Metro St. Louis = SECOND-TIER CLASS

"And now...the time is near...and so we face...the final curtain..."
--- Paul Anka's "My Way" (he wrote this - Frank and Elvis made it huge)

With a fateful, fate-filled announcement by the board of directors and upper management of the St. Louis transportation system leader "Metro", formerly Bi-State Development Agency, that come March 2009 there will be a system-wide purge of "excess" routes, employees, and other perceived wasteful expenditures such as expansion of the system to outlying areas, St. Louis becomes a true SECOND-TIER REGION. (You may already think of the city as second-tier if you live in the county, right?)

Has everyone in St. Louis County figured out where in St. Louis City they will be moving in order to become closer to their workplace? Of course, that is assuming that those who live in St. Louis County will want to continue to work in the city, after the recent (12/18 - 12/19/2008) announcements of the DEVASTATING cuts to METRO bus and train service.

I hear those who live in St. Louis County, St. Charles County, Jefferson County, maybe even Franklin County saying "Wait a second. What's devastating about cutting a bus and train service that I have NEVER used!??!"

Answering that question: You now live in a SECOND-TIER REGION because you never considered the ease with which you could have found a reason to use the former Bi-State now Metro system. And now, your failure to commit to that system is helping to kill a once-thriving metropolitan area which has something only a few others has going for it --- it is in the CENTER of the U.S. of A.

Yes, those who failed to vote in favor of a tax increase to fund Metro have DOOMED the St. Louis area to becoming a second-tier region (so much for the RCGA being helpful). Not one ounce of Federal funding will help erase the complete idiocy so many "NO" voters have shown, and in FACT there is a possible reduction of Federal funding as a result of the newly aligned system. The new phrase will be heard region-wide: "St. Louis, there is a problem." Forget Houston's problems. They may get the occasional hurricane, but Houston has left St. Louis in its dust. Corporate giants have moved to Houston and so have upwardly mobile people into the urban core of that Texas gulf coast town. Meanwhile, in St. Louis there is much that could have been great instead of grating on our nerves. There are the modes of transportation which have been allowed to fall well below the expected well-above-averageness that we took for granted 50 years past. RAIL: St. Louis and East St. Louis used to house more miles of tracks than almost any metropolitan area in the country, didn't it? HIGHWAYS: Being located at the crossroads of Interstate highways 55, 44, 70, and I-64, as well as U.S. Highways 40, 50, 61, 67 (Route 66 anyone?) means almost nothing now. We can't even get a decent bridge built because of bickering government officials. Instead of a consensus (hey Governors Blunt and Blagojevich the two jokers who have been more like Kings than actual servants of the people for the past four years) we get a SECOND-TIER bridge in...well, we really won't see it built until many reading this are retired or under the sod/cremated. And when will this truly come to fruition? The guesswork is that 2010 is the earliest that construction begins on a new bridge over the Mississippi River at downtown St. Louis. Oh yeah. RIVERS: St. Louis sits at the crossroads of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, just below the Illinois River, only a few hundred miles north of the Ohio River. But, with the problems of water flow on the Missouri River, flooding upon each river, and sediment blocking channels on a routine basis as the flow wanes and causes shipping delays, even the river system is lacking more so now than 50 years past. In the case of the rivers, the blame is MUCH LESS on those who care for it like the Army Corps of Engineers than of mother nature --- there's no way to halt what naturally occurs. There's the availability of oil due to pipelines which come close or through the metropolitan St. Louis area. But OIL: Refineries are rarely talked about in the region, but we once had a thriving industry in Madison County, Illinois, around Wood River, Hartford, Roxana, South Roxana --- and in case none of you have gone through there since 1980, those production facilities are probably putting out millions of barrels fewer per year than just 30 years ago when there was a so-called "oil crisis" and we sat in lines awaiting the purchase of gas for $0.58-9/10 --- I'd take the $0.77 cents it zoomed to during that time period ANY day of the week now. The point being that we no longer have as much available because the oil industry cut back long ago. And you get more curious about the price of gasoline and its fluctuations, but it could be worse and it could be better in the metropolitan St. Louis region.

Okay - these things be so minor in nature compared to that with which we deal upon our own in the financial sense, right? Not so fast. The cost of living in St. Louis has been generally among the best in the entire nation --- it was usually compared with San Francisco or Houston or even Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater because of population size and cost of living. Okay, that's been the past - and in comparison to the future of St. Louis as it is going, those other metropolitan areas will look like a great place to be when we lose more people, industries, and overall status. Houston's Harris County has a population of more than 1.7-million, which does not include other peripheral counties in the Houston metropolitan area. But it makes St. Louis look very weak against the 901-thousand who live in the combined "big 4 Missouri counties" of St. Louis City, St. Louis County, St. Charles County and Jefferson County. Grant that I did not take into the fold any metro east counties (Madison, St. Clair, Monroe, Bond, Clinton, Jersey, Calhoun, etc.) or any other counties in the Houston region. It shows that St. Louis is hard pressed in the population categories. So, suffice it to say that we're down the line in other population-based statistics there. But, we also lag on other accessible industries due in part to Houston's proximity to the Gulf of Mexico. We can't change that, nor can we change where the hurricanes hit our country.

