JTA Skyway's TIGER Grant Application

[jcjohnpaint]

Thanks for listening JTAFLA.

[exnewsman]

Well said Lake

[JeffreyS]

Thanks for the info JTAFLA.

[SightseerLounge]

$20M for this?? Those better be some gold plated elevators. What was the MJ estimate for the no-frills station? $3-5M?

Sorry, I just have a bad feeling about this.  If we fail to achieve this grant, we could be in for a long road ahead. 

Maybe the fail to win the grant will make JTA look to the option of streetcar

I think that the JTA is not thinking about the long term scenario when it comes to this extension to Brooklyn! With the new developments going up in that area, the JTA is trying to save face by building this extension by saying this will get the Skyway a few extra riders! Once again, they are trying to prove that the Skyway will work! This is a waste of money! The money could be used to start on the Amtrak station at Union Terminal! New buses could be purchased with the $10 million that the JTA already has! I just need to know if there are any stipulations on how the money has to be spent! $10 million is a lot of money to waste on one little area! That money could be spread throughout the city! I guess that Jacksonville didn't learn it's lesson from the first leg of the Skyway!

I've been saying this about the Skyway for some time now: Take the monorail out and put some regular rail on the el to salvage this system! It would be similar to some sections of LA's Light Rail. At the ends of the original Skyway sections, the system could drop to grade level!

[SightseerLounge]

If the Skyway Structure doesn't support the Light Rail/Streetcar vehicles, then the elevated structures should be taken down and rebuilt. The stations could stay and be modified for the new trains! That would actually make the Skyway useful! Of course, in Jacksonville, that would make too much sense.

[Ocklawaha]

FIRST: WELCOME ABOARD JTA - LONG OVERDUE - TOGETHER WE CAN CHANGE THE FACE OF JACKSONVILLE!

If you bike or walk, you'll need a shower by the time you reach Charthouse, BB's or anything else.  Most likely, you'll drive, given our climate and the Acosta Bridge's slope.

In the grand scheme of things, it would potentially be tied into a streetcar stretching into Riverside and complemented by bus service into Westside neighborhoods.  So, you can't really isolate the proposal without considering the role of other mobility options and how they tie into this long term.

I absolutely agree with Lakes statements.

COJ already owns most of the S-Line and you probably don't want to invest in commuter rail ROW (I assume buying CSX's tracks to the port) until we're sure on the feasibility of such a project.  At this point in time, it appears proposed commuter rail lines to St. Augustine and Clay County would generate more ridership, thus they appear to be higher priority.  With that said, the mobility plan/fee is currently structured to generate funds for the S-Line corridor through the Northside.  We just need to collect the fee instead of continuously waiving it and make sure council doesn't attempt to take the money and pave roads with it.

Then we're really beginning to think beyond the scale of serving a handful of people and shortsighted realities of distances traveled to a network that works wholistically for the community/travelers/tourists, encourages real investments in TOD's, interconnectivity, and pushes Jax out of '3rd Tier' city status to be considered a real option against markets like Orlando, Austin, Atlanta, etc..

I believe planning efforts are currently being done holistically.  However, commuter rail on the North Corridor would not be an ideal candidate for a TIGER grant at this stage.  Plus, we'll need more than a commuter rail line with only 4 to 6 train trips a day to become a real option against some other markets.

To reach such a lofty goal, some of the first things we'll have to do is revamp/restructure the existing bus system and modify land uses to better facilitate and encourage higher densities along existing and future high frequency transit corridors.

The 'S' Line is much better suited to Light-Rail or Rapid Streetcar and new rules are coming down to lessen restrictions on weight, mixed traffic etc. based on the European model. Light-Rail to Gateway via the 'S' could easily be the start of Light Rail to the Airport. Meanwhile JPA needs to get in gear and get serious about a belt railway from Blount Island through Dinsmore to Westlake and Cecil. This would totally remove all but the Talleyrand traffic from the rails and it could be routed over the Norfolk Southern to interchange in Grand Crossing.

