» Jessica Mefford-Miller

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…)

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.

For those of you who are interested in learning about some of the finer details that went into Metro’s Restoration 2009 decision-making process, be sure to check out our new Featured Video.  Dianne Williams sits down with Metro’s Acting Chief of Planning and System Development, Jessica Mefford-Miller, to talk about what to expect with the August 3rd implementation of Restoration 2009, as well as some of the planning creativity that was required during this challenging effort.  An insightful video – I highly recommend its viewing!