Still time to get on board with your own Ten Toes and Metro for a great Walking program this Spring!

Almost 7,500 active area residents, many over the age of 60, are better realizing the benefits of our region’s public transit system thanks to Citizens for Modern Transit’s Ten Toe Express program. By demonstrating how to use MetroLink, MetroBus and their own two feet to get around town, the program is increasing their independence, accessibility and overall health. The Ten Toe Express walking program will hit the streets on Wednesday, April 10 for the Spring 2013 session and run for twelve weeks. There is still time to get on board with your own Ten Toes and Metro at www.tentoes.cmt-stl.org, info@cmt-stl.org or call 314.231.7272.

This season’s kickoff highlights the newly renovated Central Library in the heart of Downtown St. Louis. Participants will meet at the Shrewsbury MetroLink Station at 9 a.m. to catch the train for downtown St. Louis and a docent led tour of the Library located on Olive.

The Ten Toe Express program is designed to help area residents increase their independence, accessibility and overall health by learning how to utilize MetroBus and the MetroLink when heading to countless numbers of St. Louis area destinations. Online tools and the ability to join as many as 60 different guided walk tours during the 12 week spring session make it easy for individuals to familiarize themselves with the process. Ten Toe Walk Maps, with very detailed directions to as many as 100 different regional destinations, are available for those who prefer self-guided tours.

The program also aims to improve overall health by providing access to walking and eating logs, checklists, tools to measure and record steps, stretching tips, background on the benefits of exercise, transit tickets and nutritional education.

We are ecstatic to see the large number of participants out celebrating their own ten toes in 2013 by participating in the program.  Once they try transit, they see how easy it is to navigate, and experience all of its benefits – they are sold. Individuals who have tried transit for the first time through the Ten Toe program are now relying on it to get to and from ball games, concerts and special outings, as well as to doctors appointments and the grocery store and to run personal errands. We are seeing more and more St. Louis older adults using transit to get around. It is fantastic.

The newly renovated Central Library, a Beaux Art Italian Renaissance building design by Cass Gilbert, is now reopened in downtown St. Louis. On December 9, 2012, the building reopened after a closure since June 2010 for an extensive restoration and renovation. Beautifully designed rooms on the 2^nd floor now resemble the way rooms looked when the building opened in 1912. Bright new enlarged spaces for children and teens occupy the 1^st floor as well as a new accessible entrance on Locust Street. Come see what Central Library has in store for the next 100 years!

Additional special walks this year will included a tour of the North Riverfront led by a local historian and a special walk of Belleville Historic neighborhoods in June.  

To learn more about the Ten Toe Program, visit www.tentoes.cmt-stl.org or call Citizens for Modern Transit at 314-231-7272. Funding for this project is provided by the St. Clair County Transit District through an Illinois Congestion Mitigation and Quality Improvement grant.

Citizens for Modern Transit is a not-for-profit organization in St. Louis whose mission is to expand the light rail system in order to build more sustainable, accessible communities in the region.