When the Cross-County Extension was built, the Forest Park-DeBaliviere MetroLink station was converted from a side platform to a center platform format to better facilitate transfers between the two MetroLink lines. For example, riders headed from Clayton to the airport can hop off the Blue Line at Forest Park and, ideally, find a Red Line train waiting to whisk them away on the other side of the platform, easy as pie. At worst, riders shouldn’t have to wait anymore than a few minutes to connect between the Blue and Red lines.
| Eastbound | Westbound |
|---|---|
| 7:57pm | 7:56pm |
| 8:07pm | 8:06pm |
| 8:17pm | 8:16pm |
| 8:27pm | 8:26pm |
| 8:37pm | 8:36pm |
| 8:47pm | 8:46pm |
| 8:57pm | 8:56pm |
| 9:07pm | 9:06pm |
The current MetroLink schedule after 7pm, however, is an exercise in frustration and futility for riders hoping for an easy transfer. All eastbound Red and Blue Line trains arrive at the Forest Park-DeBaliviere station 1 minute after westbound trains have departed the station. This forces all connecting passengers to wait 19 minutes for the next train, an intolerable wait for a connection that should take 3 minutes max.
If possible, Metro should delay all westbound trains by 1 or 2 minutes to reenable the quick transfer at Forest Park-DeBaliviere station.
This is why Clayton sholud have a direct link to Lambert airport by via MetroNorth Corridor.
Metro is abusing their tax dollars yet again.
Anonymous, I don't see how this has anything to do with abuse of tax dollars.
Metro North was never envisioned as a single-seat ride between Clayton and Lambert, but instead, Clayton to Florissant, still forcing transfers, just at a location closer to Lambert.But now, Metro North has been reduced to a branch extension of the Red Line from North Hanley to Florissant. And while this concept adds frequency on the most needed segment of the system (heaviest passenger loads throughout the day), it would likely reduce frequency of trains at the two Lambert stations, since every other train would likely continue to Lambert past North Hanley.Similar to Metro North as a branch of the Red Line, Daniel Boone is now conceptually a branch of the Blue Line. And while that concept also lacks a direct Clayton-Lambert ride, it would improve service frequencies between Clayton and Forest Park, where Westport and Shrewsbury trains would overlap.As Herbie pointed out is his story, transfers work, if the headways are minimal. Build branch extensions of both the Red Line (Metro North) and Blue Line (Daniel Boone), then frequency of trains at Forest Park will surely be improved. However, train service to Lambert may ironically decrease.The real one-ride dilemma will be how Florissant, Lambert, Westport and Shrewsbury (or Bayless/Butler Hill) trains can still all head Downtown. Metro will have to figure out how to increase capacity east of Forest Park as soon as any expansion happens in St. Louis County (other than the lowly needed MetroSouth). Red Line passenger loads are heaviest from North Hanley until CWE, with significant through-ridership to Civic Center. For this quandry, I'd love to see a new parallel line in the Central Corridor between CWE and Union Station that gets closer to the destinations (SLU, HSSU, Wells Fargo Advisors), but the lower-cost solution is likely just third-tracking the existing line.