Skyway Merits Debated

[CS Foltz]

Ock..........based on what I am seeing, it would seem to me that design could be used to enhance the $kyway! Unless I am missing something, $23 to $25 Million per mile seems a high figure. Those piers are probably in the ground atleast 25' and there is #9 or bigger rebar in a cage layout.......thats pretty standard stuff for bridges and above ground structures like what you show!

[Ocklawaha]

CS, I AGREE!...  Yes, JTA screwed the works with the costs on this thing and it was probably too close to home for little Johnny to get away with expanding it. Concrete, you'll understand.

I have actually talked with several consultants and suppliers in the large scale theme park industry and told them the costs per mile. A typical response was dead silence followed by a southern drawl "SAY WHAT DADDY?" Most of these guys think in terms of $12-15 million a mile.


OCKLAWAHA

[tufsu1]

600,000 riders in Miami for their investment doesn't look to be a ringing success either.  Remember, we predicted 300,000 riders a day for just our 2.5 miles.

um...I believe the projections were for no more than 300,000 riders A MONTH.

but what about streetcars and/or commuter rail....we're likely to not see more than 5,000 riders a day on any of those routes...are they worth investiong $100+ million in?

We spend a lot more moving them by highway, so of course.  Please stop trying to be so disingenuous in the framing of the conversation.

that wasn't my intent Stephen...sorry if it came across that way.

I'm just curious because people keep commenting about the vast waste of $ the Skyway is because it only attracts 2,000 riders a day....but some of those same people seem fine with spending lots of money for rail that likely won't draw that much more.

Personally, I'm ok with the amount we spend on the Skywayt and the amount we might spend on rail

[Coolyfett]

I agree with tufsu.

[Coolyfett]

Yes, third rail would absolutely blow the bank and every good old conservative on the board would simply die of heart failure... Hell Lake  and I might too!

Basically with third rail one is talking about a FULL SIZE RAILROAD on an elevated or subway structure. Do the math, BILLIONS! The old Chicago CTA (back when Ock was a pup) linked directly with the Chicago, North Shore and Milwaukee, AKA: North Shore Line Interurban. What would easily be known today as America's first HIGH SPEED RAIL line.  The big interurbans would haul ass between the two lakeside cities and hook up with the CTA and Milwaukee streetcars at each end. Even today the "Village of East Troy Railway" is a small part of the old system still under the original wires that feed freight from East Troy WI into the national network.

The Skyway is a Bombardier UMIII Monorail, which was marketed as a low cost, light transit vehicle. While I too question not only the Skyway in it's original form, I also question if this low cost vehicle was anywhere near the price tag of streetcar. Granted Monorail has certain advantages over streetcar, and in a complete FUBAR downtown where traffic is backed up to Union Street trying to move south, I'd rather be on the Skyway, how often does that happen? Was it worth the cost?

In any case we now have a monorail system which "could be" expanded for somewhat less if they don't hang 200 tons of extra Gate Concrete on it.

Light rail on the Skyway would require some major alterations to the stations themselves as the right-of-way is too narrow, otherwise it could be done and would certainly support it.


OCKLAWAHA

Ock you are a funny dude... third rail is heavy rail right? same terms?

[Ocklawaha]

YEP! BTW, never piss on the 3rd rail!

OCKLAWAHA

[cityimrov]

How much would it cost per mile if it were built with steel tracks & columns like this monorail?  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuppertal_Schwebebahn

Of course, the big elephant in the room is Downtown Jacksonville.  Ridership of the Skyway will keep going down if people keep moving out of Downtown Jacksonville.  I don't like the locations of the stations but it's hard for me to say the skyway is a success or not because quite frankly, Downtown Jacksonville is on life support right now and has been on life support for several years now.  

[stjr]

How much would it cost per mile if it were built with steel tracks & columns like this monorail?  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuppertal_Schwebebahn

Of course, the big elephant in the room is Downtown Jacksonville.  Ridership of the Skyway will keep going down if people keep moving out of Downtown Jacksonville.  I don't like the locations of the stations but it's hard for me to say the skyway is a success or not because quite frankly, Downtown Jacksonville is on life support right now and has been on life support for several years now. 

