Central West End, and beyond. Like transit systems in other big US cities, you just have to be confident and keep your eyes open.
the st. louis metrolink is the best!!! it's super convenient and fast for getting around the city. the headway can be long with the individual lines but it's minor when traveling along the central part of the system. Can't wait for the future of the metrolink!!
Do you feel safe riding Metrolink? I moved back to STL last year and haven’t used it-so far. A friend of a friend was shot and killed waiting at a Metrolink stop near SLU a couple years ago and that really put me off.
@@ryanhilliard1620 First I am really sorry to hear about that :/. That being said, my girlfriend used to live in St. Louis so I would take it every so often and I found it fine. I would usually try to take it during the day though.
For something like an inner ring to downtown & airport kinda system that MetroLink is, it’s tolerable compared to something like a streetcar having that long of headways.
I was pleasantly surprised to learn that KC had significantly better headways on their streetcar than Milwaukee’s HOP did… and the latter is being fed by perhaps THE busiest & most frequent intercity Amtrak away from the Northeast Corridor.
But safety & perception need to (AND REMAIN) first & foremost for MetroLink going forward.
I recently went to St Louis and after reading mostly negative things about the city, i was actually shocked that it was one the nicest downtowns ive been to and in general felt really safe and clean
People love spreading negativity for no reason. Glad you enjoyed the Lou!
But on the other hand, the negative perception on a regional level could be a good thing… particularly in an age where millionaires & elites are completely pushing out the hard working folks scraping between $35-80k/year (to precovid inflation/market standards) from living comfortably in their own regions.
The St. Louis region as a whole on that regard is and has been underrated… and in recent years, I want it to remain that way for as long as possible even though the odds are very much in its favor to attract said elites in the coming decades. The crime within certain neighborhoods on top of some of the rural folks within some of the Ozarks (likely having the confederate flag proudly posted on their property) is quite effectively prolonging the inevitable…
You need street smarts here though, don't look like a visitor, because you'll stand out as a target.
@@jackson5116 I was with a local friend
St. Louis punches above its weight in a lot of things, including its transit.
Agreed.
I think the reason is because the city has been losing population for decades. It's population was once much higher. Few cities this small have major league baseball teams, for example, not to mention a light rail system. Yes, some (but not all) of the surrounding cities have grown to make up for some of the losses.
I was born in 1961 in Decatur in the middle of Illinois, one of a cluster of small cities in the area. Until late in the 1950s, every one of those cities (I’m told) had streetcars, but only traces of track remained by my birth. They also had electric trains (operated by the electric utility companies!) running between the cities. During WW2, there was a munitions plant between Decatur and Springfield, and every shift of workers rode the trains between the cities and the plant near Illiopolis, presumably so that relatively few people would die if the place blew up.
The ugly buses and the chunks of remaining streetcar rails at former crossings are among my earliest memories. Interurban trains and streetcars aren’t: they had been extirpated.
I haven’t visited St. Louis since about 1990 apart from flying into and out of Lambert around 2005. Friends have told me about good experiences with Metro but I haven’t seen it.
My Dad used to take me to Rams games from the suburbs on Metrolink. Much faster than the buses that preceded it! My husband and I have used it more recently to go to Blues and Cards games, as well as the Soldiers Memorial downtown.
CityNerd has remarked more than once that St. Louis punches above its weight in many urbanism related aspects. I think the reason is that StL City and StL County separated in 1876, meaning that for the next 70-75 years, before the suburbanization of post-WW2, the population kept growing while the land area was unable to expand. The peak was a little over 800k in the early 50s. As a result, St. Louis became really dense for a while. Unfortunately, the city has depopulated substantially since then. I think I read once that the only two cities that have lost a greater percentage of their population are Detroit, MI and Youngstown, OH. I don’t know about Youngstown, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the two cities with the highest depopulation numbers also have some of the most per capita crime in the country. Given that the city for decades was consistently one of the top 5 largest cities in the country, it’s just sad to see it now.
Will always 👍every video about my hometown and it's transit history and future.
