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The latest APTA report says Phoenix averaged 30,400 per weekday on light rail. The whole metro did just 111,200 per day for all transit.
That's why it's not talked about.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ggplicks
^Awful. isn't Phoenix the 5th largest city in America? LOL. this is why people call sprawly car dependent cities like Phoenix "oversized suburbs"
How many other cities in America could build 28 miles of metro rail in 15 years if their life depended on it and they wanted to?
Almost none of them.
Phoenix is on a serious urbanization trajectory. Philadelphia's urbanized area "sprawls" over almost twice the area of Phoenix (and is less dense), but we're not allowed to call it sprawl because its in the northeast.
How many other cities in America could build 28 miles of metro rail in 15 years if their life depended on it and they wanted to?
Almost none of them.
Phoenix is on a serious urbanization trajectory. Philadelphia's urbanized area "sprawls" over almost twice the area of Phoenix (and is less dense), but we're not allowed to call it sprawl because its in the northeast.
Agreed. I've only visited Phoenix for maybe 2-3 weeks total over the last 20 years but I can see that it's been urbanizing. It's not a leader but is doing more than many others. Maybe we should praise what they've been doing right and not criticize what happened in the past? It is a very suburban city though. We can't ignore what it is.
St. Louis is a potential star here.
First, the St. Louis urban area already has a nicely-functioning, 46-mile, 38-station, light rail system in place. Note: Its sister city across the state (KC) has been yearning for light rail for decades but lacks the regional cooperation to make it happen.
Fact: St. Louis MetroLink is the ONLY interstate light rail system in the United States, as it serves both Missouri and Illinois. Now that’s the result of good regional cooperation.
Currently, construction on a 5-mile extension of the system to Mid-America St. Louis Airport, adjacent to Scott Air Force Base, is underway. Once completed, MetroLink will directly connect MidAmerica to St Louis Lambert International Airport. Fact: This is big city stuff. The only other American cities with two airports connected by rail within their metro areas are, to my knowledge, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington DC.
Meanwhile, East-West Gateway (EWG) in St. Louis has completed an 18-month study of a “Northside-Southside corridor” expansion project, which is now in the planning phase.
We’re sure to see more progress from this system in the near future.
Why expand to Mid-America? It did about 900 passengers per day in 2022 vs. about 40 times that for Lambert. Is Allegiant or someone else planning to increase service? They apparently just built two more gates (reaching four total), but that's not much. There doesn't seem to be much additional employment in the area so far.
The current service seems to be mostly locals flying to domestic vacation spots. This is STL and those people have cars and come from all over. Trains seem more important for inbound tourism and business travel, groups that often don't have cars and will often be headed to places on the train system.
Meanwhile Lambert peaked in 2019 with a little over half of its 2000 passenger volume, and it was about 90% of that (45% of peak) in 2022. Capacity doesn't seem to be an issue there.
Looks like the Front Range cities in Colorado will have high speed passenger rail soon. It will be the only US state to have high speed rail similar to European and East Asian countries. Governor Polis is leading the way!
St. Louis is a potential star here.
First, the St. Louis urban area already has a nicely-functioning, 46-mile, 38-station, light rail system in place. Note: Its sister city across the state (KC) has been yearning for light rail for decades but lacks the regional cooperation to make it happen.
Fact: St. Louis MetroLink is the ONLY interstate light rail system in the United States, as it serves both Missouri and Illinois. Now that’s the result of good regional cooperation.
Currently, construction on a 5-mile extension of the system to Mid-America St. Louis Airport, adjacent to Scott Air Force Base, is underway. Once completed, MetroLink will directly connect MidAmerica to St Louis Lambert International Airport. Fact: This is big city stuff. The only other American cities with two airports connected by rail within their metro areas are, to my knowledge, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington DC.
Meanwhile, East-West Gateway (EWG) in St. Louis has completed an 18-month study of a “Northside-Southside corridor” expansion project, which is now in the planning phase.
We’re sure to see more progress from this system in the near future.
Forever Kansas Citian, adopted Philadelphian, here to comment.
You ain't lying about the bolded. Although the Main Street streetcar is nice, the region has never been able to coalesce around any form of metropolitan rail transport, and the one guy who keeps pushing the issue (Clay Chastain, who's back in town after a while in Virginia; I didn't know he was running for mayor until I was in a bar in Hyde Park on primary night in June and heard he had lost to the incumbent, Quinton Lucas) has given the subject a bad name among a sizable portion of the KCMo electorate.
But something else to remember is sort of historical: Even though the Missouri-Kansas border is more permeable than the Missouri-Illinois one (south of the bend in the Missouri River, it's a street), it was also the locus of conflict in the years leading up to and throughout the Civil War, and the residue of that conflict continues to echo through KC history more than 150 years later. I think it's another reason why the regional cooperation you have in StL is lacking in KC.
