by Jimmy Flatbush

Created on: December 28, 2010   Last Updated: April 27, 2011

Nestled at the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, St. Louis remains on of America’s hidden jewels. Thousands of people flock to St. Louis every year to visit The Missouri Botanical Center, St. Louis Zoo, and Gateway Arch. Moreover, St. Louis is experiencing an urban renaissance, led by an influx of people whose career paths have merged into the Gateway to the West. How do the visitors and newly relocated denizens of St. Louis get around this rising star?

For years, the city’s public transportation system did not meet demand. St. Louis’ dire need of an upgraded public transportation system was due to the uncoordinated sequencing of buses and the lack of a light rail system. In 1993, public officials addressed the light rail issue with the opening of a rail line that ran to and from Lambert International airport. Metro, the public transportation agency, constructed an additional rail line in 2002 for people traveling to the county hub of Clayton. It was not until 2009, when voters approved an overdue sales tax increase, that Metro coordinated bus and train schedules.

The metro train red line runs from Lambert International Airport to Scott Air Force Base. While initially constructed to shuttle military personnel from the busy base, the red line became a way for people to visit cultural amenities such as the world class zoo and art museum in Forest Park. The red line also stops at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, Barnes Jewish Hospital, Union Station, Busch Stadium, and Laclede’s Landing before heading over the Mississippi River into Illinois. The Blue line takes travelers from the inner suburb of Shrewsbury to the Illinois town of Belleville. The train makes two stops in Clayton and two stops at Washington University. Forest Park is where the red and blue lines converge, and run on the same tracks towards downtown. One important caveat for out of town visitors: Forest Park is the last chance for you to switch from the blue line train to the red line train. If you pass Forest Park heading west on the blue line, you need to backtrack to the Forest Park station in order to catch the red line to Lambert.

Up until 2009, downtown St. Louis was the traffic hub for dozens of bus routes. The revitalization of downtown, coupled with increased bus traffic, slowed commuters within downtown’s twelve square blocks. Metro commissioners solved the traffic imbroglio by devising a strategy that moved the downtown hub outside of

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