Cityimprov, what I see is that even when Downtown was on the uptick during our recent boon times, the Skyway's ridership failed to reflect that, continuing to slip-slide downward.  The converse is that the currently configured Skyway was supposed to uplift downtown and, as noted by Ron Barton, has probably had the opposite effect.  Neither of these observations relates to the further expansion advocated by proponents, so, where's the beef?

[Coolyfett]

YEP! BTW, never piss on the 3rd rail!

OCKLAWAHA

Ouch! That hurts more than that rigged article Shwaz posted.

[thelakelander]

How much would it cost per mile if it were built with steel tracks & columns like this monorail?  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuppertal_Schwebebahn

Of course, the big elephant in the room is Downtown Jacksonville.  Ridership of the Skyway will keep going down if people keep moving out of Downtown Jacksonville.  I don't like the locations of the stations but it's hard for me to say the skyway is a success or not because quite frankly, Downtown Jacksonville is on life support right now and has been on life support for several years now.  

Cityimprov, what I see is that even when Downtown was on the uptick during our recent boon times, the Skyway's ridership failed to reflect that, continuing to slip-slide downward.

We've been over this before.  Ridership falling was a direct result of higher fares, unpredictable service, reduced weekday operating hours and the complete elimination of weekend service.  Search the archives, this was predicted a couple of years ago.

The converse is that the currently configured Skyway was supposed to uplift downtown and, as noted by Ron Barton, has probably had the opposite effect.  Neither of these observations relates to the further expansion advocated by proponents, so, where's the beef?[/b]

Again, we all know that there is no one trick pony to bring downtown back.  The JEDC's position towards the skyway is more detrimental to downtown than anything.  Instead of integrating the thing with complementing land uses and projects around stations (like the successful transit friendly cities tend to do), we subsidize parking garages, demolish historic buildings, spread out urban infill projects and spend more money on cobblestones than connecting complementing transportation options, such as bike lanes to improve the area's connectivity.  Forget expansion talk, this city has shown that it can't even properly run the existing line, a bus system or plan for a sustainable downtown right.  Seriously, 2011 can't get here fast enough.  This place needs a political makeover.

[CS Foltz]

lake .....as you stated "This place (COJ) needs a political makeover"! Therein lies the root problem with our problems! Without a mayor that has the best interests of Jacksonville and the people at heart and everything revolving around that premise, nothing will take place or move in the right direction......other than lip service or windowdressing! Everything is centered around a leader with a vision of what could be and has an idea on how to get there! It will take work, some ethics and a real effort on everyones part.....from the neighborhoods on out!

[stjr]

I just visited APTA's ridership report for the second quarter and found JTA not represented in the report (rather something called "Runways Transportation Company").  Did JTA reincarnate itself?  Fail to supply the data?  Was there a glitch?  I was looking for the alleged increase in numbers for the Skyway but now don't really know. Anyone know what gives? 

http://www.apta.com/resources/statistics/Documents/Ridership/2010_q2_ridership_APTA.pdf

[CS Foltz]

Smoke and mirrors again stjr!

[Ocklawaha]

Runways Transportation is a private fairly new-start bus line running from JIA to MCO(Orlando) via highway 301. They pickup at the bus-train and/airports and operate very nice Sprinter-Bus-Vans. PLEASE don't mix them into JTA as they are completely different animals, ditto for SUNSHINE BUS in St. Johns county.

JTA and SUNSHINE are inter county and the RUNWAYS is intercity (Think a baby Trailways).


OCKLAWAHA

[stjr]

Runways Transportation is a private fairly new-start bus line running from JIA to MCO(Orlando) via highway 301. They pickup at the bus-train and/airports and operate very nice Sprinter-Bus-Vans. PLEASE don't mix them into JTA as they are completely different animals, ditto for SUNSHINE BUS in St. Johns county.

Ock, thanks for explaining who Runways is but I am just reading from the report.  Click the link I posted and see for yourself.  JTA is completely absent from the APTA report this quarter.  How can this be?