High Speed Rail is Dead, Time for STREETCAR JACKSONVILLE

[JeffreyS]

DT TCEA.??

[thelakelander]

Transportation Concurrency Exception Area: Downtown was recently designated as a Transportation Concurrency Exception Area (TCEA) to promote mixed-use development tied into mass transit options to mitigate the impacts of development on the downtown and surrounding roadway system.

http://www3.coj.net/Departments/Jacksonville-Economic-Development-Commission/Downtown-Development/TCEA.aspx

[Ocklawaha]

The general consensus here seems to think that public transit is only for poor people (and "them blacks"), so therefor they dont wanna spend any money or time on it because they think its some kind of charity case. You've absolutely gotta start opening people's minds, getting them educated & off of these bullshit notions. Even though this city (and country in general) has a rich history of rail & being kings of public transportation, it might as well been a thousand years ago as far as these people are concerned.

Now, I dont know exactly how you do that, but that it just needs to be done, because most folks here are still under the assumption that this is just how a city is supposed to be & a lot still have boners for their beloved automobiles.

JTA? ARE YOU READING THIS? ...HERE'S MY TAKE.

You are right in many ways my friend, Jacksonville's good citizens as a whole wouldn't know good mass transit if they were run over by the bus! Worse, I think many of our COWFORD COWBOY leadership is completely clueless, maybe even worse off then the general population who for the most part seem to have seen streetcars in old reruns of "Nash Bridges" on the tube.

JTA is doing a TERRIBLE JOB of getting out and meeting the community...

Send those buses out for events all over town, get them to blood bank drives, parade of homes, campuses, fairs, shows, conventions and events.  Bus shows up and if there is a way to get it involved as a shuttle, DO IT. Car shows? Monster Trucks? Baseball? Beaches? BE THERE! Elementary schools through high schools that have a truck day event should be counting on JTA being a primary display, hell take the kids and parents around the neighborhood, and leave them with the a litter bag filled with candy, route map, cardstock buses and streetcars to build, schedules, and those dynamite little bus flashlights.

NATIONAL RIDE TRANSIT WITHOUT PANTS DAY... YES IT'S REAL!

Get some REAL PUBLIC RELATIONS AND MARKETING going in the City and Transit System. Create transit events, and join in others to make JTA a community player.

"EXPOSE YOURSELF TO TRANSIT..." National No Pants Transit Day (GOING INTO IT'S 11TH YEAR) could become just another fun festival in town... and it WOULD star JTA. TV would carry it all over the state and people watching would laugh and think what a crazy and fun bunch, hardly the stuff Welfare and Food Stamps are cut from. People that would take off their pants (no nudity) to ride a bus are MUCH MORE LIKELY to be college and university age students and their friends, the very crowd who might not otherwise EVER use transit.

Get those buses together with the regional malls, town centers and large shopping complexes. No, we're not talking about a bus that runs to the mall, how about A BUS THAT RUNS IN THE MALL? Everyone complains about Town Center being a nightmare for pedestrians, SO STRING IT TOGETHER... Run from UNF through the entire curbside plaza to Costco or Best Western Bay Meadows. Get those INDY-YUPPIES on the buses free or at a deep discount like a flat .25 cents.  When you get Mr. and Mrs. Yup-Yup to ride from Publix to the Apple Store, and if you make it enjoyable and convenient, they'll be many times more likely to ride again, where it REALLY counts, taking one more car off the road as "CHOICE RIDERS."

Get JTA involved with large companies, such as the Southbank Corporations that operate extensive van pools, create "subscription bus services," with major employers and schools. Offer substantial breaks for Companies that agree to XX people using transit daily, allow them to build or expand without adding parking, offer tax incentives, operate the subscription schedules like a traditional door to door jitney. EXPOSE PEOPLE TO TRANSIT!

Coordinate services from St. Augustine, Green Cove Springs, Middleburg, Starke, Macclenny, Callahan, Kings Bay/Kingsland, Fernandina Beach... Even if it's just one or two runs in the morning and afternoon, make those the most desirable, comfortable, amenity filled hours of the day - but only aboard the bus! Work with the City to allow access to Downtown by St. Augustine, Fernandina and Clay Transit. Use a reciprocal agreement with the other regional agencies. For example the 5:30a, and 7:30a inbound runs from DOWNTOWN St. Augustine would use regular JTA coaches and drivers, and the 6:30a and 8:30a inbound would use St. Augustine SUNSHINE BUS, all the way into DOWNTOWN Jacksonville. EXPOSE JAX TO SUNSHINE BUS AND ST. AUGUSTINE TO JTA! In the evening rush, at those heavy stops on Bay Street, there should be 5-6 DIFFERENT buses from as many agencies, even though operation is coordinated and fixed in advance, it gives the illusion of a large choice of commuter accommodations.

