New Bus Shelters Help Shape the Future for Metro Transit

Stretching 12 ½ miles from downtown north to the heart of the county, the  No. 74 Florissant Corridor is a major bus route for metropolitan St. Louis. Metro’s existing transit shelters were outdated, difficult to maintain and unattractive. And there weren’t enough of them.

Hardly the image this progressive city wanted to convey as it embarked on an ambitious 30-year long-range transit plan for the region. “We wanted something that looked sharp, was easy to maintain, affordable and flexible with a long-lived style that we could expand and grow,” said Natalie Siebert, senior planner at Metro Transit.

Duo-Gard engineers provided all this in sleek, contemporary shelters that combine opal polycarbonate, tempered glass and silver anodized aluminum in an architecturally appealing style. To date, 20 shelters have been installed.  As funding becomes available, additional shelters will be installed.

The 5’ x 12’ shelters are a new design from Duo-Gard. New extrusions included rounded columns in the shelter’s corners, plus column covers to disguise the anchors at the bottom. The walls are 3/8” tempered glass.

The shelter roof features a built-in gutter – covered with strips of perforated metal – that’s part of the header beam. Five of the 20 installed shelters have LED puck lights providing illumination at night. These small but powerful lights do indeed resemble hockey pucks and add to the contemporary, streamlined appearance of the shelters.

“We wanted to add amenities at our stops, including seating and concrete pads. We wanted to add comfort for our customers and make commuting more attractive,” said Siebert. The results have been very favorable, according to Lance Peterson, director of service planning, “Customers are happy about the shelter additions.”

In fact, Siebert said, “People actually call in to say how nice the new shelters look.” She said plans call for discussion of adding advertising to the shelters in the future.