The detour doesn’t need to be there to serve downtown. The line can detour eastward slightly to serve Union Station; there’s no need to go almost all the way to the river.

Ultimately, this map shows all that is wrong with MetroLink.

In the end, the problem really is money. EWGateway studied the MetroSouth corridor in 2004 but indefinitely deferred selection of a locally preferred alternative due to unclear funding sources. They studied Northside-Southside in 2008, but have not acted, again, due to unclear funding sources as well as obscene cost for paltry urban ridership estimates. Madison County has yet to vote for a transit tax since a failure in 1997. I’m sure the Daniel Boone line will get studied shortly; attractiveness of the Westport employment center at the end of line, St. Charles County commuters, and wealth politics will all but certainly sway EWGateway to build this line first over all other LRT alignments, or so says my own crystal ball. None of which matters if the April vote fails.

The plan is what Metro’s research and planning department has identified as potential transit corridors and modes for the future, how long it could take, etc, based on our own planning data and public input. But the prioritization, as well as initial cost estimates, is left to our region’s transportation planning organization, East-West Gateway.

Also, the plan highlights that the first priorities that Metro does decide if funding is secured, is the restoration of service (bus, rail and paratransit) lost in March 2009, as well as technological and safety amenities for passengers. These priorities were based on public input.

Without additional funding, by July 2010 Metro will reduce its service to 50% of what was available in St. Louis March 2009. The last generative funding mechanism in St. Louis for public transit was elected in 1994; previously, 1974.

Is that correct, that 1/2 Cents sales tax = only 75 million? I would have thought it would be tons more since here in Miami our 1/2 cents sales tax increase gave us like hundreds of millions (like billions over a decade or 2 iirc).

Each presentation that Metro has given regarding the plan has emphasized, over and over, the funding challenges to expanding transit in St. Louis, or even restoring much of the service that was lost last year. The plan makes clear that any expansion requires additional local, state, and federal resources. But you have to start somewhere, and sharing a vision is a good place to start figuring out how to make it happen.

The plan tells me that Metrolink is not only much more focused than it was, it is also much more politically realistic. The geography of the new plan pays more attention to areas that leaned more than expected toward voting no in the 2008 referendum, namely heavily-African-American north county and the white working and middle class South County (south and southwest suburbs. And I think the result is a better plan. City neighborhoods are better covered, and suburb-to-suburb commuting is much better covered.

A note on planning as well. St. Louis is very low density on residential and could stand some DC-style rezoning and high-rise development around metro stations. But the other half of the battle is commercial and St. Louis commercial development is concentrated in corridors, hence the enormous range of jobs, business, educational and retail nodes already served by the relatively small light rail network in place. As long as people can get from their homes to the bus or train stop, the other end is taken care of.