Saint Louis Public Transport

As part of an effort to close my other blog and move all of its transit-related posts over here, I will make Saint Louis's transit review on #Urban. Operated by Metro Saint Louis, Madison County Transit, and Saint Charles Area Transit, public transit in Saint Louis is...OK. On this trip I road the MetroLink Blue Line on the shared segment from Grand to Civic Center, and the MetroBus #70 Grand from Grand & Cherokee to Grand MetroLink Station. Both of these lines help form Saint Louis's measly frequent network, consisting of 5 lines. (These are the #11 Chippewa, #70 Grand, #99 Downtown Trolley, Red Line, and Blue Line.) Frequent transit is basically transit that runs so often you don't need a schedule to use it. The general definition is every 15 minutes or better, 7 days a week, for more than just peak hours, and in both directions. However, this being Saint Louis, they have no service at all fitting that description, so I changed the Saint Louis frequency definition to every 20 minutes, and all of the criteria listed above. Anyway, on to the reviews. The # 70 Grand is Saint Louis's busiest bus route, running along a very urban corridor. The line gets about 8,000 riders per weekday. Service is quite frequent, and my bus came very promptly. Bus stops are alright, with many just being a sign saying "MetroBus" and the stop ID, website, and route number(s). Some stops also had benches or shelters of varying quality, which unlike in Chicago, were NOT all in uniform design. The #70 Grand, in addition to using the standard Gillig Phantom and Gillig Low-Floor buses, also uses ex-Ottawa New Flyer D60LF buses, which are the first articulated buses in Metro Saint Louis's history! One problem with all the buses, though, is that only major stops are announced, as opposed to the CTA which announces every single stop on the line. Fares are currently paid through an archaic system of cash, transfers, and little paper-y passes, but the Saint Louis region is FINALLY attempting a smart card, the Gateway Card. The card will roll out very soon, and readers can already be seen at MetroLink stations, and on MetroBus fareboxes. Although I rode only the shared section of MetroLink between Grand and Civic Center stations, I DID ride on a Blue Line train, so I will refer to it as the "Blue Line". Service is relatively frequent on both the Blue and Red Lines, and schedules are fixed so that on even Sundays, the shared section gets headways of exactly 10 minutes between trains. The trains are OK, with MetroLink using Siemens SD400 and SD460 LRVs. Although technically a "light rail", MetroLink has a lot of metro-like features, such as no street running sections whatsoever, and a very "rapid" feel. The only street running sections are at level crossings, and those are mostly on the Red Line only segments on the Missouri and Illinois sides. One major problem I have is that there are not nearly enough stations in the more transit oriented inner ring suburbs, or in Saint Louis City. I would propose infill stations at Compton, Jefferson, Sarah, 71st (East Saint Louis), and Carlyle (Belleville). Vocals are non existent, with announcements made by the driver, which is not so good. At Civic Center, a HUGE transit center exists, where one can transfer between both frequent MetroLink lines, 16 infrequent MetroBus lines, 2 frequent MetroBus lines, 5 infrequent Madison County Transit lines, Greyhound intercity buses, and Amtrak intercity trains. An OK system, with room for improvement.