Living on both the North and South Sides as a kid, we were told the Crosstown Line would be next to be built and was supposed to go really far on an alignment starting from around STL Community College at Florissant Valley is and generally use the medians of Florissant Rd, Natural Bridge and Parnell to make it downtown and interchange with the current line at 8th/Pine (it was called Metro Square on concept maps for this reason!) Traveling under 8th, it would've crossed downtown and curved onto 7th and run thru the Soulard area (popular neighborhood) and then turn right onto Chouteau Av. Historically there was a wide median here with streetcars down the middle and two car barns-- one at Jefferson and another at 39th street. This would've resurected that median all the way to just after 39th where the line would then curve left onto old MoPac RR ROW and use that to traverse the entire Southside (the ROW hits all the densest areas like Tower Grove, Dutchtown and Corondelet)
At that point it would then bear onto I-55 ROW at the city limits, cross the Meremec River and head all the way to South County Mall, where it would've met with an extension of the Cross County Line (today's Red Line) that would've seen it head the same direction after I-44/Landsdowne station using the same Wabash RR ROW it's already using. I won't even tell you how this same line was actually supposed to follow I-170 north past Clayton and STL Airport and meet at STLCC FloValley either-- because we were actually supposed to have TWO north/south routes; Crosstown in the City and CrossCounty in the suburbs.
I'm glad we got something to show for it, but 9 year old me from 1986 was promised a complete system and I want to see an attempt to build most of it!
Yep the Metrolink does have 3 underground stations. Most outside St Louis don't know it.
technically we have four
Convention Center
8th and Pine
Skinner
UCity/Big Bend
You can't use only the city's population, because most of St Clair County is on the eastern half if this thing, so that's another 260,000 residents using it on the east, making the St Louis/St Clair part over half a million. Also, it now goes through a good oart of St Louis County, so that's another 1 million with access meaning Metrolink serves over 1.5 million potential users. Not quite a small area in that regard, is it?
Have I taken Metrolink? Well, I live in Belleville who has 3 stops (Memorial, Belleville, College), so, yeah, rode it frequently. Still do.
The St. Louis metro is severely underrated. I think it gets unfairly grouped with other light rail systems across the country, but it really isn't a light rail. Like the video said, it has dedicated right of way and doesn't have to stop for traffic lights, making it far more like a true heavy-rail metro system than the typical light rail.
And it's the only Bi-State light rail in THE US
@@bestrtowoooo! Yeah!
Better check St Louis's population again and add an additional 1.9 million. This is a nice system. It's been 15 years since I last rode it, but it was convient for my needs at the time. Thanks for the video. Glad it's expanding.
Aside from the Chicago L, the Metrolink is my next favorite light rail system. It's fast, it's cheap, it's clean, and the way it was constructed is very interesting. They hired Allied Universal security guards to patrol fare evaders, but 98% of the time, they never check passes 🤣
I took the red line twice in 1998 when I was in St. Louis on business: I had part of Sunday and afternoons after 3pm off. I liked it a lot and hope to ride it again soon.
Great video :)
The North-South line would be a welcome addition to the system to expand that axis and give better transit access to the North and South of the city outside and to connect to the main belt of Clayton-CWE-Midtown-Downtown. There's been different studies in 2000, 2008, 2018, and currently which have included proposals for a North-South alignment. I just hope they build it this time.
It'll also connect it to East St Louis, kind of a highly toxic area, unless you don't mind having a very high chance at being shot- even higher rate then north St Louis!
@@jackson5116 Does that mean interstate highways aren't already a problem, since cars run through there on them 24/7, unlike the MetroLink?
I like to use metrolink when I fly in for Cardinals game. So easy
One seat ride from the airport... nice!
"New York City's subway" *b-roll of PATH train* :P
Having a metro is an asset to the city. We can travel fast without traffic jams, provided the travel distance is more than 10 km depending on the frequency.
It is incredible how you can see that these trains were inspired by our B-Wagen in Düsseldorf, Germany ^^
Siemens who actually made the Metrolink trains was involved in making the B wagen
@@climateandtransit I know, but Siemens actually just bought the company who created the famous B-Wagen.
Hey, that's pretty close to Tulsa, which is my home city. I might need to go and take a look at this system at some point. Nice video!
OKC has a pretty small but modern streetcar system too!
