'What We Have Here Is A Failure To Communicate'

[Metro Jacksonville]

'What We Have Here Is A Failure To Communicate'



Metro Jacksonville's Robert W. Mann believes our leaders could be selling the public a bill of goods when it comes to realizing the true economic impact of Bus Rapid Transit, Streetcars and Light Rail Transit on our landscape.  There are a growing number of cities expanding or proposing new local rail systems across the country. Could he be right? Could they be on to something that Jacksonville is overlooking?

Read More: http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2014-nov-what-we-have-here-is-a-failure-to-communicate

[Noone]

B- Bubbley
R- Route
T- Trip

Pub Crawl!

Good stuff. Rail on Ock.

Love the cartoon.

Stay positive.

Visit Jacksonville!

[simms3]

It's a good and comprehensive take.  However, a 34:1 ROC is a little misleading.  Here's why:

$100M invested in a transit trunk
$3.4Bn in private development subsequently built along some arbitrary radius around that trunk over a certain period of time (5 years, 10 years, 20 years, etc)

That $3.4Bn isn't directly "paying back" taxpayers in full...

In direct measurable tax increases, a smaller portion comes back (taxes often being in the 1-2% range, IF all $3.4Bn of development opened with the opening of the transit, that's a 1-2% annual return on cost in direct taxes, similar to a savings account I suppose, but close to a 0% "IRR", or "return").

In reality, $3.4Bn is built over time, and it's hard to prove that all of it is directly due to the transit.

In terms of other measurements, construction jobs are provided, stores open and employ people, offices are built and attract companies (some that may already be in existence and are simply shuffled geographically, leading to deterioration elsewhere for improvement around the transit).

If a construction worker is hired and paid a $15/hr salary, and spends $2-3 of that on things like discretionary goods, restaurants/bars, cab rides, etc, and then those people providing those goods/services take the money they got paid by him and likewise go out and buy things, there is a multiplier effect.  Pretty tough to measure, but attempts are made.

I guess my point is that it's difficult to directly prove or disprove true economic benefits of these systems in some/many cases, though it doesn't stop people from trying.

I think the best evidence is simply the most macro and visual evidence you can find:

Visual appearance of cities with transit.  Growth of cities with transit.  GDPs per capita of cities with transit.  Educational levels attained and poverty levels avoided by cities with transit.  Etc. There are definitely correlations.

Many of the cities you listed are really only slight improvements in the grand scheme of things over Jacksonville.  Charlotte may seem light years ahead, but when compared to a Denver really isn't.  And Austin and Nashville are building more residential and office right now in their downtowns, without transit (Austin and Nashville's commuter rail lines are jokes, especially Nashville's).

I'm generally a huge pro, but transit in my mind either has to really be about moving people around, or it needs to be billed as a real estate play.  It's rarely both.  Charlotte's LYNX serves 16,500 daily riders for an almost 10 mile line.  In the grand scheme of things that's not even that much more than Jacksonville's crappy skyway.  But lots of those type 3 construction apartments have been built along the line (with massive garages in each one despite the location right on the line).  In the grand scheme of Charlotte, LYNX doesn't move that many people.  But it spurred lots of infill real estate!  It was probably a huge armrest to lean on for developers looking to do bigger things downtown.

What is Jacksonville's angle?  Transportation or real estate/economic development?

[strider]

Here's what I know from personal experience.  Build a business with a large part of your clientele using any kind of bus transit and the odds are that eventually a route will change and that business will go bye-bye.  Fixed rail (street car) promotes development simply because it creates an atmosphere of permanence. SIMMS3, while your return on investment may be accurate to some degree, what is the return on investment on BRT? If it spurs a fraction of the development dollars, the ultimate cost to us taxpayers could be many times the ultimate cost of streetcar. 

In Jacksonville's case, perhaps the best question to ask is why does the good old boy network believe they will continue to make more off of the building and maintaining of the roads than the development streetcar would bring? 

[thelakelander]

What is Jacksonville's angle?  Transportation or real estate/economic development?

This one is easy. If Jax were willing to take an angle, it would be real estate/economic development of the urban core.

[Bike Jax]

The JTA plan nor anything else that has been built or planned is not BRT. Just because someone is calling it duck don't make it a duck.

[tufsu1]

I do not think that anyone in the new JTA leadership has oversold the BRT or route optimization plans.  Board members are not staff and people should not consider them as anything remotely close to transit experts.

