By Matt Sepic, KWMU
St. Louis, MO – Starting today (Monday) most MetroLink trains will run every 10 minutes during rush hour, instead of every seven to eight minutes.
The changes are part of an overhaul of bus and train schedules, most of which affect riders in the Metro East.
Metro planning chief Todd Plesko says most buses and trains are not being filled to capacity, and the agency needs to cut costs.
"We analyzed in detail how many people were riding at each station on every trip," Plesko said. "And we had been observing that we really had many trains in that rush hour where we had well below the capacity of those trains."
Plesko says 17 bus routes in St. Clair County will be changed or eliminated. Also. during off-peak hours, MetroLink trains east of Emerson Park will run every 20 minutes.
The changes will also help St. Clair County government about $4 million a year.
"When we analyzed these routes we looked very carefully at what the loads were, so this was not a meat ax approach to changing the service," Plesko added.