Man Bites Blog

Apparently, we St. Louisans haven’t sufficiently re-arranged our lives so that MoDot can close a highway for a year:

Officials say they’ve noticed commuters falling back into their old routines. The peak travel times are 7 to 8 a.m. and 5 to 6 p.m. again, and officials will make a new call for commuters to stretch out their travel times so there’s less congestion.

“Falling back into their old routines”  makes it sounds like we’re  smoking and drinking rather than taking our kids to school and earning a living for ourselves.

I love how MoDot, whose job it is to build and maintain a transportation infrastructure to enable these things, shifts the onus back on us commuters.  If their plans don’t work, it’s our fault for “falling back into old routines” rather than their fault for not planning things through.

I guess we could take transit, instead! Oh, yeah… 

Also included is them closing a ramp that added 10 minutes to my commute tonight, out of safety concerns they claim are bogus.

Urgghhhhhhh ….

Metro has been billing itself as a remedy for the upcoming I-64 construction. The cover story in Sunday’s Post-Dispatch is the latest aspect of this publicity blitz.

What Metro is not publicizing is that not only are they not providing additional services on routes impacted by I-64 construction, Metro taking away service that will be impacted by construction.

At the beginning of the year, I-64 will close between Spoede and I-170. Metro has a park and ride lot at the Ballas transfer station at I-64 and Ballas, as well as two MetoLink stations within a mile of interchange of I-64 and I-170. One would think this would position Metro well to respond to the need.

Instead, Metro is eliminating the express bus service from the Ballas Transfer Station to the Brentwood I-64 MetroLink Station(258) and the Richmond Heights station(158x), running routes south along Manchester Road instead, which is completely useless for commuters who live north of I-64.

I currently use this service to commute from my Maryland Heights home to Brentwood. As a result of Metro’s odd decision, it is likely I will commute by car all the way, adding one more car to the sure-to-be-congested roadways.

It seems that this is the opposite of what should be happening — Metro should be rising to meet this challenge rather than working around it. They have been given additional funds to confront this challenge. For them to abandon the very routes most impacted by construction is an abandonment of their duties, and make their current publicity push a lie.