JTA running out of money for road construction

[thelakelander]

Tough times over at JTA. Perhaps it's time to get out of the road construction business?

After years of building the Dames Point bridge, the Beach Boulevard Intracoastal bridge and many other projects, the Jacksonville Transportation Authority appears to be quietly going out of the construction business.

When JTA finishes widening Heckscher Boulevard in a few months, it will have no other ongoing road projects and no money to pay for any new ones.

The construction industry is concerned that a loss of JTA projects will cause a loss of jobs. Members of Jacksonville City Council appear split on whether it's a cause for concern. And JTA isn't talking about it.

Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2011-07-30/story/jta-running-out-money-road-construction#ixzz1Thhfp0xu

[ChriswUfGator]

Good.

[tufsu1]

don't count on it....right now they are pushing to do some major projects like Southside Blvd.

[thelakelander]

Where would the money come from?  Also, one would hope that they coordinate whatever they want to do with Southside, with the mobility plan.  Southside happens to be one of the mobility plan's priority projects.  However, that project is supposed to turn Southside into a "Context Sensitive Street" (including adding a parallel multi-use path its entire length).

[thelakelander]

Councilman Bill Bishop said this is a good time to rethink how road construction is done. It might be better for everyone if the city took over and let JTA focus on running the buses, he said.

"I'm not upset at all that the JTA is running out of money," Bishop said. "I think a lot of people will tell you that the JTA is not an agency that responds well to the public."

The city could be more responsive to the needs of the community, he said, because council members could directly advocate for projects and be required to answer to voters, something the JTA board does not do.

I don't agree with Bill Bishop on everything but I think he makes a pretty great point in this article.  What would be the negatives of having the city worry about building its own roads and having JTA focus on mass transit?

[dougskiles]

I can't think of any negatives that would result from JTA getting out of the road building business.  For starters, we don't need and certainly can't afford any more widening/overpass projects.  I suspect, however that the lobbyists who are responsibility for the makeup of the current board (and benefit the most from the fat construction projects) will be screaming loudly.

[thelakelander]

I noticed a few in the article who mention job creation and preservation in the construction industry.  However, its questionable if this method of subsidizing the private sector is worthwhile in the long run for taxpayers.  Plus, if this responsibility is taken away from JTA, it doesn't mean that another road will never be built or maintained again.  It just means that JTA won't be taking the lead role in it.

[dougskiles]

Interesting how the money spent on roads is considered good because it boosts the construction industry, but money spent on transit is considered a waste of public money that we don't have...

[brainstormer]

^ Bingo!!!  My thoughts exactly.

[iMarvin]

What does JTA want to do with Southside Blvd?

[thelakelander]

Widen it to six lanes.

[dougskiles]

They really don't understand transportation planning, do they?

I came across this letter from a reader in CE News, and it I believe it captures the problem very well:

Transportation and energy policies
Why do so many engineers think that challenging conventional wisdom and fighting for changes in energy, environmental, or transportation policies to solve real problems is forbidden political speech? This point of view is repeatedly expressed by engineers who express skepticism about climate change and mass transportation. Unfortunately, this perspective is naïve, at best. It reflects a failure to understand the role of government policy in defining the bounds of both the political and market economy (Adam Smith, 1776) as well as good engineering practice.

Far too many engineers think their civic responsibility ends when they do what their clients pay them to do. With respect to energy, transportation, and environmental issues, and subsequent economic (a.k.a. political) impacts, far too many engineers fail to think beyond the comfortable certainties of their direct experience and their spreadsheets. Many of my engineering friends place far too much emphasis on well-understood, but short-term, cost-benefit analysis when evaluating and commenting on government policy decisions that have significant, but uncertain, macroeconomic impacts.

Case in point are letters critical of editorials on high-speed rail and energy-climate policy. One writer claims that driving is cheaper and more convenient than riding a train and will always be so; another cites poor fiscal performance of Amtrak and opines that investment in rail will increase our $14 trillion national debt. Neither short-term analysis recognizes the fact that much of this debt is the direct result of government policy that subsidizes continued total dependency on “cheap” oil produced in the Middle East. Exhibit A is the unfunded $1 trillion current cost to the U.S. taxpayer of our military efforts to sustain the flow of “cheap” oil to global markets. Exhibit B is the $1 trillion to $2 trillion taxpayer liability over the next 10 years created by the consequences of the Iraq Occupation and our massive military presence in the Persian Gulf. Neither writer recognizes the fact that this oil subsidy is not reflected in the price of “cheap” motor fuels. Nor were these wars properly funded with tax increases.

