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Citizen in transition
(by Kara Krekeler - July 07, 2010)
Almost every day for the past 17 years, Tom Shrout has walked 1.1 miles from his Central West End home to the Central West End MetroLink station so he could take the train to work downtown.
But this fall that tradition will end. Executive director of Citizens for Modern Transit for the past 22 years, Shrout announced his resignation from the advocacy organization in June. His last day will be Aug. 31.
“CMT could benefit from a fresh set of eyes,” Shrout said. “It’s basically had one personality for most of its life.”
Challenging work
Citizens for Modern Transit was incorporated in December 1985, with late Central West End resident Sandra Kling serving as the fledgling organization’s first executive director. With the board of directors, Kling “laid a great groundwork” for the organization, and for Shrout, who took over as executive director in 1988.
“CMT was thought, in its early years, to be a temporary organization,” Shrout said. “The original mission was to get public support for MetroLink and get people riding it. But there’s always the next thing.”
When Shrout joined CMT, transit in St. Louis was in a dismal state, complicated by a general lack of funding and a decline in downtown-based jobs. Civic organizations were trying to build support for a light-rail line, but were running into problems, not the least of which was trying to explain exactly what light rail meant.
“A lot of people didn’t know what light rail was. They had a vision of a diesel engine pulling a couple of coaches,” Shrout said.
Other challenges included trying to convince people why the line was necessary. Shrout said that a lot of people questioned why people would want to travel from East St. Louis to the airport, either ignoring or simply not understanding that there would be several stops between the two.
Once the initial MetroLink line opened in 1993, however, people began to understand how the system worked, and use of public transit picked up significantly, Shrout said.
After the challenges of the first line, Shrout said he expected that the Cross-County extension from Forest Park to Shrewsbury would be easy to promote; after all, CMT and Metro didn’t have to start from scratch this time around. But an opposition group fought to have the new extension go underground in Clayton, a move that increased the price of the project significantly, Shrout said.
Construction of the Cross-County extension was plagued by cost overruns and delays before it finally opened a year late and $126 million over budget in August 2006. A lawsuit and counter-suit between Metro and the Cross County Collective — the project’s original general contractor, which was fired in 2004 — left a bad taste in the mouths of voters and funding for transit in jeopardy.
In February 2008, distrust of Metro came to a head as St. Louis County voted down a half-cent sales tax increase that would have provided operational funding for Metro, as well as funding for another MetroLink extension. But the tax increase’s defeat led to Metro cutting service in March 2008.
“I still don’t think I’m ready to talk about that yet,” Shrout said of the fallout from the Cross-County construction.
What Shrout is ready to talk about is Proposition A, the second — and successful — attempt to get the sales tax passed in the county. The April vote triggered a similar tax passed in 1997 by the city of St. Louis and allowed Metro to both plan for its future and restore the service that had been cut in 2008; the first phases of that restoration went into effect in late June.
Shrout and CMT led the advertising campaign for Prop A, shifting the focus from Metro the organization to public transit itself. “Our polling showed that people liked transit 10 points more than they liked Metro,” Shrout said. “We had to focus on transit and forget about who ran the system. We got huge positive feedback from that.”
Prop A’s passage may also have been helped by the jolt some voters received when the service cuts went into effect.
“It’s almost like, I’ve never had the fire department to my house, but I understand it’s important to have it,” he said. “I think people are starting to understand the same thing about transit.”
Still advocating for transit
With the passage of Prop A, Metro and CMT will soon have another MetroLink extension to campaign for. Construction on the next line — route to be determined — is set to happen sometime in the next 10 years. While Shrout said he’ll support that extension, he’ll be doing it as an advisor to CMT’s board of directors, rather than as an instrumental player in the campaign.
“I still plan on having an association with CMT, but I don’t want to detract from whoever replaces me,” he said. The CMT board of directors is currently searching for Shrout’s replacement. Shrout said that the next executive director would likely be announced in early August.
Instead, Shrout said he plans on helping other cities across the country with their transit issues through his new consulting business, Avvante Partners. After two back-to-back tax campaigns — which Shrout compared to running for president — he said he’s ready to work on something on a part-time basis.
“I want to go out and help other cities move along, but by working on shorter projects,” he said. “The next light-rail line will be 10 years down. I don’t want to work on a 10-year project.”
Shrout said he also hopes to work on the next federal transportation bill through his association with the National Association of Public Transportation Advocates, for which he serves as chair. Ideally, that bill would help the highway system, promote high-speed rail and be transit-friendly, he said.
Whatever he works on next, Shrout’s intentionally leaving CMT on a high note in the hopes that it will help draw clients to Avvante Partners. “Without trying to sound glib, in terms of the transportation industry, I’m never going to be viewed any smarter than I am now with Prop A’s passage. I’m just looking for a change.”
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