If the Skyway Structure doesn't support the Light Rail/Streetcar vehicles, then the elevated structures should be taken down and rebuilt. The stations could stay and be modified for the new trains! That would actually make the Skyway useful! Of course, in Jacksonville, that would make too much sense.

The Skyway structure WILL support light rail vehicles or the automated rail vehicles such as Vancouver's Skytrain. The conversion would mean removing the monorail beams and widening the right-of-way but cutting a couple of feet off of the track sides of the station platforms. We would then have a true 'mini' metro, able to run on the ground or elevated and able to cross streets. It would also get us closer or beyond  the transit industry goal of 30,000 passengers-per-direction-per-hour  CAPACITY. This would be ideal to serve the stadium district as an EL, and serve UF hospital, NAS or other locales on the ground.

Skytrain, photos Wiki Commons

[simms3]

Had in wrong thread.

JTA came on and didn't answer the tough questions.

1) $20M to serve just a few residential units?  600 is not a large number for that scope, and less than half are actually under construction with the remainder (as well as the other proposals like new Y building and the strip mall, which will be for people driving home to R-A/Ortega) still approved/proposed.  Given the size of these projects, there is little room in Brooklyn for more, so once complete Brooklyn will be effectively built out for Jacksonville with a few hundred resi units and maybe a few thousand drive in employees over a square mile.

2) So there is a spur already there, so why is it $3.6M just to extend the track to the station?  Concrete?

3) Why is there a $5M budget for command/control?  What is this?  Is this to integrate the new spur into the already complex and inefficient route mechanism of the system?

4) You mention extension - so will it be $20M every time we want to extend the system a block?


Sure big cities spend a billion dollars to put a new mile of subway in, and people have a fit over it, but projected ridership on SF's new spur and NYC's new line are very high.

SF Central Subway - light rail spur - $1.6B - 1.7 miles - 43,700 projected daily riders upon opening - $36,613/rider - $941M/mile

NYC Second Ave line - heavy rail line to be extended - $4.9B - 2 miles - 200,000 projected daily riders upon opening - $24,500/rider - $2.45B/mile

JTA Skyway extension - people mover - $20M - 0.25 miles - 1,250 projected daily riders upon opening - $16,000/rider - $80M/mile

So the numbers work this way, but remaining questions:

1) Why submit a grant to move just 1,250 people?  We all know that other agencies submit more robust grants for plans to move more people.

2) Where do you get 1,250 people?  Is it 600 proposed/UC units times average family size in area?  Do you think all those units are going to have 1-2 people, single or married, who work downtown and so will hop on the Skyway?

3) If you're building $20M spur/station for those 600 units, why not build a light rail line for the thousands of units UC or recently built on the SS and connect SJTC?

4) Why are all of your numbers pretty round numbers?  ($5M for this, $1M for that, etc).  Do we have this stuff bidded out already?

5) Why not submit a grant application for something a little more meaty?  The Skyway has so many limitations and for so long has been a transit joke and still is highly unpopular with taxpayers!

6) Lastly how do you calculate the reduction of over 400,000 vehicle miles driven in the urban core daily from increasing ridership by just 1,250 people?  That doesn't make any sense to a civilian like me.

[Charles Hunter]

(side track)

Meanwhile JPA needs to get in gear and get serious about a belt railway from Blount Island through Dinsmore to Westlake and Cecil. This would totally remove all but the Talleyrand traffic from the rails and it could be routed over the Norfolk Southern to interchange in Grand Crossing.

The North Florida TPO is conducting a study of just that.  They (and their consultant RS&H) are about to narrow down the number of alternatives going around JIA.  As I understand the process, this alternative will then be analyzed against the Grosse Connection, the JEA power line alignment, and the existing through north Springfield (you always have to look at the existing or 'no build').

We now return you to your original TIGER thread.