The St. Louis MetroLink is this city’s most underappreciated amenity. St. Louis is unique in having a Metro system that is so expansive — in the Midwest, only Chicago and Minneapolis have higher ridership on their rapid transit systems. Still, all too often, students deride the Metro for being too dangerous, woefully unreliable, and not serving the areas of St. Louis that students want to travel to.
I have always loved public transportation, and I think the Metro is a unique perk of St. Louis that most students don’t take advantage of. So, I did what any reasonable person would do: I rode the entire dang thing. It was a fascinating experience.
My day started at University City-Big Bend station on the Blue Line. This is one of the few parts of the Metro that I was previously familiar with, having taken the train downtown for St. Louis Cardinals games, concerts, and Mardi Gras in Soulard. But instead of waiting on the familiar eastbound platform, I went west toward Shrewsbury-Lansdowne. After zipping past downtown Clayton, the Galleria, and the Brentwood Promenade, I began to notice a common theme among these stations. While they’re located in car-dependent areas, each stop has something around it that serves the St. Louis community. For example, if you don’t have a car, you could take the Metro to Brentwood and shop at Dierbergs or Target without needing to pay for a pricey Uber. This should be the goal of every transit system — to take people where they want, or need, to go…