» Inside Metro

As our readers are aware, Metro has been making many changes over the past two years under the leadership of our current President & CEO, Bob Baer. This blog has been one such change.

Now here comes a big change: Under Mr. Baer’s leadership and that of our new Chief of Planning and System Development, Jessica Mefford-Miller, and in cooperation with the region’s planning body, East-West Gateway Council of Governments, Metro is now working on the development of a long-range transit plan for the St. Louis metro region. The plan will consist of three parts:

• 5-year short-range plan;
• 10-year mid-range plan;
• And a 30-year long-range.

When completed, each stage of the plan will be prioritized and will detail funding levels not only to build but to operate  and maintain any enhancements and expansions to the current transit system. This planning process will be unlike anything that Metro has done before.  Over the past two months our market research team has been identifying an initial baseline “pulse” of what the region thinks about transit, the current transit system, and hopes for transit in the future. Now we’re moving into the community engagement phase of the plan development, and the crucial factor in this process is you. Read more about the planning process below the jump. (more…)

Our long-range planner, Mark, attempted to attend the big TIF public hearing on McKee’s Northside redevelopment plan last night. As many of you know, the city marshals were turning people away at the door because the hearing room was full to capacity. One of those people turned away at the door, unfortunately, was Mark.

Metro watches local development proposals and projects with great interest, since of course part of creating new development or infill development is making provisions for people to get around the development area. I had attended one of the earlier meetings on the Northside proposal, and at that presentation I heard that the developers are in fact thinking about how to tie the development into the MetroLink system, perhaps even constructing a trolley circulator that would move people throughout the developed area and then south to a MetroLink station.

We’ll be interested to see what comes of the proposal; but we’re already impressed with the public’s level of engagement with this project and with the process that was again displayed last night in the number of people hoping to get in and speak at the hearing. Approve or disapprove of Mr. McKee’s vision, we should all agree that it’s fantastic to see people so interested and engaged.

Photo by Dan Donovan

On Thursday (September 10), Metro’s Arts in Transit will be hosting the dedication ceremony for artist Janet Lofquist’s new sculpture. The piece was commissioned by Metro for the Delmar Loop Transit Plaza. The ceremony is open to the public, so if you’ve ever been curious about public art, Metro’s Arts in Transit program, or just want to see a fascinating new work with a chance to talk directly to the artist, feel free to come out.

The piece is called “Hive.” To see why, check out this video clip of  the artist discussing her piece with former Metro intern Matt. (Also this week’s Featured Video in the sidebar!) Ms. Lofquist’s artist statement says that her work on this piece was inspired by the regeneration of the urban community:

As an understood symbol for the collective spirit of the community, [the beehive] has a cultural, political, and religious history. What starts out as a beehive shape, the hexagonal geometry transitions into a spiral of growth and ends in an abstracted question mark.

The ceremony will take place at 6p.m. at the Regional Arts Commission, 6128 Delmar Blvd., followed by viewing the piece and one-on-one Q&A with the artist at the site, Delmar Transit Plaza across from the Delmar Loop MetroLink Station. Feel free to send us your photos of the sculpture so we can share them on the blog.

UPDATE: The Post-Dispatch publishes a nice article about Hive.

There’s a very nice article out today in the St. Louis Beacon that features Metro’s Jessica Mefford-Miller, our new Chief Planner, discussing the August 3 service changes. She discusses ridership numbers, the new routes, and funding issues, making several interesting points:

• The Planning Department tries to collect more than one month of ridership data before considering it “solid” data; she said information from one quarter, or three months, is better;
• Ridership may be light on some of the restored routes because there is an “expiration date” on the restored service since the funding for these routes came via one-time stimulus grants or emergency funding;
• Some of the service changes involved new routes, which do not have a market constituency built-in the way that the old “restored” routes did, and it takes a long time to build ridership.

The article also mentioned that Metro is “tweaking” fall schedules, making adjustments based on actual operations for the past month. According to Jessica, the changes are minor and will be invisible to most customers.

Close your eyes and picture a Metro bus: you see the cheery red & blue, the big “M” on the front, right? But you’ve seen other buses tooling around town that don’t look anything like our typical bus. Some of these are “wrapped” buses (opens a .pdf file) that advertisers pay for. But some are art buses, and, thanks to the Missouri Botanical Garden, now you get a chance to paint one!

Yes, you read that right. As a part of the celebration of the Garden’s EarthWays Center Green Homes Festival, the Missouri Botanical Garden is sponsoring a bus-painting event at the festival on Saturday, September 26, from noon to 2 p.m. at Grandel Square. Wouldn’t you love to paint an art bus mural? Imagine how fun it will be the first time you spot your artwork rolling around St. Louis! Wear old clothes and come with a sense of fun, to enjoy the festival and the bus painting, where you can also shop at a Green Craft Show and Sale, watch solar cars race, and attend sustainable-living workshops. And while you’re out there, say hi to our Arts in Transit crew who work to coordinate these fun projects for Metro.

