Why St. Louis is the way it is: pt. 42

The Riverfront Times: "Out-of-control shoplifting at the St. Louis Galleria. Violent attacks in the Delmar Loop. Is MetroLink a vehicle for crime?"

"St. Peters alderman Don Aytes remembers well the fears some of his constituents expressed back in 1998, the year MetroLink supporters tried to bring light rail into suburban St. Charles County.  "I thought for sure it would pass, and then someone on the MetroLink campaign made the decision to advertise that the train would connect Mid Rivers Mall with East St. Louis," Aytes recalls. "That pretty much killed it right there. Soon you had people saying MetroLink riders would come to St. Charles by train and leave by car — stolen car.""

"Ask virtually any store manager at the Saint Louis Galleria about shoplifting, and you'll invariably get two responses: One, it's out of control; and two, it's gotten exceedingly worse since August 2006, when MetroLink opened a stop just 500 yards from the high-end shopping center."

"More pressing to the Rich sisters is what they'll do if the police continue their crackdown on the teenagers on the Loop.

"Where else are we going to go?" asks Nicolette. "There aren't a lot of places where we can hang out.""

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further reading: 

RFT-  "Hear that whistle blow: Readers react with sound and fury over "Blood on the Tracks""

"Gatekeepers wanted: MetroLink needs to set up gates and turnstiles to force people to pay to ride, like most city transit trains. That would put an end to thugs jumping on and off. Also, it would generate revenue for MetroLink, since more than likely half of the riders do not pay as it is.

TD, via the Internet"

RFT: "More MetroLink Fallout: Post-Dispatch Editorial Board Farts in RFT's General Direction"

"Yesterday morning the civic-journalism digestive tract that, metaphorically speaking, is the St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial board defecated on Riverfront Times' front stoop."

St. Louis Post-Distpatch: "Thursday editorial: Crime, race and Metrolink"

"In November, St. Louis County voters will vote on a half-cent sales tax increase for Metro; its passage is crucial to the regional transit system. The question is whether what happened on July 26 will affect the voting and possibly undermine the region’s huge investment in public transit.

Irrational fear of crime, sometimes expressed in barely coded racial terms, long has plagued transit systems across the nation. Usually it occurs when systems seek to expand from inner cities to suburban areas."