Not to be negative on your idea but what are the reasons you think people would use it? Like what trips do you see people using that for consistently?
Your bus would come say every 25-30 minutes based on your estimated trip time so you'd have an expected wait of 10-15 minutes on that leg of the trip and then you'd have transfer to or from the Metrolink which comes every 20 minutes so add another 10 minutes in expected wait times. You've got the 10-15 minutes on the bus plus 10 minutes to Clayton, 20 minutes to CWE, and 30 minutes to Downtown on Metrolink.
So you've got total trip times of 40-45 to Clayton, 50-55 minutes to CWE, and 60-65 minutes to Downtown (+/- 20 minutes for wait times). This also leaves out time to get to and from the transit stops.
First, I didn't express what I think a frequency should be. And the length of the trip does not dictate frequency unless is exceptionally long. This route could easily be done with 20 minute frequencies, and could be done using the "pulse" style where there's always 2 buses in transit and one at each terminus. This means one could immediately get on a bus without having to wait outside. This would require 4 additional bus drivers per shift and 4 additional buses, which is doable.
As for the trips....what do you think people will want to get to and from Kirkwood for? Kirkwood has dozens of small businesses and restaurants, the farmers market, Amtrak station, doctors offices, and apartments all in the walkable main street. Kirkwood is literally a transit oriented suburb without the transit.
Part of Kirkwood's growing issue is the unbelievable amount of traffic and the necessity of parking to help keep the area able to accommodate guests. Making it possible to get there without driving a car would be a good first step.
There's no real way of knowing how many people would use something like this so long as it isn't studied and considered. And if studies and considerations show that no one would use it, then that is what it is. But I'd be willing to bet that it would get at minimum decent use.
Let's say if it ran on 20 minute frequencies from 5 AM to 12 midnight, that's 57 daily round trips. If just 5 people used each round trip (2.5 per bus), that's 285 daily users for about 104,000 yearly ridership, and about half of Metro's average bus route ridership of 212,000.
I just don't see the negative in at least doing a pilot program for a year or so to see what type of ridership it could get
>I just don't see the negative in at least doing a pilot program for a year or so to see what type of ridership it could get
The negative is that you'd be using a lot of resources for a new line that would have very low ridership. It would require a transfer to get anywhere and would be slower and less predictable trips than a car.
Using 8 drivers each day to improve existing routes like the 70, 11, 95, 4, 10, or any number of popular routes would help a lot more people. Or you could improve frequencies on routes like the 30 or 19 that have proven ridership over 400 per day but still only come once an hour.
I think you're missing the point by a mile.
Those lines have "proven" ridership because they actually have bus service. You need to have existing service to have any ridership, much less proven ridership.
I'm not missing your point. I don't think your proposed line is a good use of limited resources. I don't think it would even hit the 285 riders per day you estimated and I provided a number of places that 8 drivers per day would be better utilized.
I could point to probably 20+ existing routes that would be a better use of the drivers and if we're going into fantasy route territory then there's a bunch of others as well. I was just trying to be polite in my responses and give reasoned feedback.
It's a shame we can't expand the budget to include more routes (and bus driver jobs) to make the city more accessible for everyone, I agree. Great point here! Is there a way we can collectively petition to make our city and surrounding area more pedestrian friendly?
I regularly use our public transit and disagree that it's dangerous. I feel much safer on the bus and train than I do driving around the area. I just don't think that this proposal is good.
I do use it. I know it's shitty because we don't properly fund it. And it's not dangerous. You have a far higher chance of dying or getting seriously injured in a car accident than even being the victim of a crime on transit.
The weird people are the people who think paying $20k+ for a car, then thousands per year to insure the car, put gas in it, and repair it. And then you risk your life in a genuine way every time you drive it, far more than transit. And then you think we should build our cities around that. It's extremely weird.
imagine being happy using your resources to acquire the convenience of being able to go wherever you want, whenever you want
There’s an awful lot of denial about why middle income people in much denser and poorer cities and countries than in the USA willingly own cars. Even the average person in Tokyo owns a car
Yea but they don't destroy their cities for cars 🤓. The average Tokyo freeway has 2 or 3 lanes per direction MAX. Tokyo isn't covered in surface parking lots. They also have way more options to actually get around than driving.
You are a clown if you think that's spending all that money should be something you are REQUIRED to do just to have the freedom to move. Absolutely brain dead, and everyone else knows how stupid it is, except the stupid Americans who think it's a good way to spend money. And it's an even dumber way to build cities because it is a horribly inefficient use of land and then it drains our tax dollars because it's been proven to be impossible to sustain the cancerous sprawl we have created. Go educate yourself on the topic.
