No Transit, No Transit Center, NO TO JTA! Ock's Rant!

[stjr]

some of the "day-to-day grinders" are heavily involved in the plannig aspect!

Then, fire them as well.  New management, new regime.  I suspect JTA is loaded with a bunch of a** kissers.  That's how they keep their jobs there.  Don't make waves.  Most of the good ones have likely moved on to an environment that is more professional.

btw, who are the nifty fifty?

There are likely several versions of the Nifty Fifty, depending on who you ask.  But one version that has gone public and likely overlaps with many lists, is below.  No doubt a few more lurk in the shadows.  I think it's clear many have great intentions for our community but that some have "conflicts of interests" between their pocketbooks and certain community projects.   This muddies the water a bit.  Not sure how to avoid this entirely given the power vested in their positions.  Public scrutiny is probably the best quality control point.  However, I am not sure how public this group will be.  Time will tell.

I sure don't see this group advocating for mass transit and less urban sprawl.  I think the most common bond they have is another urgent need in our community, education.  If they lick that they will surely be a "nifty fifty"!  

Group disbands, launches Jacksonville Civic Council
Group seeks to take a more active role in shaping city's long-term agenda.
Posted: February 16, 2010 - 7:28pm

Source URL: http://jacksonville.com/business/2010-02-16/story/group_disbands_launches_jacksonville_civic_council

By Abel Harding

Jacksonville's Non-Group, whose membership roster was often the subject of intrigue, wielded power in relative obscurity for nearly two decades.

Several members said they felt there was a leadership vacuum in the city, which needed to be addressed by a more public group.

After voting to disband the Non-Group, several members joined with other leaders in launching the Jacksonville Civic Council.

Initially composed of about 50 civic leaders, the council will raise $400,000 to hire an executive director, research issues and advocate for change, according to its chairman, Peter Rummell.

“There has been concern for some time that there hasn’t been a strategic public-private partnership in Jacksonville,” Rummell said. “This group fills that void.”

The group will use the collective power of its membership to bring focus to long-term issues facing the city by working with elected officials and other key stakeholders.

The group has commissioned a poll to determine the issues most important to Jacksonville’s residents. The results will be announced in a news conference Thursday.

“We are purposefully being public about this,” Rummell said. “We don’t want there to be any mystery, and we’re putting a little pressure on ourselves to be accountable.”

Matt Corrigan, political science chairman at the University of North Florida, said the group bears some resemblance to the group that led the city consolidation effort in the 1960s.

“It says we’ve come to a turning point in the city,” Corrigan said. “It’s important that these leaders speak up. We’re at a critical juncture.”

The Jacksonville Civic Council’s forerunner was an informal network of some of the city’s most powerful corporate leaders. Formed in 1993, the Non-Group focused primarily on educational issues, including supporting for the launch of the Alliance for World Class Education, now known as the Jacksonville Public Education Fund.

“There’s a lot of power in good ideas,” said Steve Halverson, CEO of the Haskell Co. and a former Non-Group chairman. “This group has the luxury of being independent and speaking truth to power.”

Rummell and Halverson said the idea for the new organization evolved over the last two years as the Non-Group debated whether to embrace a more activist role.

A chamber trip to Kansas City, Mo., inspired Jacksonville lawyer Lynn Pappas, then chairwoman of the Non-Group, to pattern the council after the Civic Council of Greater Kansas City. At the Non-Group’s December meeting, members voted to disband the organization and create the council.

Rummell, Pappas, Halverson and John Delaney, former Jacksonville mayor and now president of the University of North Florida, led the effort and selected the new group’s members.

Membership dues range from $1,000 to $15,000 per member and include mandatory attendance requirements. Membership is by invitation only and all members were required to make a three-year commitment.

“The replacement of the Non-Group with JCC is reflective of the times,” Halverson said. “There is a hunger in this city for more engaged civic leadership.”

Leaders say the group will be non-partisan, although it is understood that individuals may be involved in various political campaigns.

Corrigan said the group will face questions of how representative it is of the city and will have to continue to reach out to have an impact. Its composition is more diverse than its predecessor with the initial roster listing five women and at least six African-Americans.

