Bi-State Development Agency
The Bi-State Development Agency is an interstate compact established between Missouri and Illinois in 1949. This compact created an organization that has broad powers in seven county-level jurisdictions. Bi-State operates five enterprises, including the Gateway Arch Riverfront, Metro Transit, the St. Louis Downtown Airport, the St. Louis Regional Freightway and the Bi-State Development Research Institute.
History
Bi-State Development was established on September 20, 1949, by an interstate compact which was approved by the United States Congress and signed by President Harry S. Truman on August 31, 1950. This compact created an organization that has broad powers in seven county-level jurisdictions, giving Bi-State the ability to plan, construct, maintain, own and operate bridges, tunnels, airports and terminal facilities, plan and establish policies for sewage and drainage facilities and other public projects, and issue bonds and exercise such additional powers as conferred upon it by the legislatures of both states. Funding is received from local, state and federal sources through grant, contract and sales tax revenue. Bi-State does not have taxing authority but is authorized to collect fees from the operation of its facilities.Today, Bi-State is organized as one parent organization with five enterprises including the Gateway Arch Riverfront, Metro Transit, St. Louis Downtown Airport, the St. Louis Regional Freightway and the Bi-State Development Research Institute. In 2003, the agency and its enterprises began operating as Metro. In 2015, the Bi-State Development name would be resurrected for the parent organization and the public transit enterprise renamed Metro Transit.
In 1954, Bi-State completed a study of St. Louis County's sewage system which would lead to the creation of the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District in February that same year. In the 1960s, Bi-State facilitated several agreements that would change infrastructure and governance in the St. Louis region. In 1962, Bi-State entered an agreement with the National Park Service that allowed for the construction of the Gateway Arch trams and in 1963, using a $26.5 million bond issue, the firm purchased 15 private transit operators and created the St. Louis region's first unified mass transit system. In 1964, Bi-State purchased the closed Parks Metropolitan Airport in Cahokia Heights, Illinois and reopened it in 1965 as the St. Louis Downtown Airport. That same year, Bi-State was instrumental in the creation of the East-West Gateway Council of Governments, the St. Louis region's metropolitan planning organization.
In the mid-1970s, Bi-State took over as the regional coordinator for the Port of Metropolitan St. Louis and was one of the first transit operators in the United States to operate wheelchair accessible buses. In 1989, the agency would purchase the historic Eads Bridge during the planning of the area's initial MetroLink light rail line. That first line would open in 1993 and see subsequent expansions in 2001, 2003, and 2006. The St. Louis Regional Freightway was founded in 2015 to enhance the region’s network of freight infrastructure and to advance the bi-state area as a freight and multimodal hub.
In February 2022, Bi-State's Board of Commissioners voted to allow Metro Transit to take over operation of the troubled Loop Trolley. In August of the same year, East-West Gateway voted to provide $1.26 million in funding to Metro for long term operation of the trolley. Currently the Loop Trolley operates on a seasonal schedule between April and October.
In 2023, construction began on a MetroLink extension to MidAmerica St. Louis Airport in Mascoutah, Illinois with an expected opening in 2026. That same year, Bi-State's board approved a memorandum of understanding authorizing the Bi-State and Metro teams to develop the Green Line MetroLink expansion with the City of St. Louis.