I take metrolink all the time. It has a reputation for being pretty gritty. But i think it is clean enough, reliable, and goes to most of the places i like to go
Yeah, I love the metro link, I’m from the Illinois side
I've been to St Louis a couple times, I liked it a lot. Seemed like most of it was nice, with a couple rough areas (like most big cities). I didn't know about this transit line, though, thanks! May have to check it out some time.
This was my hometown transit system growing up! I’ll always have fond thoughts of Metrolink. They’ve always kept the equip very clean. I was able to get a shop tour some years back. I loved using it to get around town whenever I could.
I really hope all residents of the city will be able to keep using transit. Systemic racism/crime has hurt Metro’s momentum. And I’m worried the underused Delmar trolley has hurt transit’s reputation there more. A north-south line would be a very good option for an extension. Sending some love to the StL!
The north south line will never be built. The ridership is metrolink is low because of crime. There is no demand for metrolink. What you see instead is job and offices moving to the suburbs. The downtown area is a shell. People only in there to see cardinals baseball games.
I took this to/from the airport every week, for a year, in the mid-90’s. Very convenient.
❤❤❤❤❤
they gotta expand the metro link into west county. Usually the same dogwhistle arguments about “crime” are used to shoot it down, however.
Great Video and Thanks for showing us some love. I’m a St. Louis native and have only used Metrolink all but a few times, I think an oversight is that St. Louis is very dangerous (Most dangerous city per in the US) and a large drawback is the lack of safety and security on these lines, This is why most STL Natives who do use public transportation continue to prefer the Bus system, which is very very large.
I think the Metrolink would service an even greater amount of people if these issues were addressed and dealt with. The stations feel very empty often, a large reason why the lines are oddly clean is because of the lack of people in general, atleast these days
The millionth rider in the first month?! WOW!! 🎉
It wasn't that hard. There's basically no parking (or nowhere NEAR enough to fit everybody) at either the baseball stadium or the hockey arena, so they built a huge multi-story park-and-ride garage where the track passes over an interstate highway, so every home game the trains fill to capacity. Park-and-ride to downtown is Metrolink's bread-and-butter.
Note that there is a direct connection between the M and Amtrak's Texas Eagle, Missouri River Runner, and the Illinois Lincoln Service. Towns serviced by Amtrak now have a super link to a major airport, Lambert Field. I live in Springfield, Illinois, and I've used this very convenient service.
I love the metro link
Dude you gotta do Baltimore Transit, its sad but its there and deserves attention before it collapses
Impeccably executed video! Thank you. I am watching from the Netherlands.
Im hoping it extends out into St. Charles county
Good system.
In recent years, I’ve wondered exactly how far MetroLink could’ve gone if they literally built turnstiles at every platform FROM THE GETGO 25-30 years ago. Instead they’re just now getting them very steadily.
As the perception (and occasionally the REALITY) of crime has been quite strong as things stand… especially in the eyes of suburbanites.
Because otherwise Westport AND the Amphitheater, South County (both have been spitballed for decades), AND Gateway Commerce Center in the Metro East (never formally talked about but an effective way to substantially serve that particular direction) would ALL be better extensions & termini for new/extended MetroLink lines than any.
The fact that such a “full build” would extend to or beyond MULTIPLE different directions of the I-255 & I-270 beltway aside, it’d literally provide 2-3 lines along the core parts of the system; therefore better frequency even if the current ~20 minute headways per line are made permanent for whatever budget/staffing related reasons that come up.
Your video didn't show the NYC subway. It showed footage of the PATH train. They are different systems.
The metro got me through college. I rode from Webster Groves (bus to Shrewsbury) them metro to UMSL. was convenient sometimes but the reduced frequency in the evening made the trip long on my way home, was cheap though as when I went to UMSL all students could get a semester pass with our tuition.
Good
0:08 the train you showed when mentioning the NYC Subway is at a NYC subway train.
I have tried to use it to go from BLV Airport (Shiloh) to Lambert Field to pick up a rental car. Ridiculous transit times. Everything is a local and it takes a couple of hours to go across. I got a Lyft at BLV and was at Lambert in just under 30m. It would be great if and when they get the BLV airport extension done, but they need to work on some intermediate express trains for it to have more utility. St Louis did have a subway at one time ages ago. It was called the Tucker Street subway and it brought in commuters from Collinsville, Edwardsville, Granite City, Alton and even Grafton. The Illinois Traction, later the Illinois Terminal used interurban and PCC cars to reach the underground station in the basement of the now Post-Dispatch Building (its still there, just unused). Due to lack of vision in Missouri and Illinois, the Tucker Street subway was partially buried when the Musial Bridge was built to accommodate a storm sewer! It's still there in the dark but inaccessible from outside. Only the raised track eastof I-70 and the catenary poles are left and its a greenway bike trail now.
