ST. CLAIR COUNTY, Ill. — By next spring, some Metro Link riders will have to pay to pass through integrated fair collection gates and fencing to board trains and cameras will capture their every move.
The first $6.4 million contract of a $52 million plan to make platforms more secure has been awarded, and construction on four stations in St. Clair County is first on the to-do list.
“We need to make sure that the gating systems that we're using work, that the layouts of the fencing in our security works,” said Kevin Scott, General Manager of Security for Bi-State Development. “All of these locations will also be configured with a roto walkthrough gate for large egress, ingress and egress for sporting events."
Scott said this was going to happen quickly.
Funding for this massive project comes from a combination of sources: $17.25 million is coming from Bi-State Development and the American Recovery Plan, $12 million from bond refinancing proceeds dedicated to security, $12 million from federal stimulus money from Illinois and $10.75 million in private sector funding.
“The private funding stems from the business community's belief that the Secure Platform Plan project is extremely important for the St. Louis region and essential to helping people to feel confident enough to use public transportation so they feel welcome and comfortable when riding MetroLink,” according to MetroLink’s press release.
Construction at the first four stations, which includes the Jackie Joyner-Kersee station, College station, Emerson Park station and Washington Park station, is expected to begin within the next six to eight weeks, and be completed by spring, Scott said.
Those four stations are part of the first of a six-phase plan. The second phase focuses on the Forest Park DeBaliviere, Central West End, Cortex, Grand, Union Station, Civic Center and Delmar Loop MetroLink stations. The design phase for that group is scheduled to be completed later this year, with construction at those seven stations expected to be completed next summer.
The goal is to have all 38 stations upgraded in about two years, he said.
Scott says more security cameras are also part of the plan.
“We are going from about 800 cameras system-wide to over 1,800,” Scott said. “All of those feeds are viewed real-time and a real-time camera center that just opened in our central facility at Spruce, the Metro Central facility.”
That means, “If you trespass, if you come down between the fence, you're going to be captured, your image is going to be fully captured on closed circuit television.”
Below are slides from a Bi-State Development PowerPoint presentation that explains the entire $52 million rollout and each phase:
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