Shrewsbury-Lansdowne I-44 — Local services in St. Louis

I dont ride regularly, but when I do its usually pretty convenient. While the trains don't run as frequently as they do in places like Chicago, a quick google search before you plan on taking it will save you having to wait 20 minutes on a platform.

The fact that a ticket also includes bus transfer means its pretty easy to get to most spots in the city. I live a few miles from the nearest station, so I take the bus. Both run about every 20 minutes or so, and it seems like some thought went into the routes since I never have to wait more than 5 minutes for a train after getting off the bus.

A lot of common criticism I hear about Metrolink is that the "wrong crowds" ride it, its dangerous, etc. It's all pretty much nonsense. I'm not sure what the right crowd would be, but its used heavily by WashU and SLU students getting around. I see a lot of Blues and Cardinals fans on it as well. If your worried about safety - I always see transit authority manning the platforms, and while you sometimes get on a car with obnoxious people, its no different than being in a crowd anywhere else.

Overall I wish it serviced more locations and had a farther reach out west. However, as a pragmatic person living in St Louis I realize that they operate on a pretty limited budget at the mercy of outraged county denizens who bemoan any attempt to expand it. Taking that into consideration, it's an overall great system that I use...

Nice central location for transit. I didn't immediately see where the #9 bus lines up, and thought I'd gotten off at the wrong place.

While trying to figure that out on my phone, I was approached by someone being...strange. Stood a ways from me and said, "Hey there." Thought they might be on a phone. "God bless you today." I'm not religious but I at least hoped the person was proselytizing instead of creeping, so I said, "Mmm, thanks, you too." This led into a long mumbled speech about how we all have bad days, and then a recounting of how he'd gotten there... You can't trust folks at bus stops and I couldn't tell his intentions, so I hate to say I told him I was at the wrong station and walked in the opposite direction. Always better safe than sorry, gotta trust your instincts at the risk of seeming a bit rude.

Twenty minutes later, after finding the bus and finding out it didn't leave for ANOTHER twenty minutes, it was me talking to strangers, but I was direct and friendly. "Excuse me, is there a bathroom? Anywhere around here?" There wasn't and I almost walked to a nearby gas station! Please please add in a restroom here. It's...

Free parking? Yes, please. And my Sprinter van was perfectly fine when I returned at the end of the day? Fantastic!

I didn't want to deal with finding parking for a 10 foot tall van in downtown so I opted to take the train into the city. This was super easy. Big parking lot with plenty of room (I guess downtown still hasn't recovered from COVID and remote work), I found a spot where there was plenty of eyes so I could worry a little less.

I bought round trip tickets from the vending machine which popped out both. I validated one and saved the other for later. On the platform, the train was waiting and a few minutes after I boarded, it started the journey. Plenty of seating on board at 7:45 am though there was one annoying dude playing rap music without headphones. No one else said anything, so I...