If you attended any of the series of planning meetings Metro held, you would have heard an awful lot about light rail. In polls, Saint Louisans love the Metrolink. They like light rail and they want more of it. They like that it’s reliable. I think they’d be just as happy with BRT. This would have been something really important to bring up to Metro as they were constructing the plan, not after.

If you like public transit, but you’re opposed to light rail in the future of St. Louis, wouldn’t your time be better spent talking with the East West Gateway Council (who will be making the final decision on what actually gets constructed or not) than opposing a measure to fund ALL public transit?

As to speaking with East-West Gateway, I have as much influence on them as the man on the moon. And regardless, I think it’s a reckless, foolish practice to give them a pile of money, without any way of controlling how it is spent.

And of course, you’re missing the most important point of all: East-West Gateway is controlled by the same people who are going to drop a million dollars in support of Proposition A, the contractors and unions who will earn millions of dollars building new rail lines. They aren’t giving out of the kindness of their heart, and they aren’t giving so that Metro can afford to buy some new buses. And you can be sure they aren’t planning to wait 20 years for their payback either, no matter how broke it leaves Metro.

We can’t have BRT unless Prop A passes. Metro’s plan includes BRT routes at a much higher priority than light rail. (BRT is in the five year plan as opposed to the 30 year plan for light rail.) However, we cannot fund any BRT or most of the busses that already run if prop A fails.

You also mention real-time arrival information for BRT. This is something Metro is working on for all bus routes, again, if they have the money to pay for it. A GPS in each bus isn’t cheap. By the way, the real-time arrival information in Chicago is for all regular buses, Chicago is just now beginning to introduce a BRT pilot program.

BRT is a really excellent form of public transit, and I sincerely hope that we vote on April 6th in favor of funding it!

Some time ago, I spoke at length with a high ranking Metro official about Proposition M. I told him that if Metro needed operating funds, they should ask for operating funds, rather than bundling it into a package with rail expansion. A reasonable operating levy, with appropriate accountability measures, is something I would not personally oppose. If that levy was used productively, it would go a long way to restoring Metro’s credibility as it seeks funding for future expansion.

Instead, Metro has decided to continue to seek “the whole package” right now, forcing those who don’t have absolute faith in Metro or who disagree with light rail expansion to choose between starving Metro or funding rail. My view is that since it is Metro who has imposed this choice on voters, I have no difficulty in opposing the measure. Sadly, Metro’s customers will suffer from their dumb decision, at least until operating funding can be secured. But Metro customers have been suffering from dumb decisions for a long time. Ending that is what I’m all about.

Citizens for Better Transit supports bus rapid transit, a 21st century system that provides service levels approaching light rail, at a fraction of the cost. And BRT is flexible, allowing us to change the routes as demand shifts in our region. Learn more about bus rapid transit at the website of the National Bus Rapid Transit Institute.

Bus rapid transit benefits transit users by providing great service, flexibility to meet future needs, and affordability to preserve the solvency of our transit agency. In contrast, light rail is expensive and inflexible, and has bankrupted our transit agency. So why is Citizens for Modern Transit controlled by light rail fetishists? Could it be because the vast majority of money for these expensive campaigns comes from the very companies who will make millions of dollars from new light rail lines, but wouldn’t earn a cent from bus rapid transit?

If Metro had put an operating levy on the ballot, instead of a combined levy with a promise for massive expansion of light rail, I would not be part of the campaign against it. But the very need for additional operating funds today is the result of the huge cost of the Cross-County Extension, and these fools are promising more, more, more. That’s why anyone who cares about the future of transit in St. Louis should vote no. Tell Metro to go back to the drawing board, come up with a proposal for an operating subsidy, and a plan for implementing BRT in St. Louis. That is what we need, not a big tax increase to build a bad transit system.

It’s no wonder that many in St. Louis think “light rail is good, buses are bad.” We have a bus system that hasn’t changed since our grandparents rode it. Elsewhere, 21st century technology has greatly improved the bus experience for millions of riders. But not in St. Louis. Bus riders should demand that Metro focus resources on them, and quit squandering our money on light rail.

And personally, I would disagree that it would be better if we had no transit, and focused all our resources on building and maintaining roads. If I was dictator, suburban commuter roads would be paid for by the suburbs which they serve, or they wouldn’t be built. Building highways that make it easier to live sixty miles from where you work is foolish and unsustainable. I personally live in Ferguson, a walkable community in the urban core of our region, which is efficiently served by Metro bus service. There are always people waiting at the bus stop around here. Should we make them wait longer so we can run empty trains to Wildwood?

So to summarize, better transit to me means an efficient, fully funded bus system, serving those areas in which it can provide efficient service and in which there is sufficient demand, utilizing technology already in place elsewhere to make the bus experience better for those who depend on it.

I oppose this proposition because it takes us in the opposite direction. If it passes, 25 years from now we’ll have a couple more shiny new underutilized rail lines that people in south county and west county can take to a ball game twice a year, a broke transit agency, and a cannibalized bus system with inefficient routes and worn out buses. People who care about transit in St. Louis should save Metro from the rail fetishists by voting NO on Proposition A.

2009 average attendance = 41,000

20% of 41,000 = 8,200

MetroLink 2-car train capacity = 356 x 2 (for one train in each direction) = 712 (and there are likely quite a few more than that, but this is official stated capacity)

8,200 passengers / 712 passengers per train = 11.5 trains needed

2 trains every 15min = 86.25 minutes to transport 8,200 passengers.

Again, I’m sure that there are more people on those trains than the stated capacity. Even so, I calculate 1hr 26min. And this would be 57.5 minutes with the old 10min schedule. With fans leaving the stadium across a time period of 30 minutes or more, depending on the score/weather/etc. it’s seems easy enough to transport that many passengers. Plus, quite a few go downtown early to eat, or stay downtown afterward, further spreading out demand.

You are right that, to some extent, arrivals may be staggered. But departures are not. When people get out of a game at 10:00 on a work night, all but the most hardy partiers are going straight home. And the person who doesn’t get back to North Hanley Station until 1:30 am (10:00 + 3 hour wait + 1/2 hour trip) is never going to ride Metrolink again.

Aside from that, however, is the question of whether special event ridership is even a suitable justification for such a large expenditure. Most baseball games take place during times when the highways are not crowded, and most people who ride Metrolink to the game are driving to a station. So instead of paying twenty bucks for parking, they park for free and pay $4.50 for a round-trip Metrolink ticket. How many of these riders would ride Metrolink if they charged $10 to park at North Hanley on game days?

More important is, how many of these riders would take Metro to work if it increased their commute time from 1/2 hour to over an hour? I used to commute on the now defunct St. Charles county express bus to Met Square, and that was reality. I hate driving. But there was never more than a dozen people on that bus.

So now we get to my ultimate point: There are people out there who need transit, and who use it daily. We should design our transit system to provide them with the best possible service. That means full funding for the bus system, and improving bus service with technology that is in place in other cities. In order to do that, we must not expand light rail at all.

Speaking for myself (Nick Kasoff) – and I must say that because there are others in this group who would not agree – if they had put forth a small operating levy, with no funding or promises for light rail expansion, I probably would not be actively opposing it. Light rail is a poison pill for Metro, and is destroying the system for those who need it most. That’s why I believe that anyone who really cares about transit should be working against this proposition.