“We wanted to be inclusive and we wanted the right people at the table,” Rummell said. “We’ve tried to represent the community while also including business leadership who can get things done.”

Both Rummell and Halverson expect the group to evolve over time.

The group will register as a 501(c)(6) group, which will allow it to publicly advocate and lobby for issues it perceives as important to the city’s future.

Corrigan says that’s where the group could really have an impact.

“Do you want to be the city councilman who goes against them?” Corrigan said.

In addition to the four former Non-Group members who launched the council, Civic Council members who were previously known to be members of the Non-Group at one time are Ed Burr, Carl Cannon, Jack Diamond, Ceree Harden, Herb Peyton, Michael Ward and Wayne Weaver.

Susie Wiles, former aide to Mayor John Peyton and current partner at IF Marketing & Advertising, who assisted with the new group’s formation, will serve as the group’s interim executive director while a nationwide search is conducted for a permanent one.

The first meeting of the new group will be tonight at the River Club.

Jacksonville Civic Council members

Chester Aikens, Chester Aikens DDS

Ron Autrey, President, Miller Electric

Doug Baer, Brooks Health System

John Baker, Director, Patriot Transportation Holding

Edward E. Burr, President & CEO, GreenPointe Holdings, LLC

Walt Bussells, Exec. V.P. & CFO, GreenPointe Holdings, LLC

Carl Cannon

Jeff Carbiener, President & CEO, LPS

Alvin Carpenter (Pete)

Gary Chartrand, Chairman, Acosta Sales & Marketing

Robert M. Clements, Chairman & CEO, EverBank

John A. Delaney, President, University of North Florida

Jack Diamond, President, Rink Design Partnership, Inc.

James A. Dickenson, Managing Director & CEO, Jacksonville Electric Authority

Fred Franklin, Rogers Towers, P.A.

Nathaniel Glover, University of North Florida

Tim Goldfarb, Shands Health Care

Michael J. Grebe, CEO, Interline Brands

A. Hugh Greene, FACHE, President & CEO, Baptist Health

Steve T. Halverson, President & CEO, The Haskell Company

Preston Haskell, Chairman, The Haskell Company

M.C. “Ceree” Harden III, CEO & Chairman of the Board, Harden

Leerie T. Jenkins, Jr., Chairman & CEO, Reynolds, Smith & Hills

Howard Korman, General Manager, St. Johns Greyhound Park

Marty Lanahan, Regions Bank

Rad Lovett, Lovett Miller

Robert I. Lufrano, MD, Chairman of the Board & CEO, Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Florida, Inc.

Kelly Madden, Wells Fargo

W.A. McGriff, III (Mac)

Rusty Newton, President, Timucuan Asset Management

Duane Ottenstroer, President PRG Developments, Inc.

M. Lynn Pappas, Esq., Pappas Metcalf Jenks & Miller, P.A.

Ava L. Parker, Esq., Lawrence & Parker, P.A. / Linking Solutions, Inc.

Thomas F. Petway, III

Herbert H. Peyton, President, Gate Petroleum Company

Robert Rhodes, Foley & Lardner LLP

Bryant Rollins, CEO, StetsonRollins Consulting, Inc.

John D. Rood, Chairman, Vestcor Companies

Peter S. Rummell

William Rupp, CEO, Mayo Clinic

Martin E. “Hap” Stein, Jr., Chairman & CEO, Regency Centers

David H. Stovall, Jr., President & CEO, SteinMart

Lee M. Thomas, President & CEO, Rayonier

Ron Townsend, Townsend Enterprises LLC

Steven R. Wallace, Florida State College of Jacksonville

Michael Ward, Chairman, President & CEO, CSX Transportation

Cleve Warren, Essential Capital Finance Inc.

Nina Waters, The Community Foundation, Inc.

Wayne Weaver, Jacksonville Jaguars

[tufsu1]

I sure don't see this group advocating for mass transit and less urban sprawl.  I think the most common bond they have is another urgent need in our community, education.  If they lick that they will surely be a "nifty fifty"!  [/b]

well several of them are on the JTA Board...so maybe you should start there.

