[goat314]

Originally Posted by Doady

St. Louis' light rail ridership has not grown since 1996, and the overall transit ridership has fallen 30% during that time. Current transit ridership per capita and mode share is worse than most other MSAs of over 2 million people, including those with little to no rail service such as Austin, San Antonio, Las Vegas, Seattle, Pittsburgh... It doesn't convince me that about any anti-bus culture in the US. As I said, if people aren't willing to use buses, chances are they won't use rail either, and St. Louis is a good example of that. To have lots of people riding the trains, you need to have lots of people riding the buses feeding into the train stations. To argue about the merits of light rail vs heavy rail when you can't even fill the buses just doesn't make any sense.

To blame low transit ridership on a lack of rail is like saying that high crime rates in US is because of not enough police in black neighbourhoods. It's not looking at the root of the problem, and it's suggesting further division as the main solution to division. I think if there is difference between US and Canada it's that obsession with division, and that is the real reason so much of the USA cannot have adequate transit: dividing rail riders and bus riders, when transit is supposed to be about connecting people. If USA wants transit that connects more people, then it needs to stop trying to divide people so much, stop using transit as yet another way to divide people. Connecting more people together instead dividing them might help solve some of those huge racial and socioeconomic issues as well.

St. Louis actually has one of the more successful LRT systems for a metro it's size. It has higher rail ridership than similar sized cities Charlotte, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Cleveland as recent as 2019. The low ridership per mile is more to do with it going through literally rural areas in the Metro East (Illinois) to get to Scott Air Force Base. The system has expanded several times since its inception in 1993. Ridership has gone down ever since service cuts happened during the 08 recession and have never recovered. There were also concerns over some high profile crimes that happened on and near the city. With all that said, you still haven't provided any evidence that someone riding busses is a prerequisite to train ridership. Also, many people that don't have to ride transit aka "choice riders" do prefer rail over busses. It's just a reality in many US metros. Also, St. Louis has higher bus ridership than light rail.