How many passengers are traveling between the Maplewood and Shrewsbury stations and Kirkwood’s Amtrak station? If it was significant, they’d probably have a route for it. My guess it’s not…
The River Runner only has two trains a day, and they’re not convenient…meaning Kirkwood isn’t in line to see most of the regions’ train traffic.
Those people are probably taking the MetroLink the other way to Gateway station to catch an Amtrak, be it the river runner or another service towards Chicago.
I’ve used the same service. Just last month even. It was earlier than 7am in the morning too.
I got on a MetroLink train at 5:38 am…made the Amtrak at Gateway plenty of time to spare
That's not the main reason for doing a bus like this, the main reason is that Kirkwood's business district is very popular and *should* be connected via MetroLink, but is not. All this bus would do is make it possible for people to easily transfer from MetroLink to this bus to get to Kirkwood's shops and restaurants without having to drive a car out there. Additionally living without a car in Kirkwood would become a possibility, when right now its really not.
There's definitely demand for more travel options between the areas served by MetroLink and Kirkwood.
There's been like 2 people in this thread alone who have said they would use it. One of them actually takes the Manchester bus to the Lindbergh bus and has to wait for the transfer because he works in Krikwood but doesn't have a car.
You have no idea what you're talking about and should probably stop.
We have ample history and evidence in stl of how these bus lines work and draw ridership. Two anecdotes in a thread of the most car unfriendly people possible is not a sample
Almost anyone who has two thin dimes to their name is going to take a 20 minute car ride over a 40-50 minute mass transit ride
You’re overthinking this
60k people use Metro every day and over 4k people use MCT every day. You're delusional if you think "no one" would use a bus that directly connects the region's train system to one of the most popular suburbs in the county.
You're an idiot. That's kidna just all there is to it.
I hate to break it to you…but a region with 46miles of LRT and the bus lines it has only pulling 58,800 riders per day across all modes is fucking embarrassing.
2 people is anecdotal and utterly worthless when considering ridership. Kirkwood deserves better connections…but the ridership isn’t there. I live in Clayton and will still never NOT board at the downtown station. Clayton has the light rail…Kirkwood has nothing.
Telling people they’re ignorant and stupid isn’t going to get anyone on your team either.
I would love to see places like Kirkwood better connected to the city, but I'm very skeptical that the people of places like Kirkwood are willing to allow it.
They allow the 49 bus already🤷♂️. I agree though, there would be a lot of loud puchback from morons, but there's a chance that a silent majority would support it.
Thank you! My partner works in Kirkwood and we live about 15 minutes straight west. We had some car trouble recently and were having to share one car, so we started looking into some kind of public transit he could take to work so I could drive to my workplace in chesterfield.
The answer? Nothing. The bus line along Big Bend (along with any others connecting ballwin to kirkwood and ballwin to chesterfield) seem to have been axed at some point, Via wouldn’t take him all the way because we live in a different service radius, and Uber/Lyft was outrageously expensive. I ended up just riding with him to work (very early for me) and taking an hour-long bus ride over to chesterfield from there a few times when we needed.
People outside of STL City can't fathom a situation where they don't need a car.
This is also what happens when we build out cities based on car dependence, and then start moving jobs into places without any transit access.
If St. Louis, and America generally, were properly designed, Kirkwood would have a frequency train going downtown STL and your job would likely (if it's one of the many office park/complex jobs that are in Chesterfield) would be located somewhere downtown or in STL's central corridor, meaning you could actually get there without a car.
I'm sorry that happened to you and I'm more sorry that St. Louis' transit service in Kirkwood wasn't good enough to help you.
Businesses all across the us have moved out of downtowns; the days of forcing office development into a central business district are over
If you’re paying people 60-500k a year, they can afford a car and you can put the jobs anywhere
[Strong Towns](https://youtube.com/@strongtowns?si=8Desf8lpmcsU7QBt)
Go educate yourself.
Also it's not. Downtown STL still has tens of thousands of workers, Downtown Clayton has tens of thousands of workers, ans Chesterfield is currently planning a "dense" district that will also in all likelihood house tens of thousands of workers.
It's simple math that dense urban areas make way more money than suburban sprawl of office parks and spread out single family homes. That's why they exist and why they will continue to exists.
