NextStop Blog
October 9, 2009
Take the Metro Poll at MayorSlay.com
Return to BlogMayor Slay’s website’s poll this week is all about Metro. Head over there and take the poll, but it’s one where you have a certain set of answers to choose from and no space to make extra comments.
Go take the poll, but then come back here (we’ll wait!) and leave us comments that expand on your answers. Tell us how you think Metro is doing, what we could improve and – if funding were available – what you’d like most to see, based on the answers provided in the Mayor’s poll.
We always want to hear from you!
Categories:
Took the poll. It seems geared towards county residents, given some of the questions. Also seems skewed to the side of more bus service of some sort vice trains. Maybe thats just my perception. Some of the responses I thought were a little _too_ cut and dried. I understand that they are trying to take a poll and tally results, but there were a couple questions I would have gladly commented on and couldnt.
So comment here! Which questions gave you more to say?
Who writes the words on some of the answer choices? Have they ever ridden public transit in their life? More on that in a minute.
First, it seems like Metrolink and Metrobus are being treated as two parts. They arent regarded as a “system”. In nearly all the questions regarding expansion and “what metro should do next” — it is a one or the other proposition. Along those lines, it seemed that every time you had a choice of metrolink or bus, the metroLINK answer was very short, while the metroBUS answer was more detailed.
Example:
Expand MetroLink service to new parts of St. Louis county
or
Improve MetroBus service, which would include modern buses at safe, well-lit stops, that arrived more frequently and offered more express routes
These choices (intended or not) almost seem to imply that if the bus option is chosen, it will be safety first with frequent and fast service. Or you can pick the train – which by implication may be none of the above.
Then there is this piece of a question regarding which way would be better to improve public transit:
“expand MetroLink which may take longer to accomplish and be more expensive, or expand MetroBus, which may be achieved more quickly and be cheaper?”
If the only two variables you look at in expanding public transit are time to get the expansion completed and cost to implement it, the train will rarely – if ever – win. Expanding public transit is a far more complex question than this, IMO. Its almost as if the poll want you to choose bus or train, but you cant have both. Why does it have to be ‘train OR bus’. Why cant it be train AND bus? Any expansion of metrolink would obviously mean adjusting some bus routes, and perhaps adding more. The train works best when the bus network feeds (and gets fed) by it…as part of a system.
Then there is the tax question. As a city resident, I cant vote on it — no blood no foul there, but how is THIS for an answer as to what argument would convince you to vote for the tax
“A larger public transportation system than the one now in operation would get more cars off the road and make it easier for my own commute in a car”
What? Really? A reason to expand public transit is so I can drive more freely?
Gah!