Streetcar

7-mile Streetcar 
By: Megan Gebke

St. Louis began to spread out beyond the core of the city when transportation became more easily available. Buses, streetcars, and the automobile allowed for residents to move beyond the core into surrounding areas but still be able to go downtown with a short trip. Now some neighborhoods close to downtown lack connectivity. In the Old North St. Louis neighborhood, many people moved away when they figured out they could travel beyond the neighborhood and still be able to reach places in the city with the transportation available. The neighborhood never really recovered and left many historic homes abandoned. Today, there is one bus that goes through the neighborhood that will lead downtown. It makes it very difficult if the residents work downtown to take public transportation. With this proposal of a new streetcar that will be located parallel to the boundary of the neighborhood, it allows for the residents to travel downtown and also for outsiders to visit their neighborhood and help their local economy.

The partnership for Downtown St. Louis lined up private funding for a $200,000 streetcar study. They looked into the construction costs, potential revenue, and what neighborhood would benefit from it the most. Streetcars were popular fifty years ago and proved to be successful, but the availability of automobiles led them to be a thing of the past. Now they are the next big thing is some big cities. The first line runs east and west along Olive and Lindell. It hits several large employment and residential centers. The north-south line runs on North Florissant Avenue at St. Louis Avenue. This line would improve the connectivity between near north side neighborhoods, including Old North and Carr Square, with the Central Core of St. Louis. Each car would have a fifty person capacity and runs from 5:00am to midnight. They would come every ten minutes at peak time and every fifteen minutes at non-peak times. The streetcar’s purpose is to serve the local neighborhoods at a small scale level that MetroLink was never meant to do.

The ridership is projected at 7700 daily users, 2700 of these riders would be completely new to public transportation. Ridership is projected based on the population within walking distance which is about a quarter mile or around four blocks. Construction costs are estimated at $270 million for the roughly seven mile system. This estimate includes funding streetscape enhancements along the route including sidewalks, lighting, trees, street furniture, etc. This will make the new system more friendly and walkable. The fixed rail transit is seen as a long term investment when real estate development decisions are being made. A projection for development along the streetcar lines in the first five years after opening is $540 million and a projected $2.1 billion over twenty years.

Article from: http://nextstl.com/transportation/city-streetcar