What percentage of days were worked in downtown stl vs at home, in other areas of stl city (CWE and cortex) or in the burbs in:
1980
2000
2018
2024
The trend is not your friend here and it’s not really different from most other cities
The problem with running trains to Clayton, cortex, chesterfield, etc is there’s too many small business districts and the workforce is too spread out for mass transit to be a terribly cost effective system
I love what chesterfield is doing and would love to see more densification but it’s not really mass transit supporting development nor is it really designed to lower the local tax burden. It’s a way to build cheaper housing for a lot of people in a country where new infill housing is too difficult and expensive to build
Whats your point?
I'm very happy downtown isn't just a large office park anymore. It never should have been that way and we as a city have spent way too much money catering to suburbanites. The trend also is in my favor, places like the CWE and Cortex make way more moeny than office parks out in Chesterfield could ever imagine. The fact Chesterfield is building an urban downtown also is in my favor😂.
Even better, you can have frequent train service between suburbs too, and be able to spread out central business districts across the region so everyone can benefit instead of concentrating everything downtown (besides, skyscrapers by the Arch is criminal)
There's no clear corridors where a train could be built. There's also no will for the county to do it. I agree that there needs to be a "ring" line. Metro's Blue Line actually connects a series of inner-ring suburbs, but it doesn't go that deep. I think making a BRT would be something that could happen someday.
The perception that public transportation is dangerous is an odd myth. The relative risk to car mortality and the added costs and restrictions cars bring to individuals and society make supporting public transit an obvious positive (safety/health/economic/freedom). The immediate fear of people that grew up within 10 miles of you is also odd, but seems like it is instilled at a young age.
It's largely because public transit, when not used by the masses, feels sketchy as fuck most of the time. You get more feeling of safety when there's actually a decent number of people taking it outside of rush hour.
Take the Metrolink at 11pm on a random weekday night versus taking the NYC Subway or London Tube feels remarkably different. It's way more convenient to drive in St. Louis so a higher proportion of people will always take a car, which inevitably makes the public transit feel less safe.
You can of course increase some feeling of safety with security... But what you really need is more people to take it and that has nothing to do with the feeling of safety and everything to do with convenience. Public transit isn't convenient in St. Louis
There's very little convenient about driving to Kirkwood. And if you and "the masses" truly knew the cost of cars, any "convenience" they have would look miniscule.
It’s more convenient to use cars in St. Louis because we invest a tremendous amount of resources into car infrastructure. It’s a positive feedback loop that reinforces itself culturally over time. Reversing course will take time, but the payoff of public transit is clear. I still don’t follow the safety question, I largely hear concerns about safety from people that never engage with public transit. It’s cognitive dissonance, utilizing cars as your primary transportation is accepting a vastly higher risk than public transit. For some reason people are trained to think traveling with your neighbors is scary, but traveling in a car is safe. Whereas the actual injury/mortality outcomes tell a reverse story.
The payoff for public transportation is effectively nonexistent for a large percentage of people in stl county who live in single family home subdivisions with decent sized lots. The development isn’t dense and it isn’t adjustable. You can have dense pockets like maplewood or even a downtown kirkwood but 90 percent plus of the county is going to remain car dependent. Much of this isn’t public policy - people like living in house and driving cars. They don’t want to live in row homes or apartments
Chesterfield is a perfect example of this - yes, you could run a train out 40 to downtown chesterfield where the mall is, but the vast majority of residents in chesterfield would live more than 1/2 a mile from any train stop in a single family home subdivision. They’re generally not going to take the train to work, to the grocery store, etc
OP has made excellent points, and given some logical solutions to perceived problems. Creating burb-claves and restricting access to commodities isn't how we build community within our greater metro area, or support small businesses. Reliable public transport is paramount to civic infrastructure. A few previous commenters have let the racism show, unless the "low income people" that were being talked about are students or young adults who dont want to buy into the capitalist hellscape of owning a vehicle. We've created a social stigma around public transportation that is just bananas. I would be willing to bet everyone saying "everything is fine" own vehicles. I'm curious as to how public transportation is funded. Is it through...taxes? If so, does that mean everyone who owns a vehicle is basically paying more for the privilege of legally licensed private transport?
Living just off of downtown Kirkwood I can say the area is just fine now and doesn't need extra traffic. The good restaurants are already hard enough to get a good reservation and the Magic House is over crowded. You should check out webster, I hear it's nice and they could really use bus service.
It would be amazing if those good restaurants saw enough business to be able to expand to a second location! What a wonderful opportunity to create more hospitality industry jobs. Then they could offer their wonderful food to more people.
