St. Charles Area Transit, branding its service as SCAT, is a

public transportation Public transport (also known as public transportation, public transit, mass transit, or simply transit) is a system of transport for passengers by group travel systems available for use by the general public unlike private transport, typical ...

service located in

St. Charles County, Missouri St. Charles County is in the central eastern part of the U.S. state of Missouri. As of the 2020 census, the population was 405,262, making it Missouri's third-most populous county. Its county seat is St. Charles. The county was organized Octo ...

. The goal of the service is to provide mass transit access for these

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the Greater St. Louis, ...

suburb A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area, which may include commercial and mixed-use, that is primarily a residential area. A suburb can exist either as part of a larger city/urban area or as a separate ...

s, which are not part of the city's

Bi-State Development Agency Metro Transit is an enterprise of Bi-State Development, an interstate compact formed by Missouri and Illinois in 1949. Its operating budget in 2016 was $280 million, which is funded by sales taxes from the City of St. Louis and St. Louis Count ...

transportation system. Four local

bus A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a road vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van. It is most commonly used in public transport, but is also in use for cha ...

routes are provided, plus one commuter route to

St. Louis County, Missouri St. Louis County is located in the eastern-central portion of Missouri. It is bounded by the City of St. Louis and the Mississippi River to the east, the Missouri River to the north, and the Meramec River to the south. At the 2020 census, th ...

Routes

All of these routes converge on St. Charles O'Dell Senior Center. *I-70 Commuter - St. Joseph's Hospital to North Hanley *Orange Line -

St. Charles Convention Center The St. Charles Convention Center is a convention center in St. Charles, Missouri. It opened in April 2005 and is managed bSpectra The facility has a . Grand Ballroom, and . of Exhibit Hall space expandable to . through the adjacent Junior Ballro ...

to 5th & Boone's Lick *Red Line - 6th & First Capitol to Cunningham & Boone's Lick *Blue Line - Three Flags Center to St. Charles Convention Center *Green Line - Hwy 94 & Veterans to First Capitol & Boone's Lick

Plans

;

St. Charles City Streetcar Saint Charles (commonly abbreviated St. Charles) is a city in, and the county seat of, St. Charles County, Missouri, United States. The population was 65,794 at the 2010 census, making St. Charles the ninth-largest city in Missouri. Situated on t ...

: The City of St. Charles along with Whittaker Homes have formed a Trolley Committee and having initial talks about the possibility of bringing a

streetcar A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport are ...

system to the new city development called New Town St. Charles. At least nine

PCC streetcars The PCC (Presidents' Conference Committee) is a streetcar (tram) design that was first built in the United States in the 1930s. The design proved successful in its native country, and after World War II it was licensed for use elsewhere in the ...

were brought from

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

to make the system a reality for the heritage of New Town. The streetcars will run on a seven-mile loop that will connect from New Town to downtown St. Charles.

Criticism

Local environmental groups have been critical that SCAT isn't being serious enough to bring transit into St. Charles County, especially with

urban sprawl Urban sprawl (also known as suburban sprawl or urban encroachment) is defined as "the spreading of urban developments (such as houses and shopping centers) on undeveloped land near a city." Urban sprawl has been described as the unrestricted growt ...

in St. Charles County that is spilling over into Warren County, the construction of New Town in the floodplains of North St. Charles County, and several attempts by local civic leaders in O'Fallon and Dardenne Prairie to expand their civic plans across

U.S. Route 40 U.S. Route 40 or U.S. Highway 40 (US 40), also known as the Main Street of America, is a major east–west United States Highway traveling across the United States from the Mountain States to the Mid-Atlantic States. As with most routes wh ...

into the Busch Wildlife Conservation Area. Some have argued that St. Charles County resists expanding or integrating their transit system with St. Louis Metro Transit for fear of rising costs and a shift in ridership demographic. A few critics have accused St. Charles County's resistance due to "

white flight White flight or white exodus is the sudden or gradual large-scale migration of white people from areas becoming more racially or ethnoculturally diverse. Starting in the 1950s and 1960s, the terms became popular in the United States. They refer ...

" and the

New Urbanism New Urbanism is an urban design movement which promotes environmentally friendly habits by creating walkable neighbourhoods containing a wide range of housing and job types. It arose in the United States in the early 1980s, and has gradually inf ...

movement.

References

External links

St. Charles County Transportation WebsiteSt. Charles Area TransitNew Town St. Charles StreetcarsNew Town Streetcar Photos
Bus transportation in Missouri Public transportation in Greater St. Louis Transit agencies in Missouri {{Missouri-transport-stub