some background: the st. louis metro system recently completed an expansion of its light rail system, set to open this weekend. the terminating station is in shrewsbury, near webster groves, and the system goes straight to washington university, where i work (and which has granted me a free metro pass). but here's the question: is there any way to get from where i live to the station, which is 3-4 miles away?

well, the metro claims that a variety of bus routes will be changing, and that, magically, there will be a bus that goes about a quarter mile past our place, straight to the metro. they haven't bothered updating that route so i can see how often it goes, but i trust them, for now.

how about by bike? today i rode to the station on my bike. here is my route. i have purposefully left it in maps form so you can see why google maps (and more particularly the pedometer i used here) is the *only* way to figure out bike routes around here. take a look at the area around the park: it looks like there's no way to get where i want to go. now click the "hybrid" button and zoom in. you can see the little path i took, right down, if you zoom in really close, to the little wooden bridge. apparently civic planners in st. louis are aware that pedestrians and bikers would like to be able to get to parks. good. it is even possible to see a route through the seminary that i took to get home--although this is technically partly on private property, and involves a very steep bit through the grass.

other bits of interest: on the way, on jackson road, i passed a house with so many plaster statutes i thought they must be selling them. also, the route goes through knights of columbus court. seriously? knights of columbus court? you're joking, right? much of knights of columbus court is taken up by a da-com office. so i guess if i want an office supply contract on the way home, i'm all set.

and the station? not so good. this thing has hundreds of parking spaces, but i only found one bike rack. with room for three bikes, tops. seriously. i guess there might be another rack somewhere, but i didn't see it. metro is probably figuring that most people who bike to the station will also want to take their bikes on the train. this is true of me. thus, i do not complain too much.

however, here's the thing: i've found a very safe route for my bike. i even found a traffic light route across lacede station road. it is very safe all the way up to about 100 yards away from the station, and then it falls apart. i can do the illegal but safe standby of hitting the sidewalk, but then i have to get across a four-lane road to get to the station. question: how, exactly, does metro think that people who live in shrewsbury are going to get to the station? do they all have to take buses or drive cars? is no one going to walk? there *seems* to be a traffic light further up the road, and this might allow safe passage for pedestrians and somewhat safer passage for bikes. but this is not in the least convenient for pedestrians: none will be coming from that direction. this is clearly all set up for cars.

i have emailed them to ask, among other things, what they expect pedestrians to do. do you think i'll get an answer? i was just starting to get excited about st. louis maybe finally getting serious about public transport, but it's a little disheartening that it seems to focus almost exclusively on public transport of people who would really rather drive.

update: the bus schedules are actually available, just not on the main bus schedule page. i received a same-day response from customer service, but the lady there says she's been too busy with emails to actually set eyes on the station. so, as for how pedestrians are supposed to safely cross a street with no apparent crosswalks and four lanes of traffic, no answer yet.