Why I walk St. Louis with a bus pass in my pocket

As many travelers would agree, the quality of one's experience abroad (or for that matter, at home) oftentimes depends on the ease with which you can get around, particularly in big cities. And in big cities, the cheapest and oftentimes easiest way to get around is on mass transit. 

For instance, Rome's rail system is a bare bones "X", but it's effective especially when it's supplemented by its extensive bus system. Madrid's Metro is exceptionally well-developed and on time. New York City and Chicago get their jobs done, and in my experience, quite reliably. My hometown of Kansas City was also pretty good back in the day. I'm a fan of mass transit.

It's an internal ideological battle for me, really; while my urbanite and minarchist tendencies justify at least some support for mass, public transit under the notion that the government should help to facilitate the means of trade and transport to enhance overall commerce, the hardline libertarian and fiscal conservative in me screams that it doesn't matter, particularly if the system is wasting its citizens' money by providing unconstructive, unreliable service.

Which is what it's doing in St Louis; the Metro here is abysmal, a fact I've only now fully appreciated. 

One problem is that the Metro has no foresight. For instance, if you ask Metro whether it will ever get its routes published to Google Maps like so many other cities have, your answer will depend on what staff member you get. That's a real problem, because if you're going to convince people who don't ride the Metro that the city can get them where they want to go, on time, you have to make that information readily available. The Metro apparently has little interest in doing this. The foresight concern, however, is a secondary one, because that assumes that St Louis public transit will effectively get its patrons where they want to go at all; between unpublished schedule changes to usual -- and I emphasize, usual -- service delays or outright disappearances, a Google Map doesn't even begin to detail the substandard service the city gives to its citizens. 

But don't think this is just the opining of a jilted, intermittent mass transit lover. Having ridden the public rails and tires for the past few months, I know firsthand the problems the Metro has had, even predating its recent service cuts. You have to see it to believe it.

I have. Today, the main event was the bus line that runs on Lindell, which I take to avoid an otherwise frigid ten block walk down the street to the Midtown district. A neighbor and I were there five minutes before the bus's scheduled arrival and were there 10 minutes after. Figuring the bus wasn't coming, I started a walk that included 1.) a pause at every bus stop along the way in hopes I could shorten my trip and 2.) the dropoff of a DVD at the local Redbox, which as an afterthought forced me to actually double-back. Then I arrived at my destination without seeing the now-phantom bus.

Which brings us to the underlying issue: What are mass transit providers and mass transit proponents to do when the mass transit itself is so God-awful? I'm not impressed by the answers provided by my mass transit brethren. Today for instance, I was invited to attend an event called "Missouri Transportation Day 2009," which encouraged "transportation advocates from across the state" to join together in Jefferson City "to push for better transit funding." The suggestion made by the participants on the event's message board/wall -- that everyone take Amtrak to the summit -- would seem like the stroke of efficiency-minded genius.

But if you know anything about cross-state transit in Missouri, that idea doesn't make sense at all. In 2007, 144,000 passengers rode the rails that these activists will be taking, and during that time, the state subsidized those trans-state trips with $7.4 million of taxpayer money. 

For those playing at home, that's $51.39 per person, not counting the $18 it costs to buy a one-way fare if you bought your ticket today. That's a $70 ticket one way and $140 roundtrip. Missouri shouldn't be bailing out Amtrak in Missouri. It should be jettisoning it. 

[We'll also ignore that the second-to-last time I took Amtrak in 2006, my trip from St. Louis to Kansas City took 12 hours. When I called Amtrak to share my "thoughts," I was awarded with a free trip cross-state and was shuttled the first half of the way... by bus. 

That was my last trip on Amtrak.]

While we're on the subject, let's ignore the subsidy for a moment, and let's talk about buses. If you went to the privately-held Megabus.com, the price of your ticket to Columbia, Missouri, a nearby college town, would be $13 roundtrip, and assuming the government-backed-transit-or-bust activists could organize a car pool to the capitol, their gas costs would put their overall ticket to $20, maybe. No government support, yet the same goals -- efficiency, less pollution, etc. -- get accomplished.

It's not so much the amount you spend on mass transit that makes the difference in service and efficiency but how you spend it, and Megabus does it right. Its prices are competitive and, quite frankly, extraordinarily low, certainly lower than the cost of gas for private cars to most Missouri destinations. Its service is by-and-large reliable. And its online advertising and word-of-mouth cred is more than enough to justify pulling its ads completely from -- you guessed it -- the St Louis Metros.

So we've come full circle. I don't blame St Louisans for their decision not to throw more good money at bad transit, and until mass transit proponents understand 1.) that public transit which doesn't adequately and effectively serve the public shouldn't be supported, and 2.) that mass transit need not be "public" at all, then they will continue to marginalize themselves and our cause.

We should all demand quality mass transit. Yet until the time when St Louisans get it, most of the Metro's potential patrons will be taking a hike, though as I've come to find, the hike often gets you where you want to go faster anyway.