ST. LOUIS — The agency that oversees regional bus and rail service on Friday approved a study on Bus Rapid Transit, pitched as an alternative to a new north-south MetroLink line.
The board of the Bi-State Development Agency approved the change without dissent.
Talby Roach, CEO of Bi-State, said the light rail proposal, known as the Green Line, is unaffordable without significant federal funding.
St. Louis Mayor Cara Spencer asked Bi-State to consider the rapid bus line as an alternative.
The decision comes after officials this week moved to scrap plans for a new MetroLink rail line linking the city’s north and south sides. A rapid bus line along the same route, along Jefferson Avenue, could be more quickly built and more bike- and pedestrian-friendly, they said. Spencer and Roach also said it could cost several hundred million dollars less than the $1.1 billion rail project.
Officials had spent years planning the Green Line and collected roughly $90 million in a special city sales tax to help pay for it. Former Mayor Tishaura O. Jones promoted the line as a way to bridge the city’s north-south divide, attract investment to struggling neighborhoods and connect residents to jobs downtown and at the new National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency campus on the near North Side.
But the plan faced headwinds. The 5.5-mile line, projected to carry about 5,000 riders a day, had one of the highest per-rider costs of any project seeking federal transit funds. The project only narrowly secured approval from the region’s planning body, where suburban leaders predicted the project would fail to meet estimates. After defeating Jones in April’s election, Spencer quickly called for a review, and said no more city money would flow until she was convinced the project could work.
Then on Tuesday, Bi-State Development Agency — which runs MetroLink and MetroBus — revealed it would not seek federal funding for the Green Line, saying officials doubted the project would qualify.
Some now worry that the sales tax cash collected for the rail line can’t legally be used for bus service.
The 2017 ballot measure, approved with 60% of the vote, specifically said tax proceeds would help pay for “North/South Metrolink.”
Spencer’s office, however, has said the measure did not explicitly bar using the money for bus service.
What a bus rapid transit line would look like here remains to be seen. The concept has been described as a rubber-tire version of light rail: buses running more frequently than on standard routes, following a fixed line with station stops, ideally in dedicated lanes with signal priority at stoplights.
It was briefly considered here a little over a decade ago. Two routes were identified as worthy of further study — one running from downtown St. Louis to Chesterfield, and another running from downtown through north St. Louis County.
The Bi-State vote Friday authorized study of the new route, up Jefferson.
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Austin Huguelet | Post-Dispatch
St. Louis City Hall reporter
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