User:Millbrooky/Sandbox
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Contents |
[edit] St. Louis
[edit] Roads and highways
Like most American cities, the main method of transportation is the automobile. Use of the automobile is supported by the existence of many limited-access interstate highways (I-70, I-55, I-44, I-64, I-255, I-170, and I-270), as well as numerous state and county highways.
[edit] Airports
Lambert-St. Louis International Airport (STL) is located in St. Louis County about 15 miles northwest of downtown St. Louis, but is owned and operated by the city of St. Louis. American Airlines has a hub at Lambert and is the airport's largest tenant. Southwest Airlines, also, maintains a large presence at the airport. MidAmerica St. Louis Airport is located well east of the city in Mascoutah, Illinois adjacent to Scott Air Force Base. Constructed as a reliever airport to Lambert, it has failed to attract any major airlines, primarily due to its distance from downtown and low population in its immediate vicinity. Spirit of Saint Louis Airport, located in nearby Chesterfield, Missouri, is the largest of the area's several general aviation airports.
[edit] Public transportation
Mass transit is provided in two forms, both of which are controlled by Metro (formerly known as the Bi-State Development Agency): the city bus system and MetroLink, a light-rail train system that connects the airport to downtown and the Metro East (extending as far east as Scott Air Force Base near Shiloh, Illinois) and in Mid-County into Clayton, the county seat for St. Louis County, and terminating in Shrewsbury.
Passenger train service is also available through a new Amtrak station that opened in December, 2004. This station is a precursor of the upcoming Multi-Modal (transportation) Station that will serve as a hub for Metro busses, MetroLink, Greyhound busses, and Amtrak. The new station is expected to be completed by early 2008.[1] Other permanent train stations served by Amtrak exist in the suburb of Kirkwood and nearby Alton, Illinois.
St. Louis once had a moderately extensive streetcar system which ended in 1966. The Metrolink expansion mirrors some of the original pathways. A movement is afoot to reinstate limited trolley service.[2]
[edit] San Francisco
[edit] Roads and highways
Because of its unique geography — making beltways somewhat impractical — and the results of the freeway revolts of the late 1950s, San Francisco is one of the few cities in the U.S. that has opted for European-style arterial thoroughfares instead of a large network of freeways. City residents continued this trend following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, choosing to demolish the Embarcadero Freeway and a portion of the Central Freeway and convert them into street-level boulevards.
Interstate 80 begins at the approach to the Bay Bridge and is the only direct automobile link to the East Bay. U.S. Route 101 extends Interstate 80 to the south along the San Francisco Bay toward Silicon Valley. Northbound, 101 uses arterial streets Van Ness Avenue and Lombard Street to the Golden Gate Bridge, the only direct road access from San Francisco to Marin County and points north. Highway 1 also enters San Francisco at the Golden Gate Bridge, but diverts away from 101, bisecting the west side of the city as the 19th Avenue arterial thoroughfare, and joining with Interstate 280 at the city's southern border. Interstate 280 continues this route along the central portion of the Peninsula south to San Jose. Northbound, 280 turns north and east and terminates in the South of Market area. Highway 35, which traverses the majority of the Peninsula along the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains, enters the city from the south as Skyline Boulevard, following city streets until it terminates at its intersection with Highway 1. Major east-west thoroughfares include Geary Boulevard, the Lincoln Way/Fell Street corridor, and Market Street/Portola Drive.
[edit] Public transportation
Public transit solely within the city of San Francisco is provided predominantly by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni). The city-owned system operates both a combined light rail/subway system (the Muni Metro) and a bus network that includes both trolleybuses and standard diesel buses. Additionally, Muni runs the F Market historic streetcar line and the iconic San Francisco cable car system.
Commuter rail is provided by two complementary agencies. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is the regional rapid transit system which connects San Francisco with the East Bay through the Transbay Tube. It also extends south of the city through northern San Mateo County, to the San Francisco International Airport, and Millbrae. The Caltrain rail system runs from San Francisco along the Peninsula down to San Jose.
The Transbay Terminal serves as the terminus for long range bus service (such as Greyhound) and as a hub for regional bus systems AC Transit (to Alameda County), SamTrans (San Mateo County), and Golden Gate Transit (Marin and Sonoma Counties). Amtrak also runs a shuttle bus from San Francisco to its rail station in Emeryville.
A small fleet of commuter and tourist ferries operate from the Ferry Building and Pier 39 to points in Marin County, Oakland, and north to Vallejo in Solano County.
[edit] Airports
San Francisco International Airport (SFO), though located 13 miles (21 km) south of the city in San Mateo County, is under the jurisdiction of the City and County of San Francisco. It is a hub for United Airlines, its largest tenant,[3] and the decision by Virgin America to base its future operations out of SFO[4] reverses the trend of low-cost carriers opting to bypass SFO for Oakland and San Jose. SFO is an international gateway, with the largest international terminal in North America.[5] The airport is built on a landfill extension into the San Francisco Bay. During the economic boom of the late 1990s, when traffic saturation led to frequent delays, it became difficult to respond to calls to relieve the pressure by constructing an additional runway as that would have required additional landfill. Such calls subsided in the early 2000s as traffic declined, and, in 2005, SFO was the 14th busiest airport in the United States and 23rd largest in the world, handling 32.8 million passengers.[6]
[edit] Seaports
The Port of San Francisco was once the largest and busiest seaport on the west coast. It featured rows of piers perpendicular to the shore, where cargo from the moored ships was handled by cranes and manual labor and transported to nearby warehouses. The port handled cargo to and from trans-Pacific and Atlantic destinations, and was the west coast center of the lumber trade. The 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike, an important episode in the history of the American labor movement, brought the port to a standstill. The advent of container shipping made pier-based ports obsolete and most commercial berths moved to the Port of Oakland.
Many piers remained derelict for years until the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway reopened the downtown waterfront, allowing for redevelopment. The centerpiece of the port, the Ferry Building, while still receiving commuter ferry traffic, has been restored and redeveloped as a gourmet marketplace. The port's other activities now focus on developing waterside assets to support recreation and tourism.