I had been wondering what that trench was on the side of Tucker my entire life. There was a Scnucks built north of there in the 80’s and I remember seeing the tunnel entrance from the parking lot. My mom worked for the Post Dispatch and one of the old timer custodians showed me the old tunnel docks in the basement next to the printing press area where trains used to deliver supplies and they’d put out the printed copies on some of the trains so people in Alton and Belleville could get their paper but 10 year old me didn’t know the details. There was so much infrastructure that’s lost to history in that place.
@@starrwulfeThere is a video on YT showing the last train delivery of newsprint to the Post-Dispatch via the Tucker Street subway and then the return to pull that last boxcar out. Lots of weeds and trees around the entrance. After that the switch was removed on the Illinois side of the McKinley Bridge and it ended 70+ years of rail service to the subway. All that is left is the elevated part on the Missouri side.
@@spuwho would've been great to use some of that tunnel in a crosstown alignment in the same manner as the original alignment using the Eads Bridge approach tunnel.
Not to belay the comment about St. Louis having 300,000 people, since others have already mentioned it, but I think that it is important to realize that N. American cities in the US and Canada need to be considered using metropolitan population and not the city population. This is because many other world cities include suburbs as part of the city population, which makes direct comparisons of city populations tricky. St. Louis having a metropolitan population of 2,000,000 is plenty enough to justify a metro transit system, especially since many Asian and European cities of the same size have this...there is nothing surprising about it, except that it is in the U.S. where there is no political will for transit. Enjoyed the video overall, I look forward to more.
St. Louis was one of the largest cities in the country when the subway building boom was taking place, so it really isn't too surprising that it has one.
this was built in the 1980s and 90s
Wow! I didn't know the Saint Louis area had a local train system until I stumbled upon this video.
St. Louis city is only 300,000. However the metro area is much larger. Closer to 3million.
The first rail transit system to cross the Mississippi. Now sharing that status with the Green Line in the Twin Cities.
Metrolink should build elevated on the North South line
It would cost at least four times as much and still take up the same amount lane space for the pylons.
The "300k people" fact is a little disingenuous as the St. Louis Metrolink provides access to St. Louis County and St. Clair County in Illinois. The metropolitan area has almost 3 million people.
All of this.
Kinda surreal seeing something I've been on being talked about on RUclips.
This was a good, if not uncritical look at the system. It is worth noting, however, that it struggles with a lot of the same crime and antisocial behavior problems, that a lot of other systems in the country do. The system is switching to turnstiles for this reason, as it has lost some ridership and recent years. The very conservative media in the region does it no favors, often attributing crimes in the general area of a station to the system unfairly. The bus system has also seriously deteriorated since Covid, but all metro seems to focus on is light rail expansion. The system could really use more effort to put into his bus routes, but there seems to be this idea that a city of our size can have a Chicago style train system where people will never have to get on the bus.
I was just in St.Louis stopping through on a road trip. Scariest city I've been in.... hardly any open businesses. Entire gorgeous government buildings left to rot with homeless camps in front of them. I will never be returning if I can avoid it.
You must’ve visited a different St. Louis because that isn’t how St. Louis is at all
I rode the system daily for a couple of jobs and still use it regularly. I agree with all you said. The Civic Center station (shown a few times) connects to Amtrak and buses in a multi-modal arrangement. There are also some one-way or reciprocal arrangements with other area transit systems (MCT for sure) where Metro passes can get you to many more places.
I have heard that if you want to be safe (criminality wise) you shouldn't go to the metrolink in St Louis... is that true?
Took it the whole time I was there! I felt safe on it but I would just be aware of your surroundings like any other situation
Metro needs better operations - I switched to driving the 4 miles to work because commuting via transit took over an hour each way and trying to get home from work relied on buses that would just randomly cancel. Not excited that they're putting all the money into turnstiles and fences without actually making operations better.
