The Urbanophile was on Smart City a while back. He was speaking about the Chicago Transit Authority's ambition to have an annual public transit ridership of one billion. His strategy for Chicago was based on the following points,
1. Ridership cannot exist without capacity and financing. The system must be able to carry a billion people, and everything must be paid for.
2. Lifestyles cannot be changed easily, but people will choose transportation based on what is cheapest and easiest for them.
3. It makes more sense to drive in the suburbs of Chicago because transit connections are poor. It makes more sense to drive downtown because transit is cheaper and easier than driving and parking.
4. To boost ridership, Chicago should simply boost the economy of the Loop and put as many jobs there as possible.
5. Transit stations outside the Loop should be made more accessible.
Essentially, the Chicago Loop is the engine of the city. If it does well, and people are drawn there, they will take public transit by default. Building density in the center and drawing people in from the burbs will build ridership. This makes obvious sense if you've been to Chicago. Note the map of the CTA system.
In transit terms, there are orbital lines and lateral lines. Chicago has all lateral lines rushing into the center. Cities like Moscow and Singapore have orbital lines making large rings around the middle. (Think I-270)
If a person lives by Wrigley Field and they need to go to O'Hare Airport, the train would make them go downtown to transfer. An orbital line would save them time, and make the trains and stations downtown less crowded by people who don't even need to be there.
Following a Loop-centric development model for Chicago will be good for the city and boost ridership, but has the side effect of alienating potential suburban riders with a "Well, you should live downtown anyway." dismissal. It will also overload the system downtown and create inconvenient congestion. For a city of Chicago's size, an outer loop will eventually be needed. There is a difference between building density and designing a clog.
The clear answer to this problem is the bus system. Buses are adjustable though, and I'm only focusing on the permanent infrastructure here.
St. Louis has a loop too. We have a Delmar Loop, which is actually a strip. We have a Downtown Loop, that is just a plan on paper. We have a River Ring, which is too big of a loop to be taken into consideration. What is our big transit loop? The planned physical infrastructure looks like this,
A clearer image would be,
We will be aping Chicago's plan with a downtown loop of our own in addition to some randomly drawn lines across our urban landscape. This system will overlap with the aforementioned River Ring pedestrian and bike network,
The Delmar Loop's future might look about like this,
We have our current two metro lines and a planned street car. On top of this are the St. Vincent Greenway connecting UMSL to Forest Park and the Centennial Greenway connecting Creve Coeur Lake to Forest Park. The Delmar Loop, as all will agree, is a single road. I have imposed on this map a possible loop (light green) and a second street car route (Orange) which could connect the Wash U circle to the Olive-Link (Asia Street).
The Downtown Loop as it has been suggested from the above Metrolink map might look like this,
We see the zigzag of our current Metrolink with two new lines coming from the north and south. Over this in green is the Gateway Mall, Arch Grounds, and Riverfront Trail.
Together, these two loops looks like this,
On this map, a third loop has been added made by Delmar, Euclid, Oakland, and Skinker. As the STL Urban Workshop has lamented, Forest Park is increasingly becoming a destination. The park itself is anchored by the Delmar Loop, the Central West End, Dogtown, Wash U, The Science Center, Forest Park Community College, and SLU High.
With the Loop Trolley, the Delmar Loop will eventually connect its developments to the Central West End. With CORTEX and the Chouteau Greenway moving forward we will see Midtown connecting Downtown to the Central West End.
St. Louis is the King of Algae, Missouri wants to support the biotech industry, and the Danforth Plant Science Center just got their man's hand on the federal money faucet. All this and Cortex wants to put a Metrolink stop between Grand and the Central West End on Sarah Street.
This is CORTEX's map of our research and education assets that pertain to the biotech industry. Boeing aside, this is a pretty good map of our economy. Our economy is not centered downtown.
It seems that there is no one central engine for St. Louis like there is for Chicago. Mayor Slay is certainly downtown oriented. McKee seems to think he'll make a difference with his Northside project. If I was on Metro's steering committee and I was thinking about a 1,000,000,000 a year ridership goal, I'd focus on creating seemless transfers between the main Metrolink corridor, buses, and the emerging greenway network. The Loop Trolley, expensive and outdated as it is, will be useful if integrated into the system well.
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This post relates to the Gateway Mall.
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