JTA Skyway Expansion Loses: 2013 TIGER Grant Awards

[Tacachale]

^Sure, but my the point is the skyway track is already in place. Any cost for extra streetcar tracks would be more than "none".

[thelakelander]

Yes. At $20 million you could install an operational streetcar line that would stretch from Florida Theatre to Brooklyn.  For $16 million more, you could extend it to Five Points. Unless, a Brooklyn station was built as "no-frills," one Skyway station (based on the cost tagged in the TIGER grant application) would run you around the same thing as building a mile or two long heritage streetcar line from scratch.

[Tacachale]

Or you could build a $10 million Skyway station and then $16 million of streetcar to 5 points for roughly half the cost as doing all streetcar. The track is there, it's silly not to use it if we can.

[thelakelander]

^Yes, you could do that if the focus is primarily utilizing the streetcar to tie Brooklyn and Riverside with the existing Skyway.  Long term, you'd still end up spending money to extend the streetcar to penetrate the Cathedral District and Springfield, replace that option with extending the Skyway, investing in another mode to connect to them or leaving them out in the cold.

[Charles Hunter]

From what I've heard, the Command and Control upgrade is necessary to add a new spur.  But, it seems like at an at-grade, no frills station would cost a lot less.  If I remember correctly, a portion of the TIGER application was for upgrades to existing stations (lighting).  I hope JTA can pull this together and get it done.

[spuwho]

Even with TIGER grant not coming through, this is a step in the right direction.  Energy was actually taken to enhance a civic asset, one that has been getting the collective cold shoulder from the former bus fanboys running JTA.

It also showed that they are paying attention.

I also found out that FDOT owns the parcel at Riverside and Forest that Ock's proposed Brooklyn station (see Urban Dynamo story)would reside.

JTA should try again and make sure the FDOT/DOT and the FL Congressional delegation have enough time to vet the request inside the Beltway.

I get what simms is saying on the numbers, but I have always been a proponent of building the infra and then enforce good TOD around it to build it up. That is our collective weakness.

[thelakelander]

FDOT doesn't own the entire parcel.  At the time of Ock's article, I checked and that site was actually a couple of small parcels owned by various entities, including FDOT.

[jaxbeachguy]

Make Prime Osborn Center the light rail central station, and run tracks North to Gateway/Airport, south to Orange Park/dog track, east to Beach Blvd & 3rd Street, and west to Cecil Commerce Center.

High-speed rail from Prime Osborne would depart to Tallahassee, Orlando, Tampa, and Ft Lauderdale/Miami, and north to Atlanta.  Of course all for under $20 round trip.

Now THAT'S what I want.

[simms3]

Or you could build a $10 million Skyway station and then $16 million of streetcar to 5 points for roughly half the cost as doing all streetcar. The track is there, it's silly not to use it if we can.

I want to chime in again here.  A streetcar from DT to R/A/Ortega is connecting an employment center to an area of town filled with choice riders, not captured riders (ala NW Jax, parts of the Westside, University Ave, East Arlington).  A choice rider with a Honda Accord, or perhaps even a Lexus/luxury sedan, sports car, pickup truck, or SUV is not going to:

a) Want to wait around for trains that aren't on time.  Separate issue, but an issue for many if not most systems.

b) Want to be the only middle/upper middle/upper class (those are rare) rider on the train (not to sound horrible, but if you're in a suit, carrying laptop and valuables, etc...you don't want to feel singled out as the only non-homeless/non-welfare/non-construction worker rider.  This is an issue for Atlanta's system.)

c) AND YOU SURE AS HELL DON'T WANT TO HAVE TO TRANSFER SYSTEMS LAST MINUTE BEFORE YOUR DESTINATION

I know folks in NYC and SF who do bus/shuttle transfers to rail systems and/or to ferries/alternative modes, but only a minority percentage (I do bus transfers/rail-bus transfers routinely).  It's difficult for folks in these cities, let alone a car-oriented city like Jax.  The only way you're going to attract riders is to make it super convenient and easy.  It's not convenient to ride to Riverside, get off, walk a bit, wait for different Skyway train, then take that in.  It's much more convenient to sit in your own car, listen to your stereo, encounter little to no traffic, and park 1 or fewer blocks from your office.  That's what a train is competing with in Jax.