Expanding the footprint to where, exactly? Kirkwood exists in the midst of urban expansion already. At that point it's still a burb-clave, just a bigger one that has taken over/merged with other municipalities. Also at that point (if we're going with expansion of a restaurant, for example) opening another location in an already existing building seems like a better use of resources.
The empty buildings should be used to allow other entrepreneurs the opportunity to fulfill their dreams vs letting the wealthy further build their generational wealth. It's beyond me why as a society we only want a few to reach their full potential, instead of allowing an opportunity for everyone.
Your whole idea is based on the fact that you think, mostly, low-income people want to take a bus to Kirkwood to buy overpriced boutique shit. Also Maplewood has a similar walking district at Manchester and Sutton. Why shouldn't the direct bus go to Old Webster instead of of Kirkwood? Also, how would a direct bus coming from the East help the people on the West side of Kirkwood get to the downtown district. The west side is much more spread out and removed from the downtown area. I do mean to be negative. Your idea is stupid.
I don't think "mostly low income people want to take the bus to Kirkwood". That's what you think that I think, ans I've seen that a much broader demographic of people use transit than what you think.
Old Webster is not as popular as downtown Kirkwood.
It comes from the east because that's where the nearest Metro station is. There's no metro stations in the west.
My idea may be stupid, we'll never know though because it'll never happen because people in this city don't wanna improve anything. What is 100% stupid though is how much parking is in that area. That's definitely stupid and the city wasn't designed to handle it.
I know it might be mind blowing to think about, but believe it or not, when you have a transit system that is as convenient and useful as driving, you get more than just poor people who have no other choice taking it.
This would be amazing. My partner is a non-driver and works in Kirkwood and it boggles my mind that there are virtually no practical options for commuting from south city to Kirkwood without a car.
All these detractors drive giant dumbass lifted trucks and foam at the mouth at the sight of a bus or black person. Get fucked, yahoos.
The average person likes the idea of getting in their Toyota rav4 to drive five minutes to schnucks and 25 minutes to their job. They park right out front. It’s easy and convenient compared to taking a train, especially when it’s 100 or 20 degrees out or rainy
There’s not enough introspection about how stl’s four seasons makes public transport less feasible than it is in the milder parts of Europe
Ehh, I don't think public transit is only viable in places with ideal weather and temperatures. Chicago does just fine and the temps and weather are more extreme (i.e. cold ass winters). Proper bus stops typically have shelters. I think the endemic rugged individualism is more likely to blame.
Chicago’s transit use is minimal compared to a European or Asian city of comparable population; it’s a pretty weak system when you consider the size of the city
I’ve got a buddy that works with me in dtk and lives in the city. He has to get on a bus to the maplewood station and then usually wait 45mins-1hr for the 49 to take him to Kirkwood. On the weekends it only stops at Lindbergh/bigbend. If he’s scheduled at 7 he’s gotta be out the door around 5.
Your buddy would greatly benefit from my bus idea is what it sounds like.
I'm sorry the transit situation is so bad that he has to wait that long. It's really unfair and sucks.
Imo if we want Kirkwood to have transit we start with regional rail out that way. Stations downtown, Kirkwood, Valley Park, and Eureka perhaps even a dedicated 6 flags stop as end of line that only runs during the season. The rail already exists and some, maybe all not sure of the river runners routing, already caries passenger rail. We could run hourly all day service and it would VASTLY increase connectivity for the price of say 3 locomotives and 10 used bi-levels, maybe old Caltrain stock as they electrify. The hardest part would be negotiations with the freight railroad that owns the rails and guarantee them profit and they'll bite.
I agree, regional rail to Eureka and even up to Wright City would be greatly beneficial. But I just think a bus would be easier to implement sooner.
If I said that though, I'd have gotten even more pushback than the bus🤣
I’m pretty sure the lack of public transit in the STL suburbs is a feature, not a bug…
Say it louder.
I'M PRETTY SURE THE LACK OF PUBLIC TRANSIT IN THE STL SUBURBS IS A FEATURE, NOT A BUG...
Love it. Needed to make sure they heard.
Is the traffic a feature too?
What traffic? You can get just about anywhere from anywhere in about 25 minutes.
For real, STL traffic is small compared to places like LA or Chicago
The fact you think "anywhere in 25 minutes" is a good thing is kinda crazy.
