Imagine long, articulated buses churning up and down Grand Boulevard — the St. Louis region's busiest line — where buses often are standing room only.
If you're a commuter, you may someday be able to take buses up and down major interstate highway corridors that tie the suburbs to downtown St. Louis.
Be prepared to welcome bus rapid transit, as it is often called. It is sort of a cross between traditional bus service and commuter rail. Instead of tracks, however, these transit vehicles run on rubber tires along dedicated stretches of road.
Last month, the region's main planning agency — the East-West Gateway Council of Governments — signed off on Metro's plan to order four articulated buses that are likely to debut on the Grand line. The council approved a $250,000 study of transit options on Interstate 55 between St. Louis and Arnold.
"Something is indeed happening," said Jessica Mefford-Miller, Metro's chief of planning and system development.
First, Metro and other transportation officials plan to move forward with a study of the four major highway corridors. Grand won't be part of this study, Mefford-Miller said. But the heavily used bus line is expected to be the first to use articulated buses.
Metro sought funding for up to 15 of these longer, segmented buses.
"Our intention is for Grand to be the first route to deploy articulated buses and that could morph" into bus rapid transit, she said.
As for the wider use of the bus rapid transit, that will depend on what the study turns up and the availability of federal funding once it is complete.
In its 2010 regional transit plan titled Moving Transit Forward, Metro said bus rapid transit runs at higher speeds and with fewer stops than traditional buses. The buses traditionally run on dedicated lanes, bypass lanes and separate "busways."
Based on Metro's 2010 plan, we should be expecting the region's first two bus rapid transit routes within the next few years. Other cities — including Kansas City, Charlotte and Cleveland — have launched bus rapid transit systems, Metro officials say.
Mefford-Miller said the study should begin in April, then take about a year to wrap up.
Beyond that, it will take a blessing from the Federal Transit Administration to move bus rapid transit closer to reality.
While this form of bus transit is less costly than building light-rail, Metro will continue to study additional MetroLink extensions, Mefford-Miller said.
Those studies will proceed, she said, on a different track.
Q. When will we be able to bike across to the Katy Trail from the new track/path that currently rotates around the Chesterfield area? Are there any plans that you may show us?
— Louis Laginess
The bicycle link from the Chesterfield Monarch levee trail to the Katy Trail will be built in roughly four years, said Linda Wilson of the Missouri Department of Transportation. As part of the new westbound Daniel Boone Bridge, the contractor will build a bicycle crossing at the Missouri River. Because it is a design-build project, the exact form that crossing will take has yet to be determined. The deadline for completing the new bridge at the moment is July 2016.
Q. When turning from Pine Street onto southbound Tucker Boulevard, cars in both the left and right lanes on Pine are allowed to turn. The left lane is turn only and the right lane may turn or proceed across Tucker. The only signage is painted arrows on the street and a faded dashed line designating turning lanes onto Tucker. When cars are lined up over the arrows painted on the street, a driver in the left lane may not know that it is a left turn only lane and may attempt to proceed across Tucker. If they can't see the dashed line or do not know the right lane also has turning privileges, it makes for a dangerous situation and has resulted in more than one accident. Some additional signage would be very helpful.
— Alan Kern
St. Louis Traffic Commissioner Steve Runde said the city will refresh the paint and add signs to inform the drivers that the left lane must turn left.
Q. At an intersection where one direction has a sign "Left Turn Yield on Green" and the other direction a right turn going onto the same highway on-ramp has a triangle "Yield" sign, which one has the legal right of way when both directions are green, but there is no left green arrow? The intersection that prompts this question is eastbound Delmar Boulevard and the on-ramp to southbound Interstate 170.
— Phillip Klasskin
At highway on-ramps like the one at Delmar and I-170, the motorist making the right turn onto the ramp must yield to the left-turning cars. The logic here is that the only cars that would constitute oncoming traffic — and thus require right-turning motorists to yield — would be those turning left off of westbound Delmar onto the ramp.