I don't think it makes sense to spend millions for a "no frills" (relative imo) at-grade Skyway station to serve just a few additional riders, potentially, all in the name of doing something now.  Brooklyn has VERY limited potential for true critical mass.  There's very little else that can be done in short term in name of development, and Lake, I think you agree, what's going on in Brooklyn isn't really even material (it's just exciting to us because Jax has stooped so low that any watermark, no matter how insignificant, feels very exciting).

I would love JTA to really focus on bringing the City on board and devising a very fail safe plan to bring rail to LaVilla, Springfield, and parts of North Jax...tie land use in with city zoning agencies and planning departments with some finance guys, enlist DIA sub-parties, and get something truly worthwhile going.  Focusing any time and resources on doing a small Brooklyn Skyway spur subtracts from that effort and is a waste. 


Lastly, a short rail line from 5 Points to DT is definitely not worth it.  You won't have a commuting critical mass.  You may have some lunch hour traffic.  And you don't have land use in place to make for a really dense corridor (most of Brooklyn is now already taken up by subpar dense development projects or proposals in terms of infill and 5 Points is an area of contention for density despite the fact that it has available land and mixed-use).  It would be akin to Atlanta's streetcar going in, which many think is going to end up being useless and wasteful since the African American community has basically tied up all of Edgewood historical district from further adaptive reuse/development in name of history and "community", and that's the only thing tying to downtown.

[thelakelander]

^Do you think the Atlanta streetcar will eventually end up being extended to tie into the BeltLine?

[simms3]

They want it to.  I loosely pay attention to all the plans and proposals and of course the streetcar is supposed to tie in.  We'll see if and when that happens (as it is now, it's really only a few blocks from where streetcar would go along the Eastside Trail, but in the dead of summer and in the South/Sunbelt in general nobody will walk that distance).

[icarus]

Seeing as these boards have discussed Raleigh as of late ... Raleigh applied for and received $21 million for rail infrastructure and right of way to move its Amtrack station ... It received $10 million to rehab a historic downtown warehouse into a main passenger terminal ... and just received a $5.5 million nonmatching increase for right of way acquisition.

Why isn't our City on re-purposing the Prime Osborn? Is it a total disconnect between JTA and Council? Why would you have JTA own so much adjacent vacant land and not the one significant potential transportation asset in La Villa?

To me, its like selling a car without the tires.

Maybe Jacksonville's biggest problem is that we didn't dream big enough.  Of course getting Mayor, Council and JTA to agree would require I think a novel approach. Use the vote .. get the right people in if the current can't get it done.

http://rtands.com/index.php/passenger/intercity/raleigh-receives-additional-tiger-funds-for-union-station-complex.html?channel=279

[thelakelander]

JTA applied for TIGER grant funding for the JRTC a few years back.  They didn't win.

[icarus]

hmmm ... it would be interesting to see to analyze the differences in the proposals.

I am presuming JTA's proposal was for the multi-block byzantine model I've seen versus truly utilizing Prime Osborn.  I could see where an integrated rail/bus/lightrail in Raleigh would be preferable to a bus station in downtown Jacksonville.

I wonder if its just that Raleigh had a more thoughtful and planned out multi-modal strategy?

[thelakelander]

From what I remember, at the time, it was for the monstrosity of the layout that everyone outside of the agency has questioned the validity of.  If I recall, it also didn't really address things like economic impact, job creation, TOD, reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, etc. to a large degree.  Overall, it was a poor package and product compared to some of the other projects across the country competing for the grant that year.

Raleigh's intermodal center is significantly smaller than that old JRTC plan, significantly cheaper and they also had some of their funds reallocated to a project in Charlotte over the last year.  So, this TIGER grant helps get them back to where they were.