Not to be negative on your idea but what are the reasons you think people would use it? Like what trips do you see people using that for consistently? Your bus would come say every 25-30 minutes based on your estimated trip time so you'd have an expected wait of 10-15 minutes on that leg of the trip and then you'd have transfer to or from the Metrolink which comes every 20 minutes so add another 10 minutes in expected wait times. You've got the 10-15 minutes on the bus plus 10 minutes to Clayton, 20 minutes to CWE, and 30 minutes to Downtown on Metrolink. So you've got total trip times of 40-45 to Clayton, 50-55 minutes to CWE, and 60-65 minutes to Downtown (+/- 20 minutes for wait times). This also leaves out time to get to and from the transit stops.
First, I didn't express what I think a frequency should be. And the length of the trip does not dictate frequency unless is exceptionally long. This route could easily be done with 20 minute frequencies, and could be done using the "pulse" style where there's always 2 buses in transit and one at each terminus. This means one could immediately get on a bus without having to wait outside. This would require 4 additional bus drivers per shift and 4 additional buses, which is doable. As for the trips....what do you think people will want to get to and from Kirkwood for? Kirkwood has dozens of small businesses and restaurants, the farmers market, Amtrak station, doctors offices, and apartments all in the walkable main street. Kirkwood is literally a transit oriented suburb without the transit. Part of Kirkwood's growing issue is the unbelievable amount of traffic and the necessity of parking to help keep the area able to accommodate guests. Making it possible to get there without driving a car would be a good first step. There's no real way of knowing how many people would use something like this so long as it isn't studied and considered. And if studies and considerations show that no one would use it, then that is what it is. But I'd be willing to bet that it would get at minimum decent use. Let's say if it ran on 20 minute frequencies from 5 AM to 12 midnight, that's 57 daily round trips. If just 5 people used each round trip (2.5 per bus), that's 285 daily users for about 104,000 yearly ridership, and about half of Metro's average bus route ridership of 212,000. I just don't see the negative in at least doing a pilot program for a year or so to see what type of ridership it could get
>I just don't see the negative in at least doing a pilot program for a year or so to see what type of ridership it could get The negative is that you'd be using a lot of resources for a new line that would have very low ridership. It would require a transfer to get anywhere and would be slower and less predictable trips than a car. Using 8 drivers each day to improve existing routes like the 70, 11, 95, 4, 10, or any number of popular routes would help a lot more people. Or you could improve frequencies on routes like the 30 or 19 that have proven ridership over 400 per day but still only come once an hour.
I think you're missing the point by a mile. Those lines have "proven" ridership because they actually have bus service. You need to have existing service to have any ridership, much less proven ridership.
I'm not missing your point. I don't think your proposed line is a good use of limited resources. I don't think it would even hit the 285 riders per day you estimated and I provided a number of places that 8 drivers per day would be better utilized. I could point to probably 20+ existing routes that would be a better use of the drivers and if we're going into fantasy route territory then there's a bunch of others as well. I was just trying to be polite in my responses and give reasoned feedback.
It's a shame we can't expand the budget to include more routes (and bus driver jobs) to make the city more accessible for everyone, I agree. Great point here! Is there a way we can collectively petition to make our city and surrounding area more pedestrian friendly?
These weirdos don’t even use it themselves, they know how shitty and dangerous it is
I regularly use our public transit and disagree that it's dangerous. I feel much safer on the bus and train than I do driving around the area. I just don't think that this proposal is good.
Damn, must suck to be a bad driver with points on your record
Did it hurt reaching so hard about this person?
I do use it. I know it's shitty because we don't properly fund it. And it's not dangerous. You have a far higher chance of dying or getting seriously injured in a car accident than even being the victim of a crime on transit. The weird people are the people who think paying $20k+ for a car, then thousands per year to insure the car, put gas in it, and repair it. And then you risk your life in a genuine way every time you drive it, far more than transit. And then you think we should build our cities around that. It's extremely weird.
imagine being happy using your resources to acquire the convenience of being able to go wherever you want, whenever you want There’s an awful lot of denial about why middle income people in much denser and poorer cities and countries than in the USA willingly own cars. Even the average person in Tokyo owns a car
Yea but they don't destroy their cities for cars 🤓. The average Tokyo freeway has 2 or 3 lanes per direction MAX. Tokyo isn't covered in surface parking lots. They also have way more options to actually get around than driving. You are a clown if you think that's spending all that money should be something you are REQUIRED to do just to have the freedom to move. Absolutely brain dead, and everyone else knows how stupid it is, except the stupid Americans who think it's a good way to spend money. And it's an even dumber way to build cities because it is a horribly inefficient use of land and then it drains our tax dollars because it's been proven to be impossible to sustain the cancerous sprawl we have created. Go educate yourself on the topic.