[tufsu1]

Then, fire them as well.  New management, new regime.  I suspect JTA is loaded with a bunch of a** kissers.  That's how they keep their jobs their.  Don't make waves.  Most of the good ones have likely moved on to an environment that is more professional.

this is an unfortunate point of view...it is possible that JTA would not have done studies on commuter rail and streetcars without having competent folks who raise their voice when it is appropriate.

[stjr]

this is an unfortunate point of view...it is possible that JTA would not have done studies on commuter rail and streetcars without having competent folks who raise their voice when it is appropriate.

Tufsu, I was responding to your own implication that "day grinders", not just senior JTA management, were responsible for the poor outcomes of JTA.  Like any large organization, I am sure there are a few "diamonds in the rough".  But, if the general view of JTA is to change, a major house cleaning appears in order.  Until the community sees better management demonstrated by better outcomes, all of JTA will be tainted by a broad brush of dissatisfaction. 

[Ocklawaha]

China, but hey, it could have been the Arlington Expressway!

I hope someone at City Council reads this and kicks some sense into the political insanity. We bought a Skyway, Now we are buying at useless BRT plan, and next...Super Station...JTA, 3 strikes and your out!

Actually folks, JTA has done a lot to correct the subjects of this rant.  As FSUJAX and TUFSU have pointed out, there are some major talents at work on some aspects of our transit deficit.  When this was written 3 years ago, we were facing a scheme (some would call it a plan) that would have built miles of elevated busways over the Arlington Expressway, the CSX to Murray Hill as well as "Olympic Size" stations that would have taken out huge chunks of taxable retail and office space.


Recent headlines in India, Chile,  .... Jacksonville?

The BUS RAPID TRANSIT scheme was a bill of goods that was being beaten to inclusion in "rapid" transit plans across the nation. Was this JTA? Not! It WAS Florida's own CUTR (The official Transit misinformation center at USF in Tampa), it was a big oil president, it was a big oil presidents kid brother as governor.  It was a massively financed campaign by the same old highway lobby, interests and suppliers that bought out the streetcar companies and destroyed rail as an alternative. It wasn't just us, this was an American and then a suddenly worldwide phenomenon, the claims for which quickly soared out of all control or common sense.


If it worked so well in Bogota and Curitiba then WHY are they building rail? ...and I would know this why?

"BRT is just like rail, only cheaper" was one of the slogans used and reused from Washington DC restrooms to office cubicles at the various bus manufacturers.  "BRT can be shown to have a higher passenger per hour capacity then rail" was a line that challenged anyone capable of thought. "BRT will open up the corridors, and when the passenger count reaches the desired level you just shove rails under it and you have LRT" a claim that no one has explained to this day. "BRT as fast as rail." "BRT as comfortable as LRT." "BRT as quiet as rail." "BRT as economical as rail." "BRT...   HEY! I'm sorry folks, I am a transportation guy, but when this conversation dissolves into like rail, like rail, like rail, like rail, I start wondering then WHY THE HELL DON'T WE JUST DO RAIL?


It's about the thick lines and thin lines

In reality, BRT is a cafe of bus concepts, equipment, gadgets, shelters, etc... It isn't a "THING" rather it is a rather vague "THOUGHT."  My greatest fear in taking down both the Skyway (which I'm responsible for some 30 years ago), and now taking down BRT, is that NEITHER SYSTEM IS BAD!  They were/are only "bad" when applied to a service that the builders NEVER intended them to serve. In mass transit you basically deal with a system route map. As a professional you no longer see lines, rather you see THICK LINES and very thin lines. The traffic volume and patterns illustrated in this manner are graphic, obviously the thick lines representing the heaviest traveled routes will need a higher capacity mode of transportation. You wouldn't send a 12 seat van to handle the traffic on Roosevelt, Philips, Kings, Main, etc...  This single fact is what prompted me to attack the BRT-JAX scheme, you just don't bring a knife to a gun fight, or a bus to carry a train load.