It is a fact that an oligopoly controls the supply of the “cheap,” highly subsidized liquid petroleum-based motor fuels that makes it difficult for rail to compete with automobiles. Yet mere mention of incentives for “clean energy” raises shrieks of socialism from otherwise rational businessmen and engineers; “get government out of the way” or “let the market decide,” they say. Remember Adam Smith? Perhaps it is a failure of business and engineering education; do business and engineering economics courses cover basic principles of macroeconomics, let alone mention advanced concepts such as internalizing the external costs of pollution?

It is an inconvenient truth that American motorists are totally dependent on liquid petroleum-based motor fuels controlled by heavily subsidized oligopolies and that consumers do not pay the external costs of economic damages caused by this addiction.

It is irresponsible for engineers to make statements based on the assumption that Americans can afford to continue our total reliance on automobiles powered by petroleum-based motor fuels. Consider the facts:

political instability in oil-producing regions,
well-documented shortfall in recoverable North American oil reserves, and
traffic congestion on all urban roadways.
Too many engineers apply the same short-term thought process to the clean energy and climate debate. Exhibit C: Some of my engineer friends cite statistical analysis of atmospheric temperature data to explain that emissions of greenhouse gases from the combustion of fossil fuels are having no impact on Earth’s climate. At the same time, these engineers ignore 600,000 years of compelling physical evidence derived from ice and sediment cores that document three critical facts:

increased levels of carbon in the upper atmosphere have been caused by fossil fuel combustion,
the average temperature of the global oceans has increased significantly over the past 50 years, and
the acidity of the global oceans has increased significantly over the past 50 years.
These increases have been caused by transfer of heat and carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to the oceans by well-understood processes. The impact is real and measureable.

Skeptics choose to ignore comprehensive studies that attempt to interpret all collected data through the application of fundamental laws of physics and thermodynamics in favor of anomalous data sets such as short-term temperature data from a single source. This data is then used to create uncertainty, which is then cited as “evidence” that observed phenomenon are “naturally” occurring events. While challenging uncertainties created by one data set is a necessary part of the scientific process â€" not to mention an interesting academic debate â€" engineers should not overlook the preponderance of the evidence.

Energy and climate policy should not be a short-term debate about cost and benefit, profit and loss for one energy source, one technology, or one industry; this debate should be about serving the greater good â€" the health, safety, and welfare of the public.

The “political” response of engineers to these issues will have a major impact on the lives of those who follow us. Short-term thinking is inappropriate; uncertainties in data sets are cause for caution, but uncertainties are not a basis of total rejection of fact and the laws of physics. Engineers respond to uncertainty by incorporating safety factors into their designs; they do not seek absolute certainty before accepting the challenge of building a bridge.

I am distressed that so many engineers fail to apply safety factors to their analysis of human actions that perturb climate â€" that many engineers fail to understand the fact that the probability of anthropogenic-induced climate chaos is real; climate chaos is not an abstract political debate about ideology or economics. The climate debate is about understanding and respecting the physics, thermodynamics, chemistry, and biology of the Earth’s oceans and atmosphere. It is about anticipating Earth’s response to the climate forcing actions of 6 billion intelligent people who are working hard to enjoy the same quality of life as Americans.

The impacts of climate chaos on human civilization or the relative merits of high-speed rail versus automobiles are not political issues. These are technical issues that demand that engineers consider all the facts and interpret those facts in accordance with the laws of science and the conservative principles of best engineering practice, not short-term profit and loss based on assumptions, religious beliefs, personal preference, or political ideology.
David E. Bruderly, P.E.

http://www.cenews.com/magazine-article-cenews.com-7-2011-letters-8393.html

[iMarvin]

Widen it to six lanes.

Oh ok, thanks.

[tufsu1]

Where would the money come from?  Also, one would hope that they coordinate whatever they want to do with Southside, with the mobility plan.  Southside happens to be one of the mobility plan's priority projects.  However, that project is supposed to turn Southside into a "Context Sensitive Street" (including adding a parallel multi-use path its entire length).

they are about to embark on a PD&E study (partially at the urging of Bill Bishop)...the study includes a visioning effort to better connect the transportation and land uses (call it context sensitive design) and an evaluation of potential BRT service...along with widening of at least some portions to six lanes.

[duvaldude08]

the best news ive heard all day lol