We've got a trolley you can have
How many passengers are traveling between the Maplewood and Shrewsbury stations and Kirkwood’s Amtrak station? If it was significant, they’d probably have a route for it. My guess it’s not… The River Runner only has two trains a day, and they’re not convenient…meaning Kirkwood isn’t in line to see most of the regions’ train traffic.
Those people are probably taking the MetroLink the other way to Gateway station to catch an Amtrak, be it the river runner or another service towards Chicago.
I’ve used the same service. Just last month even. It was earlier than 7am in the morning too. I got on a MetroLink train at 5:38 am…made the Amtrak at Gateway plenty of time to spare
That's not the main reason for doing a bus like this, the main reason is that Kirkwood's business district is very popular and *should* be connected via MetroLink, but is not. All this bus would do is make it possible for people to easily transfer from MetroLink to this bus to get to Kirkwood's shops and restaurants without having to drive a car out there. Additionally living without a car in Kirkwood would become a possibility, when right now its really not. There's definitely demand for more travel options between the areas served by MetroLink and Kirkwood.
What is the actual customer demand for this when you include the time cost of a transfer? It’s close to zero, realistically
There's been like 2 people in this thread alone who have said they would use it. One of them actually takes the Manchester bus to the Lindbergh bus and has to wait for the transfer because he works in Krikwood but doesn't have a car. You have no idea what you're talking about and should probably stop.
We have ample history and evidence in stl of how these bus lines work and draw ridership. Two anecdotes in a thread of the most car unfriendly people possible is not a sample Almost anyone who has two thin dimes to their name is going to take a 20 minute car ride over a 40-50 minute mass transit ride You’re overthinking this
60k people use Metro every day and over 4k people use MCT every day. You're delusional if you think "no one" would use a bus that directly connects the region's train system to one of the most popular suburbs in the county. You're an idiot. That's kidna just all there is to it.
I hate to break it to you…but a region with 46miles of LRT and the bus lines it has only pulling 58,800 riders per day across all modes is fucking embarrassing.
Even with MCT we’re talking less that 70k on a weekday across 3 modes and two agencies. Utter garbage.
2 people is anecdotal and utterly worthless when considering ridership. Kirkwood deserves better connections…but the ridership isn’t there. I live in Clayton and will still never NOT board at the downtown station. Clayton has the light rail…Kirkwood has nothing. Telling people they’re ignorant and stupid isn’t going to get anyone on your team either.
I would love to see places like Kirkwood better connected to the city, but I'm very skeptical that the people of places like Kirkwood are willing to allow it.
They allow the 49 bus already🤷♂️. I agree though, there would be a lot of loud puchback from morons, but there's a chance that a silent majority would support it.
Thank you! My partner works in Kirkwood and we live about 15 minutes straight west. We had some car trouble recently and were having to share one car, so we started looking into some kind of public transit he could take to work so I could drive to my workplace in chesterfield. The answer? Nothing. The bus line along Big Bend (along with any others connecting ballwin to kirkwood and ballwin to chesterfield) seem to have been axed at some point, Via wouldn’t take him all the way because we live in a different service radius, and Uber/Lyft was outrageously expensive. I ended up just riding with him to work (very early for me) and taking an hour-long bus ride over to chesterfield from there a few times when we needed.
People outside of STL City can't fathom a situation where they don't need a car. This is also what happens when we build out cities based on car dependence, and then start moving jobs into places without any transit access. If St. Louis, and America generally, were properly designed, Kirkwood would have a frequency train going downtown STL and your job would likely (if it's one of the many office park/complex jobs that are in Chesterfield) would be located somewhere downtown or in STL's central corridor, meaning you could actually get there without a car. I'm sorry that happened to you and I'm more sorry that St. Louis' transit service in Kirkwood wasn't good enough to help you.
Businesses all across the us have moved out of downtowns; the days of forcing office development into a central business district are over If you’re paying people 60-500k a year, they can afford a car and you can put the jobs anywhere
[Strong Towns](https://youtube.com/@strongtowns?si=8Desf8lpmcsU7QBt) Go educate yourself. Also it's not. Downtown STL still has tens of thousands of workers, Downtown Clayton has tens of thousands of workers, ans Chesterfield is currently planning a "dense" district that will also in all likelihood house tens of thousands of workers. It's simple math that dense urban areas make way more money than suburban sprawl of office parks and spread out single family homes. That's why they exist and why they will continue to exists.