But another reason is that the Missouri side of Metro St. Louis dominates the region in a way the Missouri side of Greater Kansas City does not. The money in StL is located in places like Ladue, Maryland Heights, and neighbors in western St. Louis County; the money in KC is located in Mission Hills, Leawood, Overland Park and other places in northeast Johnson County, Kan. And KCMo can't touch that money for projects that would benefit the entire region unless they can sway the often-recalcitrant Johnson Countians.
St. Louis, however, also benefited greatly from having an unused rail line already in place that actually went to places people wanted to go in the city: Laclede's Landing, downtown, Grand Center, Mid-City, Central West End, Delmar Loop. It even included a tunnel under downtown, which meant the city got a light metro subway on the cheap.
I don't know what the relationship is between the East-West Gateway Coordinating Council and Bi-State Development (Metro Transit's parent), but it does seem to me that St. Louis does have more robust cross-state cooperative agencies — by contrast, in KC, the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority got carved up when first Johnson County and then Independence pulled out of it; it's only recently that the three entities have decided it would be better to have a single agency (the rump KCATA) run and market all their services under the unified "RideKC" banner. (And that also includes the streetcar, which is owned and operated by a different agency, the Kansas City Streetcar Authority.)
(Also: It's my impression that the Mid-America Regional Council does more exhortation than implementation, though the region pulling together to restore KC Union Station — the project Chastain spearheaded — was a positive sign.)
I just hope that, in planning the north-south cross-city line, Metro Transit realizes that giving St. Louis the light metro service it deserves in that corridor will cost more money than the first two lines did because the city will at minimum have to turn some streets over to it completely. (A subway or other grade-separated route would be ideal, but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it unless someone in the city's Congressional delegation knows a way to tap the Inflation Recovery Act infrastructure keg.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by mrshadow914
Looks like the Front Range cities in Colorado will have high speed passenger rail soon. It will be the only US state to have high speed rail similar to European and East Asian countries. Governor Polis is leading the way!
Good for Gov. Polis, but what's California, chopped liver?
Why expand to Mid-America? It did about 900 passengers per day in 2022 vs. about 40 times that for Lambert. Is Allegiant or someone else planning to increase service? They apparently just built two more gates (reaching four total), but that's not much. There doesn't seem to be much additional employment in the area so far.
The current service seems to be mostly locals flying to domestic vacation spots. This is STL and those people have cars and come from all over. Trains seem more important for inbound tourism and business travel, groups that often don't have cars and will often be headed to places on the train system.
Meanwhile Lambert peaked in 2019 with a little over half of its 2000 passenger volume, and it was about 90% of that (45% of peak) in 2022. Capacity doesn't seem to be an issue there.
Illinois had money to spend via its infrastructure bill a few years back, and thus is paying for the majority of the project. The addition of the station adds a second stop for Scott Air Force Base, and it will also be near Boeing's planned drone facility at MidAmerica Airport.
Missouri is a crappy partner whereas Illinois is not in instances like this.
I just hope that, in planning the north-south cross-city line, Metro Transit realizes that giving St. Louis the light metro service it deserves in that corridor will cost more money than the first two lines did because the city will at minimum have to turn some streets over to it completely. (A subway or other grade-separated route would be ideal, but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it unless someone in the city's Congressional delegation knows a way to tap the Inflation Recovery Act infrastructure keg.)
It's my understanding that the current plan is estimated to cost $850 million and it will run up and down Jefferson Ave. They're still calling it light rail, but it will look more like a glorified streetcar. Right now it appears that it will have its own dedicated lanes of traffic and stations, and they're going to have to create a new connector station so you can transfer over to the current MetroLink. So we're looking at about 5.5 miles of new system, and only in the city itself. If it ends up being successful, the county might jump in later.
Honestly, I liked the prior plans more, but here we are.
Looks like the Front Range cities in Colorado will have high speed passenger rail soon. It will be the only US state to have high speed rail similar to European and East Asian countries. Governor Polis is leading the way!
High-speed rail here would be laudable but extremely difficult. It's purely aspirational at this point aside from some feasibility-type studies. The cost would be in the many billions.
Regular rail would be a small fraction of the cost and seems more plausible.
The cost-benefit would be a real problem. The more likely proposals have multiple big cities, like LA-LV or Port-Sea-Van. In that latter case all three are far more transit oriented. The CO idea would only connect small cities to one big one. It's hard to imaging state voters putting up much funding, or beating other projects for heavy federal funding either.
Further, any success would depend on a few consecutive governor and legislature terms at least.
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