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No.1
rated work force in transportation and warehousing |
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Living and doing business in the St. Louis area offers many advantages when it comes to transportation — both locally and on a national and international scale. In fact, St. Louis is one of the few regions nationwide that enjoys access to four modes of transportation — air, rail, road, and water. The availability of so many options provides the community with some of the lowest shipping costs in the country. Most St. Louis metro workers live and work in the same county (64%). The remaining 36 percent travel outside of their county of residence to travel to work. In 2007 the average commute time to work in Greater St. Louis was 24.8 minutes, slightly less than the U.S. average. (1) The easy-to-navigate transportation infrastructure includes four interstate highways and four interstate linkages, which place the region at the nexus of the nation’s north/south and east/west interstate highway systems. St. Louis also has an effective mass transportation grid that features MetroLink, the city’s commuter rail system. MetroLink provides transit to Lambert-St. Louis International Airport, the downtown area, and several outlying suburbs in both Illinois and Missouri. In 2006, MetroLink finished a massive $550 million expansion that allows it to deliver commuting convenience to an additional 18,000 riders a day. The city’s geographic location is also advantageous when it comes to national and international travel. Located near the geographic and population center of the United States, Greater St. Louis has an international airport and a dozen regional airports, which offer quick flights domestically, as well as direct flights abroad. Situated at the confluence of the Mississippi, Missouri, and Illinois rivers, St. Louis is home to the nation’s second-largest inland port by trip ton-miles. With six Class I railroads and several smaller industrial railroads, the area is also the nation’s third-largest rail center.
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