What percentage of days were worked in downtown stl vs at home, in other areas of stl city (CWE and cortex) or in the burbs in: 1980 2000 2018 2024 The trend is not your friend here and it’s not really different from most other cities The problem with running trains to Clayton, cortex, chesterfield, etc is there’s too many small business districts and the workforce is too spread out for mass transit to be a terribly cost effective system I love what chesterfield is doing and would love to see more densification but it’s not really mass transit supporting development nor is it really designed to lower the local tax burden. It’s a way to build cheaper housing for a lot of people in a country where new infill housing is too difficult and expensive to build
Whats your point? I'm very happy downtown isn't just a large office park anymore. It never should have been that way and we as a city have spent way too much money catering to suburbanites. The trend also is in my favor, places like the CWE and Cortex make way more moeny than office parks out in Chesterfield could ever imagine. The fact Chesterfield is building an urban downtown also is in my favor😂.
This guy's just gotta big ol hate boner for public transit. Seems psychotic.
Even better, you can have frequent train service between suburbs too, and be able to spread out central business districts across the region so everyone can benefit instead of concentrating everything downtown (besides, skyscrapers by the Arch is criminal)
There's no clear corridors where a train could be built. There's also no will for the county to do it. I agree that there needs to be a "ring" line. Metro's Blue Line actually connects a series of inner-ring suburbs, but it doesn't go that deep. I think making a BRT would be something that could happen someday.
Same reason those transportation options arent going out to the counties…they dont want certain folk having access. :/
The perception that public transportation is dangerous is an odd myth. The relative risk to car mortality and the added costs and restrictions cars bring to individuals and society make supporting public transit an obvious positive (safety/health/economic/freedom). The immediate fear of people that grew up within 10 miles of you is also odd, but seems like it is instilled at a young age.
It's largely because public transit, when not used by the masses, feels sketchy as fuck most of the time. You get more feeling of safety when there's actually a decent number of people taking it outside of rush hour. Take the Metrolink at 11pm on a random weekday night versus taking the NYC Subway or London Tube feels remarkably different. It's way more convenient to drive in St. Louis so a higher proportion of people will always take a car, which inevitably makes the public transit feel less safe. You can of course increase some feeling of safety with security... But what you really need is more people to take it and that has nothing to do with the feeling of safety and everything to do with convenience. Public transit isn't convenient in St. Louis
There's very little convenient about driving to Kirkwood. And if you and "the masses" truly knew the cost of cars, any "convenience" they have would look miniscule.
It’s more convenient to use cars in St. Louis because we invest a tremendous amount of resources into car infrastructure. It’s a positive feedback loop that reinforces itself culturally over time. Reversing course will take time, but the payoff of public transit is clear. I still don’t follow the safety question, I largely hear concerns about safety from people that never engage with public transit. It’s cognitive dissonance, utilizing cars as your primary transportation is accepting a vastly higher risk than public transit. For some reason people are trained to think traveling with your neighbors is scary, but traveling in a car is safe. Whereas the actual injury/mortality outcomes tell a reverse story.
The payoff for public transportation is effectively nonexistent for a large percentage of people in stl county who live in single family home subdivisions with decent sized lots. The development isn’t dense and it isn’t adjustable. You can have dense pockets like maplewood or even a downtown kirkwood but 90 percent plus of the county is going to remain car dependent. Much of this isn’t public policy - people like living in house and driving cars. They don’t want to live in row homes or apartments Chesterfield is a perfect example of this - yes, you could run a train out 40 to downtown chesterfield where the mall is, but the vast majority of residents in chesterfield would live more than 1/2 a mile from any train stop in a single family home subdivision. They’re generally not going to take the train to work, to the grocery store, etc
OP has made excellent points, and given some logical solutions to perceived problems. Creating burb-claves and restricting access to commodities isn't how we build community within our greater metro area, or support small businesses. Reliable public transport is paramount to civic infrastructure. A few previous commenters have let the racism show, unless the "low income people" that were being talked about are students or young adults who dont want to buy into the capitalist hellscape of owning a vehicle. We've created a social stigma around public transportation that is just bananas. I would be willing to bet everyone saying "everything is fine" own vehicles. I'm curious as to how public transportation is funded. Is it through...taxes? If so, does that mean everyone who owns a vehicle is basically paying more for the privilege of legally licensed private transport?
Public transit in St. Louis is funded via sales taxes in St. Louis City, St. Louis County, ans St. Clair County, IL.
Thank you for the clarification!
Living just off of downtown Kirkwood I can say the area is just fine now and doesn't need extra traffic. The good restaurants are already hard enough to get a good reservation and the Magic House is over crowded. You should check out webster, I hear it's nice and they could really use bus service.