Sandbox

You’re standing on a MetroLink train, scanning the aisles for a seat.  Right behind you, next to the doors, is a waist-high metal box.  Hmmm…”Do Not Sit Here”?  But it’s conveniently seat shaped!  If you are standing there with a bike, the temptation is terrible!  Squash that urge, fellow riders.  The box actually does serve a very important purpose: helping stop the train.

The box holds a quantity of sand that is systematically released to increase friction on the tracks.  From Etta Gibson in MetroLink Training:

The Train Operator can apply sand by pressing the sand button that is located on the Operator’s console; or by applying the Track Brake, or the Emergency Brake. Sand is automatically dropped when the Train Operator applies the Track Brake, the Emergency Brake, or when the wheels spin or slide.

When the Operator presses the sand button on their console, or applies the Emergency Brake, sand is dropped from the sandbox through a nozzle by compressed air onto the rails ahead of the leading wheels, which results in added traction that slows the train, or stop the wheels from spinning or sliding.

Basically, the sandbox serves a very similar role as the trucks that dump salt or sand on icy roads.  Therefore, the sandbox is definitely not a seat.  It’s an integral part of the train’s safety mechanisms.  So next time the temptation rises to sit your work-weary self on the sandbox, let it pass.  The sandbox is hard at work ensuring you a safe ride home.

This morning, Metro restored a great deal of the bus service that was cut March 30 this year, and also began serving seven new bus routes. The service restoration is thanks to a one-time grant, using federal stimulus funds and an emergency appropriation from the State of Missouri, as explained in this Post-Dispatch article.  You can read some of the coverage of the service restoration here and here; or watch a video here.  Of course, not everything went smoothly this morning, but apparently that’s to be expected after buses have been “grounded” for a while; and also things seemed to have gone better than hoped. Were you affected by the service restoration this morning? Let us know how it went, and if you’ve tried any of the new routes, what you think of them.

From East-West Gateway Council of Governments:

East-West Gateway has initiated a conversation about the future of the St. Louis metropolitan area. The purpose of the initiative is to develop broad goals to guide planning and policy decisions for a healthy future. While the underlying impetus for the project is to inform our long-range transportation plan, the scope is broader than transportation. Decisions about transportation investments are strongly connected to larger civic questions of land-use, fiscal health and business growth; a better understanding of these broader questions will help East-West Gateway make more informed transportation decisions. We also believe the time is right to open the conversation to a broad constituency around the region to discuss strategies for the challenges we face over the next 25 years.

At this early stage, East-West Gateway is inviting a diverse group of individuals to complete a short survey that will help identify the major challenges facing the region and the key regional strengths from which we can build for a more prosperous future. The questionnaire should take less than five minutes to complete and can be found here.

The results will be posted on the East-West Gateway Web site at the end of July. The survey results will be used to frame the conversation over the coming months. If you are interested in receiving e-mail updates on the project as the process moves forward, please e-mail East-West Gateway at renewingtheregion@ewgateway.org.

You heard them people!  Voice your opinion on what you think are the strengths and weaknesses of the St. Louis region, and what you think we need to work on for St. Louis’ future.

[UPDATE: Link broken before; fixed now.]

The Summer road construction season is here!  We are all too familiar with summer road maintenance or repaving or whatever it is they’re doing as we crawl through the Work Zone.  

The same summer maintenance happens on MetroLink and it will require single track service during many evenings and weekends so we thought we would give you a better idea of what Metro is doing to improve your trip.  In this instance, it will be particularly difficult to see exactly what was done after the work is completed.

Sections of the overhead catenary wires – which provide electricity to power the trains — are being replaced.   The trains collect the electricity through the pantograph on top of the train.  The pantograph has a carbon shoe on it that rides along the copper wire which then experiences some wear over time from that pantograph contact.  The Traction Power Electricians inspect the wire every night to determine when it needs to be replaced, and some of the wire on the original MetroLink line is ready to be replaced.  To do it properly, power must be turned off and the area cleared of trains so the maintenance crew can work safely and efficiently.   Here is our rider alert for the work being done between July 20-26 and here is the alert for the work to be done August 3-9.

One thing you will notice when we are finished is the new wire will have its shiny copper color visible for awhile.  It looks a little strange at first, but will turn black shortly with the exposure to the weather.

I’m a HUGE fan of Google.  Searching, news, images, video, mapping, finance, etc etc, you name the app, and I dig its functionality and added task value.  Now I have a new reason to love Google – Google Analytics!  We use Google Analytics to check on our blog’s performance elements such as readership, content effectiveness, and connectivity with the transit community, as well as the general blogosphere.  Since our ’soft launch’ last month, we’ve discovered that in the first 30 days of business our visitors represented 299 cities, 40 countries, and five continents.  Wow, that’s pretty cool if you ask me.

The maps below are copied directly from what we see inside the Google Analytics program.  In the first map, a darker shade of green represents a country with higher levels of visitors.  The city map speaks for itself.  It’s pretty amazing to think about how NextStop is connecting with people all over the world.

On behalf of the NextStop blog team, thanks to all our readers for your interest in joining our conversations about transit!  It’s been a great experience so far, and we look forward to many more discussions in the future!

Google Analytics Country Overlay

Google Analytics City Overlay