Make standard buses, on route segments that are proposed for BRT, START ACTING LIKE BRT. Spiff up the schedules, add runs, betterment of stops, frequent headway's in rush periods. Break the mold - make the EXPRESS FLYER buses into "motor coach cruisers."  How about wifi, coffee/OJ and the morning paper, danish, 110 volt outlets, tables, reading lights, tinted glass, adjustable curtains and/or blinds,  individual air, overhead bins, office center on board, leather seats, restroom equipped?

There's a lot more, but this is enough to get the wheels turning. GO FORTH AND EXPOSE YOURSELF TO TRANSIT.

OCKLAWAHA

[Ocklawaha]

a whole bunch...because Riverside Ave (the part that didn't just get widened) and Park would require lots of ROW acquisition....in essence, they are practically impossible to widen

I need to understand this a little better.  Are you saying we need more ROW because the streetcar would run outside of the paved road?  Or because we need to a have a minimum 4-lane road to make it possible?  If that is the case, then I think that even further makes the argument for starting the line between the Central Station and the Sports Complex.  Bay Street has 4-lanes of travel and could/should be a 2-way street.

Does the streetcar have to go back & forth on the same street?  Would it make sense for a looped system that goes east on Bay Street, around the stadium, west on Duval Street to Pearl Street and back to Bay?  My guess is that someone has a great reason as to why that is a bad idea, and I am anxious to hear it.

Doug, here is a little map that I think shows the optium options for Streetcar North. Something I noted in your comment that we need to make clear to everyone. STREETCARS DON'T NEED STREETS! For all practical purposes they are a type of train, and can operate on regular railroad type track, though because of their light construction, they cannot operate on active freight track without a physical or temporal lockout ability for safety.

In round ONE of the streetcar war, back in 1980, the city rejected the streetcar and went with the Skyway because according to their study...

"streetcars are old, slow, little, AND MUST OPERATE IN THE STREETS AND COMPETE WITH AUTOMOBILES!" And people wonder why I think so highly of JTA'S "experts?"

Let's bust the myths:

Streetcars are about as old as tomorrows product, they can be bought off the shelf or special ordered in variations that more closely resemble space vessels then traditional trolleys. However traditional bodies on modern streetcars are great for atmosphere and cut the cost in half!

Slow? The Cincinnati and Lake Erie Railway, lightweight interurban streetcars, beat an airplane in a 1930's race at just under 100 mph, later another of their cars broke the 100 mark at Columbus Grove Oh... Let's see one of JTA'S buses or the Skyway match that.

Little? How's 8 feet wide and 120 feet long with an articulated multi-part body? Somewhere around 3x the seating capacity of the largest buses...oh yeah, and if we need more seats, we CAN couple another car and form a train, with a single operator, for as many seats as we want.

"MUST OPERATE IN THE STREETS AND COMPETE WITH THE AUTOMOBILE"

OCKLAWAHA

[peestandingup]

The general consensus here seems to think that public transit is only for poor people (and "them blacks"), so therefor they dont wanna spend any money or time on it because they think its some kind of charity case. You've absolutely gotta start opening people's minds, getting them educated & off of these bullshit notions. Even though this city (and country in general) has a rich history of rail & being kings of public transportation, it might as well been a thousand years ago as far as these people are concerned.

Now, I dont know exactly how you do that, but that it just needs to be done, because most folks here are still under the assumption that this is just how a city is supposed to be & a lot still have boners for their beloved automobiles.

JTA? ARE YOU READING THIS? ...HERE'S MY TAKE.

You are right in many ways my friend, Jacksonville's good citizens as a whole wouldn't know good mass transit if they were run over by the bus! Worse, I think many of our COWFORD COWBOY leadership is completely clueless, maybe even worse off then the general population who for the most part seem to have seen streetcars in old reruns of "Nash Bridges" on the tube.

JTA is doing a TERRIBLE JOB of getting out and meeting the community...

Send those buses out for events all over town, get them to blood bank drives, parade of homes, campuses, fairs, shows, conventions and events.  Bus shows up and if there is a way to get it involved as a shuttle, DO IT. Car shows? Monster Trucks? Baseball? Beaches? BE THERE! Elementary schools through high schools that have a truck day event should be counting on JTA being a primary display, hell take the kids and parents around the neighborhood, and leave them with the a litter bag filled with candy, route map, cardstock buses and streetcars to build, schedules, and those dynamite little bus flashlights.

If they are reading it, I doubt they care. I think they clearly know the deal, but I also think there are bigger forces at work here. Like I said, they've made public transit so bad that the only people who actually use it are those who are less fortunate & have no other choice, which in turn gives it a bum rap. The forces & influence of big oil/big auto are immense. They've basically forced everyone into the auto racket under the pretense that these things give us "freedom" & "individuality", when in reality its the exact opposite.

Its an old game they've been playing across the country for decades now, all the way back to National City Lines. I honestly think a lot of people just dont realize it & have just swallowed whatever the system has been feeding them. Which is why the best thing is to wake people us & make them realize exactly what's going on here.

This should be required viewing for anyone in this country over the age of 16: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=68X2MWAE