Buy it and apply it right, BRT could be a blessing

If we have the volume on these key routes, then they need to be on rail right here, right now. But folks don't toss the BRT baby out with the bath water. The plan on the Northbank for Broad and Jefferson is superb, likewise with a little tweeking the route on to Gateway. But running BRT alongside rail on Roosevelt or Philips is not a wise use of our funds. There is no reason why for the same bucks, we can't send those buses into deeper reaching more exotic places... TOWN CENTER? GATE? JTB? DEERWOOD? SOUTHPOINTE? PONTE VEDRA? MAYO? Just to name a few. There is also NO REASON for those "super buses" to have to make that redundant trek into downtown from the BRT to the burbs, build BRT from the RAIL out.  JTB/BOWDEN station on the commuter rail is as far as those BRT buses need go and by turning them we get much more use on the routes perhaps doubling our current headways without any new coaches... JUST ADD RAIL and the BRT revised around it makes all the sense in the world.


We already have the station to handle all the trains Amtrak, JTA or FDOT can throw at us, let's not repeat the mistake of telling another "Disney" we won't play.

Jacksonville Terminal? Okay, 3 years and counting and nothing has changed on those drawings. Worse still is Amtrak eminent return to downtown for the FEC RY services which may "force" JTA and FDOT to act in haste without due revisions of the current messy plans. This scenario would heap disaster on catastrophe and like many Jaxson's before us, we'd might just be telling another giant economic engine that "Jacksonville doesn't do business with carnival people..."


FROM THIS


TO THIS

What would I immediately change at the Prime Osbourne site if all power rested in my hands at JTA?

1. I would lose the name "Prime Osbourne" and put a lifesize statue of the man in the courtyard of the 1890's era station on Bay Street, alongside Flagler, Plant, Williams, Warfield, Davis, Smith, etc...
It's THE JACKSONVILLE TERMINAL, and like Grand Central or Los Angeles Union Passenger Depot, that's all anyone needs to know, great stations make their own names!

2. Scrap ANY plan to alter the appearance of the 1919 station by adding an Amtrak Abomination on the South end like that has all of the appeal of an infected wart.

3. Scrap ANY plan to remove even one more inch of the old 250,000 cu yds of fill where the station tracks were/are to be located.

4. Deep 6 the plan to build an overhead pedestrian concourse from the station out to the trains, by repairing, rebuilding and reopening the tunnels.

5. Rebuild the LEE STREET viaduct to clear every track from a point due east of the south wall of the 1919 station, southward to McCoys Creek with a minimum of 23.6 feet.

6. As soon as it is available, take down the "Prime Osbourne's" exhibit halls keeping only the east-west concourse, converting that former space into the Intercity Bus Terminal.

7. Build the JTA garage, offices and City Bus/BRT/Streetcar station where the west parking lot exists today, I would not change a single aspect of the bus, office, garage or intercity bus plan, simply rearrange the location.

Lastly in the RANT GOES ON, PLEASE let us finish the Skyway so it goes somewhere, as friend Stephendare would say, because as it is it goes from nowhere to nowhere... but at least it passes through nowhere!

Yadda yadda yadda... If Y'all REALLY want me to storm the ramparts howabout letting somebody at the City or JTA know it?

[exnewsman]

Ock - I think the plan looks good. However, it asumes the convention center is no longer at this site - and neither the city council nor the mayor's office has given any real indication this will happen or when. Until that happens how do you expect JTA to make this plan happen? Nobody in city government is willing to take on the convention center issue. I don't think JTA would be against a plan utlizing the convention center site if it was available to use. Right now - its not. Its easy to say JTA should do this/that - but the reality is its just a dream unless that property is turned over. But right now we have a courthouse and the city hall annex building where many people think a new convention center should be.

For those complaining that JTA doesn't need a new fancy building - are you the same people who were complaining how plain the building design was when it was first revealed?

For those of you who were here back then - then you know that the current structure was built back in the early 1970s and except for the new lobby and board room - is a terrible place.

[tufsu1]

actually the Mayor has made it clear several times in the past year that the convention center should be moved to the existing courthouse area near the Hyatt....but the Mayor has correctly noted that making a sales pitch for $ right now is virtually impossible.

