A woman rolls her eyes. "SIX minutes?" she whines, clearly exasperated.
She's waiting for the next Yellow Line Metro train toward northern Virginia. She's clearly used to the morning and evening rushes, where two minute waits are considered an inconvenience. But this is D.C.--its Metro system is the envy of many cities. In my eyes, she's spoiled.
Proposition A in St. Louis County can put us on the track to expanding our system and making it the best it can be for the realities of our region. A six-minute wait time for a bus or train will likely always be acceptable, even desirable, for St. Louis--but it will be unheard of if Prop A fails tonight. Buses every 45 minutes to an hour will likely be our (permanent?) reality. Our rail system, including its recent expansion, will suffer as well. Many eyes will be rightfully rolled. A bevy of groups won't even consider St. Louis as a place to live with such limited transit options--certainly not this woman trying to get to Virginia.
It's nearly 7PM EST here in Baltimore--which means, back home, folks in St. Louis County have another hour until polls close. Please vote yes on Prop A to ease the stress on our rolling eyes and tapping feet! Let's make spoiled commuters out of St. Louis's transit riders.
LINE AND PATTERN
1 day ago
4 comments:
The DC Metro is the bomb! Hmm, poor choice of words. Well, anyway. So, some friends of ours live just two blocks from the Columbia Heights stop on the Green line. When we first visited their townhouse, about ten years ago, it was nothing more than a hole in the ground. Oh, and um, prostitutes would apparently practice their um, oral trade on the other side of your deck fencing. Not a good nabe for many reasons. Well, long story short. Abour two years ago, we came up into the light of a brith sunny day, and our jaws about hit the pavement. On three corners of the 14th St.(?)/Irving St. intersection, there were three brand-spanking new high rises (for DC; height restrictions and all). Down the block, there was a huge Target, etc., structure newly built as well. In fact one of the other new buildings had incorporated the facade of an older building into it's mass. TOD, baby. TOD. Seriously, the neighborhood is hopping. At all hours of the day. Of course, people actually want to live in DC, and have reason to do so, regardless of the fact that alot of the jobs involve working for some company sponging off of that damn librul socialist fascist commie pinko Nazi gubmint. And the atmosphere for black folks is much better than it is in St. Louis. D-g, I love riding the Metro. So many fine women. Oh, oh, and the convenience. I mustn't forget the convenience. Yeah.
The DC's metro is a powerful comparison, but lest we fall into the typical STL inferiority complex, don't forget that a DC-area transportation advocate and blogger wrote that STL Metro's long-range planning process is a model for what should be done in DC
(As previously noted here.)
I'm really just jealous that the federal government threw 25-30 BIllion USD at DC for the Metro subway system. Hell, I wish we as a Nation could spend the same amount on most of our other large cities, including St. Louis. Unfortunately, we don't have anything approaching a rational and balanced transportation policy. Of course, if we decreased the "defense" budget, that could free up Billions, and the ROI would be larger, proprtionally, than the money spent on the military. But...defense is one of the third rails of 'Merkin politics.
To be fair, there are a lot of shortcommings to DC public transit. Speaking from personal experience, many New Yorkers could not deal with the limitations of DC's system, which offers a good parallel for STL in my opinion.
Although I agree that this person may be a good example of being spoiled, she might depend of DC's public transit in ways that St. Louisans might have additional options (car pools, bike ride) which she does not have access. That being said, the wait in the evening is often 15-20 minutes (and I know folks in STL wouldn't wait that long).
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