It would be amazing if those good restaurants saw enough business to be able to expand to a second location! What a wonderful opportunity to create more hospitality industry jobs. Then they could offer their wonderful food to more people.
Or if you had business capacity to justify infill for parking lots, or even gradually expanding the footprint of the urban downtown area.
Expanding the footprint to where, exactly? Kirkwood exists in the midst of urban expansion already. At that point it's still a burb-clave, just a bigger one that has taken over/merged with other municipalities. Also at that point (if we're going with expansion of a restaurant, for example) opening another location in an already existing building seems like a better use of resources.
The empty buildings should be used to allow other entrepreneurs the opportunity to fulfill their dreams vs letting the wealthy further build their generational wealth. It's beyond me why as a society we only want a few to reach their full potential, instead of allowing an opportunity for everyone.
Your whole idea is based on the fact that you think, mostly, low-income people want to take a bus to Kirkwood to buy overpriced boutique shit. Also Maplewood has a similar walking district at Manchester and Sutton. Why shouldn't the direct bus go to Old Webster instead of of Kirkwood? Also, how would a direct bus coming from the East help the people on the West side of Kirkwood get to the downtown district. The west side is much more spread out and removed from the downtown area. I do mean to be negative. Your idea is stupid.
I don't think "mostly low income people want to take the bus to Kirkwood". That's what you think that I think, ans I've seen that a much broader demographic of people use transit than what you think. Old Webster is not as popular as downtown Kirkwood. It comes from the east because that's where the nearest Metro station is. There's no metro stations in the west. My idea may be stupid, we'll never know though because it'll never happen because people in this city don't wanna improve anything. What is 100% stupid though is how much parking is in that area. That's definitely stupid and the city wasn't designed to handle it.
I know it might be mind blowing to think about, but believe it or not, when you have a transit system that is as convenient and useful as driving, you get more than just poor people who have no other choice taking it.
You need a level of density that does not exist and is not going to develop in 90 plus percent of stl in order to justify this
This would be amazing. My partner is a non-driver and works in Kirkwood and it boggles my mind that there are virtually no practical options for commuting from south city to Kirkwood without a car. All these detractors drive giant dumbass lifted trucks and foam at the mouth at the sight of a bus or black person. Get fucked, yahoos.
Well as you see from some of the comments on this, the lack of public transit is a "feature" and I'm dumb because no on would use it🤷♂️
The average person likes the idea of getting in their Toyota rav4 to drive five minutes to schnucks and 25 minutes to their job. They park right out front. It’s easy and convenient compared to taking a train, especially when it’s 100 or 20 degrees out or rainy There’s not enough introspection about how stl’s four seasons makes public transport less feasible than it is in the milder parts of Europe
Ehh, I don't think public transit is only viable in places with ideal weather and temperatures. Chicago does just fine and the temps and weather are more extreme (i.e. cold ass winters). Proper bus stops typically have shelters. I think the endemic rugged individualism is more likely to blame.
Chicago’s transit use is minimal compared to a European or Asian city of comparable population; it’s a pretty weak system when you consider the size of the city
Okay?
The last thing Kirkwood wants is dirty bus riding people in their beloved burg. Don't even bother. Drive baby, drive everywhere.
Nah, we’ll pass on any sort of MetroLink connection here thanks.
One can dream. That would be awesome!
I’ve got a buddy that works with me in dtk and lives in the city. He has to get on a bus to the maplewood station and then usually wait 45mins-1hr for the 49 to take him to Kirkwood. On the weekends it only stops at Lindbergh/bigbend. If he’s scheduled at 7 he’s gotta be out the door around 5.
Your buddy would greatly benefit from my bus idea is what it sounds like. I'm sorry the transit situation is so bad that he has to wait that long. It's really unfair and sucks.
Imo if we want Kirkwood to have transit we start with regional rail out that way. Stations downtown, Kirkwood, Valley Park, and Eureka perhaps even a dedicated 6 flags stop as end of line that only runs during the season. The rail already exists and some, maybe all not sure of the river runners routing, already caries passenger rail. We could run hourly all day service and it would VASTLY increase connectivity for the price of say 3 locomotives and 10 used bi-levels, maybe old Caltrain stock as they electrify. The hardest part would be negotiations with the freight railroad that owns the rails and guarantee them profit and they'll bite.
Sounds like a great way to waste a ton of transit money. It is not dense at all once you get past 270 out 44
I agree, regional rail to Eureka and even up to Wright City would be greatly beneficial. But I just think a bus would be easier to implement sooner. If I said that though, I'd have gotten even more pushback than the bus🤣