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Getting Around: St. Louis, MO

✔️

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

Rusted elevated rail tracks from below, industrial area, St. Louis.

St. Louis Arch, illuminated at night, with a full moon framed inside the arch.

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.

Screenshot of Transit app. 14 minutes for the next westbound train, 16 eastbound. Two nearby buses are 9 and 21 minutes away. One-Day Pass - Full Fare is active inside the app, valid until 7:23 PM.

Significant wait for the next trains.

Metro train in the station. It does come!

Walkways separated by fencing, leading upward toward the exit at an outdoor St. Louis Metro rail station.

Stairs leading out of the station, near the aquarium.

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.

A hand holds up a partially-eaten piece of pizza at Imo’s.

It’s worth a trip to St. Louis just for the pizza.

A back street with abandoned-looking brick and concrete buildings. Elevated rail bridge further back. St. Louis Arch visible in far distance.

I wandered around and found a really picturesque part of 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.

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