JTA head Nat Ford seeks new direction for transit

[thelakelander]

This goes back to why I'm against the Skyway in Brooklyn...Jax needs the federal money and support, not only for financial reasons, but also for political backup at home.  Are we seriously going to waste our one-time federal transit help (for the next foreseeable future) on this skyway extension?  Seems ill thought out.

This is a TIGER grant:

http://www.dot.gov/tiger

It's a different pot of money from the FTA's New/Small Starts program:

http://www.fta.dot.gov/12304_2607.html

And again, knowing our freebie condition at the Skyway, knowing ridership would drop without it, knowing the limitations of new development in Brooklyn, and knowing how incrementally small ridership would be with this extension, I'd be surprised if the feds want to feed it.  But if they do, it will never be held up as a success story and an example of why transit projects should be funded in Jax.

TIGER grants are a different animal.  To be honest, we'd be lucky to get anything out of it this year.  There's only $473.8 million available this year and we won TIGER grant money two years ago for the proposed intermodal rail yard at JAXPORT. Whether we win funding from this competitive process or not, it will not dramatically impact efforts to win funding from other sources.

[simms3]

^^^Yes, well aware of the TIGER grant.  It is a competitive process so I highly doubt Jax wins, but in the event other cities have some sort of deal fatigue and don't put together so many competitive proposals and Jax wins a small pot, then well...you have to factor in that these grants do "spread the wealth around" a bit and it would be a while before we receive any money again.

[simms3]

I don't think the Skyway in Brooklyn = success in ridership or economic development.  We have economic development in small doses without the skyway, and Brooklyn has limited capacity for further economic development at this point.  I don't think if the Skyway charged it would have the ridership it does and I don't think that an extension to Brooklyn means that much for increased ridership relative to the cost to extend it - so I'm worried that it at best won't be labeled a success and then you have more folks including folks within the city lukewarm on rail transit in Jax.

[thelakelander]

I guess some key issues would be (1) what is the definition of success?, (2) does success happen incrementally?, (3) does this fit into the area's overall long term vision, and (4) what's the estimated ROI to taxpayers?