MetroLink riders may experience brief delays in the evening next week due to construction crews on the Eads Bridge. Starting at 8:00 p.m. on Monday, May 23 through Thursday, May 26, until the end of service each night, MetroLink will operate a special schedule to accommodate work on the Eads Bridge.
Red Line trains will operate on a single track at the East Riverfront MetroLink Station.
Blue Line trains will ONLY operate from the Civic Center MetroLink Station to the Shrewsbury MetroLink Station after 8 p.m.
There will be no Blue Line service from Civic Center to the Fairview Heights MetroLink Station. Customers on the Blue Line traveling east of Civic Center will need to transfer to a Red Line train. Red Line passengers should expect delays of 5 to 10 minutes. Blue Line passengers should expect delays of 10 to 15 minutes.
Only one side of the platform at East Riverfront MetroLink Station will be used after 8 p.m. each night. Passengers will board and deboard all Red Line trains from this platform only. Passengers should look for signs at the entrance to the platforms indicating which platform is being used.
Yesterday there was a lot of discussion on Twitter about a significant service change planned for the south end of the #70 Grand MetroBus route. Today, leaders from Metro and from the DESCO group, owners of Loughborough Commons, agree that they want to continue bus access at that location.
Over the last few months, Metro has been working with Loughborough Commons, and listening to suggestions from Metro customers to find workable alternatives to the current bus stop location that is on the shopping center parking lot. If we are unable to find a solution, Metro will lose its lease with DESCO and will discontinue service to the shopping area effective Monday, June 13, 2011. However, DESCO and Metro are optimistic that a solution can be found that will serve area employees and customers.
Hitomi Inoue loves riding the bus. In fact, she even held a “bus duel” with one of her friends to see who could ride the most routes. So it is not surprising that the young St. Louisan chose buses as her topic for her KETC nineVoices video. She interviewed me and Patrick Brown of the St. Louis City Mayoral Office about why we love riding buses, and her thoughts on how riding buses is a form of civic engagement.
People have different and creative ways of encouraging people to take the bus. Some might encourage a coworker, some of us tweet and blog, and Inoue, in addition to being an avid rider herself, makes videos. It’s a great community of people in St. Louis promoting transit use. Be sure to check out the great footage of St. Louis neighborhoods in the video.
The nineVoices project encourages contributors to create videos on their thoughts on community-related issues from transportation to education to healthcare and jobs.
In her nineVoices description, Inoue writes: “Riding the bus is an easy way to be more engaged in your community and to learn about St. Louis. Court Sloger from Metro and Patrick Brown from the Mayor’s Office talk about how riding the bus opens their eyes to the world outside of their bubble.”
Metro transit riders have access to 99% of jobs in St. Louis City, 97% of jobs in St. Louis County and 92% of jobs in St. Clair County, which is why Metro ties for number one for access to transit in the regional core, according to a study released by the Brookings Institution which examined transit access to jobs in the United States.
The study points out what transit planners in this area have said for years - that the current lack of a regional approach to transit and transit funding has not allowed the system to evolve to meet the growing needs of the region.
“Metro areas need to craft comprehensive visions not only for how to create more jobs, but also how to link people to those jobs effectively” – Alan Berube, Brookings Institution Senior Fellow
The St. Louis region has transit service in five counties (St. Louis City, St. Louis County and St. Charles County in Missouri; Madison and St. Clair counties in Illinois). Three of these counties are served by Metro Transit. The Brookings Institution study examined 16 counties surrounding metropolitan St. Louis, going far beyond the Metro Transit service area to include cities like Warrenton, MO, Jerseyville, MO and Staunton, IL.
Brookings Institution Map shows areas with transit coverage in 16 county region
Areas like St. Charles County and Madison County have made some transit investments and they connect to Metro Transit for quick connections to downtown St. Louis, Clayton and the Metro-East. This metropolitan area, like other regions, will continue to make decisions about the investments it is willing to make to improve the reach and frequency of the transit system they want.
A long-range transit plan developed by Metro Transit and the East-West Gateway Council of Governments also identified needs and opportunities for transit both inside and beyond Metro’s current service footprint. The missed opportunities cited in the Brookings study provide another opportunity for our region to address how we want transit to evolve and expand to serve the growing needs of the region.
If you ride a bus route or particular train regularly, you may have found you run into people you see often, those who ride the same bus route or train. Or maybe you have started a conversation and made a friend. And maybe, you put yourself out there and really connected with someone. It was brought to our attention that MetroLink was the location of one of these encounters, a “Missed Connection” on Craigslist that was highlighted by the Riverfront Times:
May is National Bike Month, and St. Louis has several events planned to get involved and get geared up for bicycling in our community. Check out some of the following events:
Bike Master Plan Open House
The St. Louis Regional Bike Plan is providing its last opportunity for public input with a series of open houses. The open houses are very interactive and allow you to see all of the planned routes, facilities, connections to transit and roads. If you want to provide your input, now is a great opportunity to meet the planners and weigh in.
Tuesday, May 10
Webster Groves Community Center 4:30 – 7:00 pm 33 East Glendale Road Webster Groves, MO 63119
Wednesday, May 11
Forest Park Visitors Center 4:30 – 7:00 pm in Forest Park at the Lindell Pavillion (#3 Forest Park Trolley)
Tuesday, May 17
UMSL Millenium Student Center 4:30 – 7:00 pm 1 University Boulevard Saint Louis, MO 63121 (MetroLink)
Wednesday, May 19
St. Peters City Hall 4:30 – 7:00 pm 1 Saint Peters Centre Blvd St. Peters, MO 63376
ARTCRANK Bike Poster Show
ARTCRANK is a show of bicycle-inspired poster artwork that introduces people to talented local artists and sends them home with affordable, original works of art. If you haven’t been to the event, it is a great showcase of St. Louis’ passion for bicycling and local print art.
