Mayor Questions Validity of JTA's Transportation Center

[fsujax]

thats not greedy. they can both happen. and they both will happen.

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

While I sit here and contemplate a 25 acre, $180M, urban transportation center......

I just wish that I could crap beige colored turds of stucco.  I could make a fortune!

[duvaldude08]

While I sit here and contemplate a 25 acre, $180M, urban transportation center......

I just wish that I could crap beige colored turds of stucco.  I could make a fortune!

Ha! The turds probably would make it look better!

[fsujax]

^^it's called Jacksonville Beige!

[Jaxson]

Does anyone want to take a tour of the "Jacksonville Doo-Doo Beige Paint Factory?"  I am sure that it is in a top secret location that one of us can unearth rather quickly with an online search...

[tufsu1]

If I was planning a convention for somewhere around here, I'd be looking at Orlando not Jacksonville.

unless of course you actually want even a little city atmosphere...Orlando's convention center is surrounded by Mickey and crap

[danem]

If I was planning a convention for somewhere around here, I'd be looking at Orlando not Jacksonville.

unless of course you actually want even a little city atmosphere...Orlando's convention center is surrounded by Mickey and crap

Yet at the same time it's not even near that stuff! I mean, it's sort of close to Sea World and that's it. If you want to see anything outside of the OC Convention Center, I hope you have a car! Ditto for the Gaylord. Islands of resort and/or meeting space pretty much in the middle of nowhere.

[Dashing Dan]

I was thinking mainly about air service.

[Ocklawaha]

Maybe Im just greedy. I want us to have the best of everything. I still think that both projects should happen. ( the right way)

Greed? More like insanity. You are the Duvaldude but you'd just about be able to see that monstrosity from Nassau and St. Johns.

Really JTA? REALLY? We might board 10 mil passengers a year and Greyhound and Amtrak combined maybe a half million... So your going to build a station 5 times the size of the one that easily handled 15 million passengers a year!  Oh and that 10 million is no where close to the small percentage that will actually use any one stop.

Yes to a Transpiration Center at the old Jacksonville Terminal.
NO! Absolutely stupid to go with the JRTC plan.

OCKLAWAHA

[thelakelander]

Ock, where are you getting your statistics and what station are you comparing the JRTC too?  I'd like to source them, so we'll have them on file to further strengthen the argument for redesign and cost cutting.

[Ocklawaha]

The Jacksonville Terminal numbers are published throughout local history books, including mine, and I don't recall where I last read it. I committed it to memory long ago, I don't know why, maybe for just such a stupid plan as this.

The JTA ridership numbers are published in their own release of a ridership count a year or so ago, this number isn't exact, seems to me it was more like 9 million and some change. The annual Metro Magazine top 100 survey issue ranks the systems by size, and under JTA'S noble mass transit leadership, JTA has 'grown' from somewhere around number 65-70 back in the early 80's, to until today, when it is about 100. Amazingly surpassed by Gainesville, Tampa, Broward, Metro Dade, Palm Beach, and Orlando. Watch out JTA because Callahan might be next.

We've dropped off the chart in several categories including, if I recall , fleet size. They remind me of a infamous Japanese Admiral, 0.18 seconds) Matome Ugaki, who's diary was published under the title "FADING VICTORY." After news of the surrender, he boarded an airplane and flew out looking for an American ship to crash, his last words were typed out on a telegraph key (instant messaging back in the day) "I am going higher, higher, higher..."
He never found any allied ships and vanished forever somewhere over the Pacific. I just keep expecting someone at JTA to publish how they are going higher, higher, higher...

Amtrak's numbers are around 50,000, published by Amtrak in 'The Amtrak Florida Fact Sheet' online. Greyhounds 2450,000 is a liberal estimate based on my years as the supervisor for Trailways.

I can probably dig up the exact numbers for all of them if you'd like.

OCKLAWAHA

[thelakelander]

Yes.  See if you can dig up the numbers for Jacksonville (as they are right now), Fort Worth, St. Louis and Salt Lake City.  All of their stations were built within the last decade for a fraction of the JRTC's cost estimates, while still serving local bus, Greyhound, Amtrak, commuter rail (SLC, FTW), and LRT (SLC, STL).

[Ocklawaha]

The newest Amtrak Fact Sheet published 70,728 at Jacksonville, Kissimmee boarded 43,163, and little Sanford came in at 244,252 (with only one extra train daily) for prosepctive. Orlando and Tampa were the other heavyweights.

Put all of those Jacksonville rail passengers in the grand old station, remove the buses as JTA plans and listen to the sound of one hand clapping and for the evening train CHIRP, CHIRP.

OCKLAWAHA

[Ocklawaha]

Wow JTA, 193 rail passengers a day, obviously we'll need the entire PO just to contain them...

OCKLAWAHA

[Ocklawaha]

Good news and bad news for JTA and the JRTC.
First the good news: After a wild guess or two based on memory the total bus and transit riders in Jacksonville amounts to 12,897,974 passengers.

Now the bad news: That's EVERY SINGLE PASSENGER IN THE CITY no matter where they are picked up or where they are going. So lets just say that if a full third of of all JTA passengers used the JRTC, (A figure that is about as likely as teeth in a hen) we're talking about 3,273,246 total JTA fantasy passengers. Now lets add the 3,278,000 from Greyhound into the mix and we get a grand total of 6,551,246 passenger a year.

Put another way that's 17,948 passengers per day, but divide that by 4 giant stations and you get 4,487 passengers a day per station.

Prospective? Jacksonville Terminal (also called the PO Convention Center) just the old station portion alone, served 15,000,000 passengers per year or 41,095 each and every day with ease. That's 9 x times the volume of traffic that might be expected to show up not only in the original station but in 3 new massive stations. Ya know if the nutz down at the 'tea party' want something to rant about just do a little research into this indefensible waste of the taxpayers money.  Just how complicated does this have to get before the Minions of Myrtle Avenue wake the up?

9,627,246 SOURCE JTA, October 7, 2010 (includes Skyway)
70,728 SOURCE AMTRAK FLORIDA FACT SHEET 2010
3,200,000 SOURCE, Greyhound Lines CEO

12,897,974 TOTAL SURFACE TRANSPORTATION RIDERSHIP IN JACKSONVILLE!

OCKLAWAHA