St. Louis Streetcar Dies a Noisy Death

Built at a cost of $51 million, St. Louis’ streetcar line made its last run in December, 2019 when the organization operating it ran out of funds. Fittingly, it broke down on its very last run and its passengers had to walk the last few blocks of the route.

Built at a cost of $51 million, the trolley opened in November, 2018 after a decade of planning and construction. Proponents predicted it would carry 400,000 riders in its first year. In fact, it carried only about 20,000 and fare revenues didn’t come close to covering operating costs.

Streetcar lovers hoped that St. Louis’ regional transit agency, which can’t seem to decide whether to call itself Metro (the name used by numerous other transit agencies) or Bi-State (which is boring but at least original), would take over the streetcar. Last week, Bi-State’s CEO said he was prepared to take it over provided he could require every business along the line to buy a monthly pass for all of their employees.

That was a non-starter, particularly since few employees would find the 2-mile line to be a useful part of their journey to work. So, it wasn’t surprising when, a couple of days later, the Bi-State board of directors voted down a proposal to run the trolley.

Concomitant administration of this medicine and any of the following drugs is contraindicated: cisapride, pimozide, astemizole, terfenadine and ergotamine or dihydroergotamine .There have been postmarketing reports of drug interactions when clarithromycin and/or erythromycin are coadministered with cisapride, pimozide, astemizole, or terfenadine resulting in cardiac arrhythmias (QT prolongation, ventricular tachycardia, ventricular fibrillation, and torsade de pointes) most likely due to inhibition of metabolism of these drugs are the same. female viagra uklevitra. Any men of any age group may suffer from erectile dysfunction as it happens due to lack of self-confidence, lack of satisfaction in their own lives and relationships with their partners, and frustration due to their safe and effective treatment of sexual dysfunction. viagra in india http://icks.org/n/data/ijks/1482459755_add_file_4.pdf It also online cialis australia leads to difficult in urination. Endometrial ablation or hysterectomy, they are not generally purchasing viagra online acceptable for women who want to have their own babies. The Federal Transit Administration immediately announced that it would go to court to recover the $25 million that the federal government put into the failed project. It isn’t clear who they are going to get the money from, but as one Twitter user pointed out, the trolley’s board of directors includes the mayor of St. Louis and Bi-State’s CEO, the same person who proposed to require people to buy trolley passes whether they use them or not.

Should the FTA try to get its money back? On one hand, failing to do so might encourage more cities to build ridiculous trolley lines with federal funds. On the other hand, demanding that the funds be returned will discourage other cities from saving money by shutting down their streetcar boondoggles.

My sense is that the proponents of projects like these can’t imagine that they will fail, so they won’t take the threat that the feds will want their money back to be a serious problem. But if more cities shut down their projects, opponents elsewhere can use such closures to argue totheir city officials that streetcars are losers.

In other news, the District of Columbia has abandoned plans to expand its failed streetcar line. That’s not as good as shutting it down, but it will save money in the future. The bad news is that it is halting efforts on the project only “for the foreseeable future.” But we can foresee that if a transit-friendly administration is elected to office, DC will be one of the first to pull out its plans and seek federal funds.

Tagged , . Bookmark the permalink.

About The Antiplanner

The Antiplanner is a forester and economist with more than fifty years of experience critiquing government land-use and transportation plans.

4 Responses to St. Louis Streetcar Dies a Noisy Death

  1. LazyReader says:

    Nothing wrong with a transit friendly attitude.
    When they have an economics grasp first

  2. MJ says:

    From the description of the project here, the FTA was extremely negligent in approving federal funds for this project. How could they approve money for a project where the proposers didn’t even have a plan for funding its operations beyond the first year?

    Trying to claw back the $25 million they already spent is irrelevant, since those costs are already sunk. And what is to stop them from using the funds they manage to claw back on funding for a similarly useless and unworthy project? Federal funding for streetcar projects should stop, period. There is no compelling federal interest in these projects and the provision of federal funding seems to create all sorts of moral hazard.

    • raskrask says:

      Trying to recover taxpayer funds is not “irrelevant.”

      When fire stations have to close, or sanitation suffers, then the good citizens of St. Louis will realize that Plato was right when he said that “of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.”

      Having thus suffered, the good citizens will not allow such stupid decisions to be made next time.

Leave a Reply