ARTCRANK STL will be hosted by Atomic Cowboy as part of the second annual Tour de Grove bike race. The show will feature original, bike-inspired poster artwork by 34 local artists. Admission is free, and all posters are priced for purchase at $30. The show will open Thursday, May 12 at 7 p.m. and run through Saturday, May 14.
Tour de Grove
This weekend is the Tour de Grove, a professional cycling race for men and women that races through the heart of the Grove business district on Manchester Avenue. New for this year, the Tour de Grove is also part of the USA Crits Series- joining the best criterium races in the United States. Races will also occur in the Midtown and Dutchtown neighborhoods. All of the races are transit-accessible, and you can plan your route via Google Transit.
Last Friday night, students, parents, families, and teachers gathered at Maplewood Richmond Heights (MRH) Elementary School to paint a new MetroBus in bright colors and decked out with school pride while enjoying dance, music and other activities. Art teacher Sally Saldana organized the Arts Festival at MRH Elementary. “It is important because it gives the students a chance to experience the different arts, especially the types of art they can’t experience during school,”said Saldana.
Saldana said she is always looking for new and exciting ways to keep the students interested and they had never painted a MetroBus before. They did Friday night as part of Metro’s Art Bus Fleet Program. The mural designs that students painted each side of the MetroBus were created by local artist Steve Edwards. “Preschoolers, grade schoolers, high schoolers, teachers and parents can have wildly different tastes. I wanted to create a mural that appeals to all of those groups at once, and that introduces viewers to the Seed to Table project,” Edwards said.
The Seed to Table Garden Program is a Maplewood Richmond Heights School District project that helps students learn from the natural world around them. It educates students on nature, organic gardening, and nutrition so they can make informed decisions about their own health, the health of the community and the health of the planet.
Edwards’ bold, colorful mural designs feature enormous cartoon symbols of the Seed to Table flora and fauna which include vegetables, chickens, a honeybee, a sunflower, and a giant profile of MRH’s sports mascot, Jax.
Edwards drew an outline of each mural on the bus and students were given a cup of paint that matched a number on the mural. In what seemed like the blink of an eye, the MetroBus became a metal canvas of color.
The MetroBus will travel on various routes around the area and the murals will remain on the bus for one year.
The Art Bus Fleet is a Metro community partnership program. The program offers a unique opportunity for community organizations to work with local artists to design and create rolling works of art. These artists are commissioned by Metro’s Arts in Transit Program, and are paid for their creative talents to lead a participatory painting activity that brings joy to children and adults alike.
Welcome to the Art Bus Fleet, Maplewood Richmond Heights Elementary bus!
This weekend, volunteers from all over the area gathered at Grace Church in Maryland Heights, MO to help out with tornado clean-up efforts. Metro was asked to provide transportation, so 20 Call-A-Ride vans helped take volunteers to the work sites.
Call-A-Ride vans at Grace Church in Maryland Heights
It is amazing what our community can do when we come together.
Transit and bike fans Michael Keimig and Dan Burghoff at the Bike Commuter Station Grand Opening
Maybe you’ve always dreamed of riding your bike to work. You know, wind in your hair, starting each morning out right with a workout, but then you worried about smelling like you went for a bike ride that morning. Or you worried about where to store your bike.
Downtown employees, worry no more! St. Louis just opened the Downtown St. Louis Bicycle Station at 1011 Locust Street, across the street from Left Bank Books. The new commuter station is a 1,400 facility with over 100 bike racks, 70 lockers, and five showers and facilities with key-coded access. In addition to the storage area, Big Shark Bicycling Company opened an location adjacent to the station, Urban Shark.
Bike storage area
The cost of membership to the bike station is $150 annually, or $20 a month with a $20 initiation fee. Register with Trailnet. Remember, if the weather turns for the worse or you don’t want to ride home, the 8th and Pine MetroLink Station is 3 blocks away to bike and transit home. Biking to work is a great way to save gas money, improve your health, keep more cars off the road, and promote a vibrant bicycling community.
Do you plan to use the Downtown Bicycle Station? Do you plan to bike to work more often, now that the nice weather was returned?
Metro Transit, the Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) and Missouri Operation Lifesaver are teaming up to raise awareness about light rail safety during Rail Safety Week in Missouri, April 25-29. Metro employees have been out all week at MetroLink stations handing out information about how we all can be safer at railroad crossings.
A person or vehicle is struck by a train nearly every three hours, but education has helped to reduce the number of collisions with trains from a high of 12,000 incidents across the country in 1972 to 2,000 incidents nationwide in 2010, according to the Federal Railroad Administration.
Here are some tips for staying safe around tracks and trains:
1. Look both ways. Always expect a train in either direction.
2. If your vehicle stalls on the tracks, get out of the vehicle and away from the tracks, and call the emergency notification number posted on or near the crossing or call the police.
3. If you see a train coming, wait! Don’t be tempted to “beat the train.”
4. Trains cannot stop quickly. MetroLink trains can take several hundred feet to make a complete stop when traveling at top speeds.
5. Watch for vehicles that must stop at railroad crossings. In Missouri and Illinois, school buses, buses carrying fare-paying passengers, including MetroBus vehicles, and trucks carrying passengers for hire or hazardous material must stop.
6. If you see any obstruction on tracks, please alert the local police.
These basic rules help keep people alive. If your group or organization would like an Operation Lifesaver presentation, please call Metro at (314) 982-1400 and ask for Oscar Figuera. Metro is happy to provide them to the community as a public service.