00:41 demolished
The north / south divide in St. Louis is very real. The segregation is jaw dropping. This is part of the reason that they haven’t built one, which is sad but true.
The trains go through downtown where fewer and fewer people work. You take you life in your hand standing on the platforms since you can be robbed or shot. While on the train you're likely to be held up at gunpoint.
"NYC Subway"
*shows Path*
Expand to kirkwood please
Still don’t know why there’s nothing in Kirkwood or Webster Groves on those tracks.
@@starrwulferacist residents, especially in Kirkwood. look at what the town did to people in meachum park
@ozarkharshnoisescene It's also why it hasn't gone over into St Charles yet either. White flighter ruining everything!
One error here. Trains come every 20 minutes, not 12 minutes. Little chance that the north south extension will ever happen. The bus system has been going through a series of drastic cuts and people have been abandoning the entire bus and train system by droves. The basic problem is that Missouri is a red state and the legislature doesn't support transit.
You managed to be wrong all all three of your “error checks”
IS THAT THE TROLLEY MOVIE CITY? bing bong goes the trolly dang ding goes my head
Do Twin Cities Metro Transit next (post-San Diego)
So what I’m hearing you say is that there’s one light rail line, and at one end, the line splits to two different termini.
Which sounds just right for a city of 300k, tbh
Imagine the joy of riding the Metrolink through beautiful downtown Ferguson … 😂
Ferguson is actually a pretty beautiful city. I know you're being ignorant and low key racist tho so
also the metrolink doesn't even go through Ferguson bro
rights of way**
It should be pointed out that MetroLink serves St Louis City and St Louis County in Missouri plus St Clair County in Illinois. This is over 1.5 million people. So it’s a little misleading to say that St Louis light rail serves a city of “less than 300,000 people.” Its a regional service.
Annex St Louis County
baby accompaniment SO original
Why even create a rapid transit system with frequencies of 15 minutes
Because people take it? And frequently can be improved.
OK, but as a New Yorker, did he really just use a video of the PATH instead of the subway? 😮
1. I have no MTA footage
2. I did it to piss off New Yorkers 😎
@@climateandtransitit worked cause I was about to “UM ACKTCHUALLY” you 😭😭😭
@climateandtransit FYI... PATH is technically a commuter railroad and is under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Government via the FRA because of its close proximity to Conrail, NJ Transit and Amtrak trackage and that it also goes from one state(NJ) to another(NY)...
Thus, all PATH Train Operators must be fully licensed engineers, subjected to extra inspections...
In case you didn't know...✌🏽😉
That's not a NYC subway man,that is more of a nj path train, do research before you put misleading information!
Subway (definition): An electric train underground.
This is an electric train underground so it’s a subway please do a quick definition check
Fun fact: the PATH stations in Hoboken are used as stand-in filming locations for scenes set in the New York City subway system.
I do feel like this video is promoting toxic positivity. It does not take a genius to figure out the city and its transit is a financially, socially and environmentally unsustainable mess, which this video does not cover at all. There's no criticism of how awfully the system has been planned. It's basically TOGD (Transit Oriented Garage Development) with occasionally something worthwhile around stations. Take East St Louis, for example. It's located in a prime spot close to downtown, yet the area is only filled with dilapidated buildings (some of which are architectural gems) and parking lots or just grass. Great land use makes great transit, which there is, frankly, non much. I do not think the city should expand its light rail even a inch, until the current lines see complete renewal of land use around their stations.
Rachel Martin
Minim City us
Don't forget the dug dealers at every station...
Something North American transit needs to work on. This doesn’t seem to be as much of a problem in Europe or Asia.
@@highway2heaven91 Its almost like they enforce rules there or something
This is a symptom of something else not the fault of public transportation
Well that symptom is not a good environment to raise kids around...
@@adamloepker8057 sure not ideal but literally millions of people do it and billions more in even worse conditions
Airport extensions are stupid and a channel called “Climate and Transit” should mention that.
Airport extensions are good
Local transit doesn't change the demand for airports and it saves a lot of Uber or normal car trips. Also many people work at airports
its not quite a metro more like a stadthbahn aka a hybrid tram system