The best idea would be to develop an interim and full buildout plan....the interim would allow convention business to still occur on-site and would likely leave Greyhound and the Rosa Parks station where they are....long-term, those services can be moved to the JRTC as well.

[thelakelander]

Ock - I think the plan looks good. However, it asumes the convention center is no longer at this site - and neither the city council nor the mayor's office has given any real indication this will happen or when. Until that happens how do you expect JTA to make this plan happen?

The convention situation needs to be resolved one way or the other before the long term transit center plan goes into place.  It would be a good idea to develop a "temporary" or short term plan that incorporates the convention center as well as a long term one that does not.  From this angle, I'd expect a state agency like JTA to force the city to make a decision one way or the other before investing hundreds of millions in the construction of something that is designed to by highly inefficient for the end user.

Nobody in city government is willing to take on the convention center issue. I don't think JTA would be against a plan utlizing the convention center site if it was available to use. Right now - its not. Its easy to say JTA should do this/that - but the reality is its just a dream unless that property is turned over. But right now we have a courthouse and the city hall annex building where many people think a new convention center should be.

The mayor has stated that the convention center should be moved next to the Hyatt.  If this is the goal, then we know that the convention center will eventually leave the terminal.  With that in mind, long term plans should address this, regardless of if a move of the convention center is funded or not.

For those complaining that JTA doesn't need a new fancy building - are you the same people who were complaining how plain the building design was when it was first revealed?

That's not my argument, so I can't speak for the others.

For those of you who were here back then - then you know that the current structure was built back in the early 1970s and except for the new lobby and board room - is a terrible place.

The current site also needs to be reconfigured to allow for commuter rail to access the S-Line.

(edit: I noticed tufsu1 stated some of the same exact things)

[stjr]

For those of you who were here back then - then you know that the current structure was built back in the early 1970s and except for the new lobby and board room - is a terrible place.

Poetic justice, I say.  JTA built their own offices just like they do their other projects.  Third rate.  Let them stew in it.  I have no problem with them painting and re-carpeting.  Replace the A/C as needed and the roof if it leaks.  After that, if the structure is not quality, who's fault is that?  The structural components should be good for at least 50 years.  Why should the taxpayers pay again for their poor work?  Use the money instead on bus shelters.

Most importantly, why should the tail wag the dog?  This is supposed to me an intermodal center first and foremost.  It shouldn't be built around the convenience of JTA offices.

[CS Foltz]

stjr +1 and then some! tufsu..........the "Nifty Fifty" I refer to  the people who actually control our government! This is per a Folio article about a month and a half ago and it is too true when you look objectively at who is doing what and to whom! As to JTA and their shenanigans,chop everyone at the top and lets start over..............this is the down side of supposed professionals doing what they were hired to do. Judging by the bus system, the shelter system and all of the waste that takes place, we need to clean house badly!

[Ocklawaha]

The solution is a Temporary Rail Terminal, which allows us to fully redevelop the rail side platforms, tunnels, concourses etc...  Then placement of the new bus facility right in place WEST of the convention center. Lake and I are planning an article on "HOW TO" ... Coming soon!

OCKLAWAHA

[CS Foltz]

Looking forward to what comes out of the collaboration Ock! Either way, Prime needs to return to what it was in the beginning and screw JTA's concept with gold commodes! We have a rail center now, even though it is a half butted Convention Center (Lord what a mess!) It needs to move or lets really save some money and cancel it all together as a convention center, which we probably can live without! Return it to a Rail Center and tie everything into it..........Light Rail, BRT and the whole nine yards! I mean how many events are hosted there that actually earn a dollar or is everyone of the events a losing proposition as I think they are! Put a Convention Center on hold till we can build one correctly from scratch designed properly with parking or else parking elsewhere and BRT to it! Different ways to go at it for sure, just the most cost effective path for sure!

[Timkin]

Same here, Ock...and I have to say your comment about the current proposed addition having the appeal of an infected wart, was priceless !!!  and you are so right.

I cannot wait to read more!