Speaking of which Houston, you - seemingly - only have a serious problem when the hurricanes hit...and even then you compare favorably to the MO/IL area. Face it: St. Louis was hit with Hurricane-turned-Tropical Depression Ike in 2008 - and there were two Ike-related deaths in University City MISSOURI!!! Hmmmn. Maybe that's where the tide REALLY turns in favor of Houston. Houston had an evacuation plan which included their mass transit systems and other transportation-related services working in tandem with their Departments of Transportation and Emergency Management Agencies. St. Louis: (without a mass transportation evacuation plan for hurricane/tropical storm-depression-caused flooding) had to re-route bus service in September when a few major roads flash-flooded, and I'll bet only those few areas in Brentwood and University City were evacuated --- and perhaps one or two other areas that I have forgotten about but did not mean to slight. Houston figured on the need for a plan. St. Louis still has no plan for another tropical depression...and when that 7.4 Richter Scale earthquake ruins the region, the STL will still not have anything of an operational evacuation plan in place --- will it? Emergency Managers in the St. Louis region routinely warn us about the need for such plans --- and they produce them. When they do so, those men and women hope the public reads them and attempts to get the media to give such papers ANY publicity. On rare occasions, like when the late Iben Browning makes a stupid prediction, do citizens sincerely discuss the problems of "what happens WHEN the big earthquake hits here?"!!!!! Grant that the full-force of a hurricane will NEVER be felt in St. Louis, nor is there a likely need for a massive flood-related evacuation in the STL region. That's just a bit of dramatic and, perhaps, creative writing on my part to help illustrate my possibly-lacking-depth blog.

Okay --- enough of the rant for a moment to get back to square one. I'm discussing the St. Louis region's transportation woes and the lack of a good system of mass transit which will cause a due "downward progressive spiral".

It comes after the NO VOTE in November, on the heels of all those Tom Sullivans who feel the world will not come apart when they cry "you're raiding my money and not serving me with anything that is needed". What do you make of this, Tom Sullivan --- that you were the only one who thinks that the former board of Metro was not doing our region a justified service? Do you not think the current board is trying to correct those gaffes which resulted in millions of dollars in cost overruns for a service (the Shrewsbury MetroLink) which could benefit YOU PERSONALLY because it runs near your home in University City? Tom, you're not to blame all by yourself --- but, yes, you should SHOULDER some of the blame because you were crying "wolf" well after the rescue crews arrived on the scene, assessed the situation, and sorted out the ways to stop the bleeding from the wolf bites which had already ceased because the wolves (those contractors who should GIVE METRO ITS MONEY BACK despite that ridiculous ruling by the courts) ran away with the money they sought. (Tom --- how many times I have completely AGREED with your assessments of MSD mismanagement? I lost count. On this, you're well past overboard with the attacks upon Metro transit. We're all awaiting your "mea culpa" come the summer of 2010...you'll feel it necessary to backpeddle by then.)

The actual story came out on 19 December 2008: it's a picture of fiscal responsibility by the Metro board of commissioners. They are implementing a plan to balance the Metro Transit budget. It'll hurt St. Louis County and the region much more than that miniscule sales tax would have hurt.

Metro is cutting more than 600 employees, around 30 routes will be eliminated or severely restricted, Express Routes will be virtually extinct as will most service outside the I-270 loop in Missouri --- which says NOTHING about the Metro Call-A-Ride services which will be cut by a probable 15 percent or more as part of the gutting of the overall system due to a monetary deficit. Illinois commuters, whereas they are going to suffer from the cuts to MetroLink service and the additional rides that they once took in Missouri, will see fewer problems unless they can no longer make connections to the Metro bus system in a timely manner. But, yes, it will be a great inconvenience to Illinois riders and drivers, too. May I inquire how many more people will be forced to drive on the Illinois highway system because they regularly ride the trains and buses to and from work?

Why do I write about this --- prattling on and on? Frankly, I am a habitual rider of both the bus system and the MetroLink system. My family lives sprawled across the bi-state region. I will be inconvenienced by the Metro system purge as a result of the idiots who voted "no" on the tax increase at the November election and so will my sister who currently lives in Alton and rides the buses into St. Louis. And there are friends in Belleville, where I worked for a portion of 2008, who will be less likely to see some of us in Missouri with the cuts to the light-rail MetroLink service. What of those who STILL have jobs in Fenton? I can foresee the pulling of that 30X route to the Gravois Bluffs...to the commuter lots near the HQ of UNIGROUP and the other businesses in the nearby industrial areas from the system...thus cutting the number of employees available to work and the number of consumers who wanted to go to Ultimate Electronics at "the Bluffs" and buy their new HDTV's and bring them back to the Delmar Loop (What do you mean that you don't see these people? Oh, yeah...you - generically - don't ride the train unless you are going to a Cardinals or Rams game...heeheeheeheeheeheehee...HA! You won't be riding those trains any more, either, you "no" voting morons!).

Indeed --- St. Louis County residents will find out in March 2009 and again in 2010 how much they are inconvenienced by the cuts in Metro bus and MetroLink service when the traffic patterns shift dramatically along what there is of I-64/Highway 40, Manchester (especially Manchester) and the other interstates and heavily-traveled road routes. I will be looking on those whose drive time increases by 20 to 40 percent (some will see a 200 percent increase in travel time) with a thought of "Ha! The cost of gasoline purchases alone will have been enough to those drivers who didn't vote for the tax increase." I did say an increase of 20 to 40 percent drive time. Why? The DRAMATIC INCREASE IN DRIVING TIME DURING COMMUTES IS GOING TO HAPPEN for a great number of people in the spring and summer and fall of 2009 and again in the summer of 2010 because these cuts will have an impact upon who goes where and when they both leave and arrive.

That's right --- prediction of all predictions: St. Louis County "no" voters will pay out the nose for not having paid on the tax increase. "NO" voters - and almost everyone else who traverses St. Louis County on a highway - will pay at the pump and on the commute EVERY DAY.

Serves y'all right.

You may as well read this entire blog as: Welcome to the SECOND-TIER COUNTY of St. Louis.

The other prediction comes slowly as a result of this vote: Here comes the resurgence of the City of St. Louis.