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St. Louis County officials are holding off further exploration of MetroLink expansion and new rapid bus lines in North County.

“The pause is indefinite,� Stephanie Leon Streeter, the county’s director of transportation and public works, said in an email this week.

None of the routes reviewed by a consulting firm would meet minimum federal ridership, cost-effectiveness and other requirements, Streeter said. Federal money is needed to cover most of the cost, with a county sales tax covering the rest.

Some of the light rail or rapid bus routes studied by the county’s consultants would be spurs from MetroLink’s existing red line, which ends at St. Louis Lambert International Airport.

Other possible routes would link sites in North County to Natural Bridge Avenue and North Grand Boulevard in north St. Louis city. That location would tie into another proposed MetroLink expansion — one the city has studied, called the “green line.�

But the Bi-State Development Agency’s plans for the green line were already in doubt after Mayor Cara Spencer, soon after she took office, said she wanted to see proof the route would win federal support before she commited more money to planning it.

Spencer said changes shortening the proposed green line’s length and shifts in federal priorities raised concerns about the feds awarding the needed grants. The green line was envisioned to run from Natural Bridge and Grand to the new National Geospatial Intelligence Agency complex northwest of downtown, and then head along Jefferson Avenue to Chippewa Street on the south side.

As for the county, Streeter on Wednesday repeated concerns that no local funding source had been identified for part of the proposed North County expansion. That segment stretches several miles between the city-county boundary and the northern end of the city’s green line.

Streeter pointed to the city’s stance as a factor.

“Any potentially viable alternative off the Green Line necessarily requires city financial support to pay for the gap,� she said. “It would be premature to have a discussion on the gap, alignment proposals and associated estimated costs until the city has at least advanced the Green Line into active consideration.�

The county’s consulting firm, AECOM, initially recommended four alternative MetroLink routes; each began at the northern end of the proposed city green line.

County Executive Sam Page’s administration rejected those options in September 2023. AECOM was told to go back to the drawing board and study potential MetroLink spurs from the existing red line and rapid bus lines, using new rights-of-way just for buses or designated lanes on existing roads. The consulting firm also was asked to develop a hybrid of the four rejected routes.

A new AECOM report released recently by Page’s office reviewed five bus line spurs from the existing MetroLink red line; four bus line extensions from the proposed city green line; and one new MetroLink extension proposal connected to the green line.

The report says the MetroLink spur would cost at least $1.8 billion. It would run from Natural Bridge and Kingshighway in the city to the North County Transit Center, just south of Interstate 270 in Ferguson, where several bus lines stop. The estimated price tags for the special bus lines range from $260 million to $610 million.

Officials have not said whether they will now shift to new studies of potential MetroLink expansion into other parts of the county.

Among ideas looked at in the past were extending MetroLink northwest from Clayton to Westport in Maryland Heights, and an alignment from the end of the MetroLink blue line in Shrewsbury running to Interstate 55 and into South County.