St. Clair County Transit District

The Belleville, Fairview Heights, Shiloh and Swansea police departments will allow off-duty officers to patrol up to 30 hours per week.

The 16,000-square-foot facility houses a new St. Clair County 911 dispatch unit, office space for the county sheriff's department and backup equipment for the light rail system's control center.

The families of shooting victims criticized MetroLink security in 2019 and again in 2023 because no police were patrolling the Metro East stations at the time the crimes occurred.

The project — which will connect MidAmerica to St. Louis-Lambert International Airport via light rail — is expected to wrap in spring 2026, according to the St. Clair County Transit District.

The goal of the facility is to help make MetroLink safer for the region.

The 1.7-mile pathway will extend from Illinois Route 161 to Sullivan Drive in Belleville to Frank Scott-Parkway in Fairview Heights.

A project to change Belleville’s station will closely mirror one that’s been completed at the Emerson Park Transit Center in East St. Louis.

The $96 million project will add more than five miles of new track and bike trails to the existing light rail line to connect it to the county-owned airport.

A snack shop at the Belleville MetroLink station now employs people with disabilities, providing on-the-job training to a community that often faces…