Federal Transit Administration says no to funding MetroBus
I’ve not written nearly as much (erm, at all) on the coming transit cuts on March 30th. Partially, I’ve been a bad blogger in general, but partially I’m just so upset I don’t even know where to begin.
A jumping-off point, then:
The St. Louis Beacon is reporting that the Federal Transit Administration has denied a request by East-West Gateway for Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality funds, in order to save a bit of the system. A lot of us have been crossing our fingers that this would come through. The funds have been denied because the agency says that this money is meant to be used for new routes to eliminate congestion, and the routes that Metro is proposing aren’t new. Instead, the routes replicate old ones that are being eliminated.
Um, after March 30, they will be new. After March 30, bus service will leave huge the area outside of 270, the Central Business District core, and other parts of the area. You can see the “Service to this BUS STOP is suspended” hoods over bus stop signs all over the metro area, like scattered tombstones. These aren’t bus stops anymore. But service here would not be technically new enough to get funded.
Moreover than splitting hairs over word usage, I really fail to see how giving St. Louis a few sorely, sorely needed bus routes would not help ease congestion, which is the entire point of this funding. Urgh.
Renaming the Sears Tower? Seriously?
Apparently a company called Willis Group is going to be moving into over 140,000 square feet of the Sears Tower, and they’ll be taking the name along with all of that office space.
The Willis Tower? Really? Ugh.
I tend to agree with Rob Powers, who recently commented on his flickr, “I am of the opinion that a building should only be allowed one name change in its lifetime. After that, it can only revert back to the original name.” Hear hear! Sears Tower, you’re about to use up your one free name change pass, and you were completed in 1973! Think very carefully: Is this something you really want to do?
Things get renamed all the time, and I know name changes are a way for building owners to make money in an awful economy, but the Sears Tower isn’t just some crumbling old carburetor factory with a nondescript name in the middle of nowhere. It’s one of the most famous buildings in the United States, to say nothing of Chicago. Do we really want to get all Scottrade Center on it?
