St. Louis Essentials
- Pay and navigate using Transit app.
- Rail is decent, when it comes.
- Poor rail frequency, poor bus coverage.
Pros
- Rail is fast
- Easy to pay
- Day pass is a full 24 hours
Cons
- Poor frequency
- Poor coverage
- Not useful for shorter distances
Traveled March 2026



It’s there, but…
St. Louis has two rail lines and, presumably, a lot of buses.
I don’t recall if I actually saw a single bus during my visit.
Trains came about every 20 minutes. On a Tuesday. At evening rush hour.
Thankfully, the train stopped right at the Amtrak station.



Just Walk if it’s close enough
When the rail does come, it’s pretty fast. It seems more effective at moving people to mid/long distances. For local trips of a mile or less in/near downtown, the overwhelming consensus on the Transit app was that I should just walk.
Transit in St. Louis seems geared towards longer distances, and wasn’t great for just poking around town.


You buy a ticket on the Transit app and it gives you a QR code, which you scan to open a gate or turnstile.
I was able to ride the rail twice. Another time, I went on the platform, saw that it was an 18 minute wait, and also an 18 minute walk to my destination. So I just walked.
I wanted to try Imo’s, which is apparently the quintessential St. Louis pizza. It was not far from the center of downtown. There was no bus coverage.
Again I walked. The pizza was extraordinary.