[simms3]

Here's what I know from personal experience.  Build a business with a large part of your clientele using any kind of bus transit and the odds are that eventually a route will change and that business will go bye-bye.  Fixed rail (street car) promotes development simply because it creates an atmosphere of permanence. SIMMS3, while your return on investment may be accurate to some degree, what is the return on investment on BRT? If it spurs a fraction of the development dollars, the ultimate cost to us taxpayers could be many times the ultimate cost of streetcar. 

In Jacksonville's case, perhaps the best question to ask is why does the good old boy network believe they will continue to make more off of the building and maintaining of the roads than the development streetcar would bring? 

I agree, and I only even responded because I saw improper use of a couple of terms (return on cost being one).  Pet peave related to what I do with my life, so I had to comment.  Overall, yes, in a town like Jax, you're going to want to follow suit of your peers and build something that will result in a large real estate play.  You'll never be a transit town and face it.  People in Jacksonville will NEVER ride the bus, and hardly anyone will be riding rail, either.  If you want to live in a transit town, then move to a big established city.

BUT, that being said, a light rail will be much better than a BRT, if not for the simple fact that developers aren't going to lean as hard on a bus line in Jax as they will "tout" the hell out of a new "fancy" rail line.  Remember, to a small town, a light rail line is "fancy".  In a transit town, a misplaced or overly expensive rail line is a "reason why transit can't be improved where we need it most".  In SF they are building BRT too, and most want heavy rail extensions, which we can't afford right now.  Neither is seen as a "real estate play", but simply a necessity of a dense/carless city with relatively limited transit.

What is Jacksonville's angle?  Transportation or real estate/economic development?

This one is easy. If Jax were willing to take an angle, it would be real estate/economic development of the urban core.

So is that something JTA can push politically in Jax?  Or does their argument still need to be about actual transportation?  I remember in Atl, leaders there tried to push a bill to expand transit, and billed it as traffic unclogging good ol' fashioned transit.  However, many people saw through it and argued it "was nothing more than a real estate play", and I know people who were "for" the proposition who voted against it on the basis of faulty pitching by leaders.  I think that was stupid as the city then got nothing - no real estate play or "solved traffic", but maybe the voters in Jax are similar?  How do you pitch transit in this town?

The JTA plan nor anything else that has been built or planned is not BRT. Just because someone is calling it duck don't make it a duck.

Also true.  If Jax is going the bus route and having this whole PR campaign about it, then they need to at least get it right.  They are setting themself up for failure, still spending a lot of money (wastefully as it's obvious it will be a failure), and setting themselves up to be able to make excuses not to invest in transit in Jax ever again.

It's all a crock.  In fact, there's got to be a route of legal action to take since taxpayer money is involved and JTA clearly doesn't seem to have a fully vested interest in protecting such money (would that be a breach?  or typical of bureaucracy?)

[simms3]

I do not think that anyone in the new JTA leadership has oversold the BRT or route optimization plans.  Board members are not staff and people should not consider them as anything remotely close to transit experts.

That sounds ironic.

[Ocklawaha]

I agree, and I only even responded because I saw improper use of a couple of terms (return on cost being one).  Pet peave related to what I do with my life, so I had to comment.  Overall, yes, in a town like Jax, you're going to want to follow suit of your peers and build something that will result in a large real estate play...

...BUT, that being said, a light rail will be much better than a BRT, if not for the simple fact that developers aren't going to lean as hard on a bus line in Jax as they will "tout" the hell out of a new "fancy" rail line. 

The JTA plan nor anything else that has been built or planned is not BRT. Just because someone is calling it duck don't make it a duck.

Also true.  If Jax is going the bus route and having this whole PR campaign about it, then they need to at least get it right.  They are setting themself up for failure, still spending a lot of money (wastefully as it's obvious it will be a failure), and setting themselves up to be able to make excuses not to invest in transit in Jax ever again.

It's all a crock.  In fact, there's got to be a route of legal action to take since taxpayer money is involved and JTA clearly doesn't seem to have a fully vested interest in protecting such money (would that be a breach?  or typical of bureaucracy?)

People, JUST BE HONEST! Is this 'Flyer' a needed improvement? ABSOLUTELY! Will it produce Bogota, Cleveland or LA like results? Not a chance in hell, true TOD producing BRT is going to cost nearly as much as LRT and more then streetcar in order to get those results. What I want every reader to understand is even if you build that top notch type BRT, over the life of the project, it is going to cost you more then rail and produce less.

The math looks like this (all taken from recent projects):
$13,271,861+/-  19 CNG buses
$17,500.000 +/- 5 modern streetcars

Bus capacity 40 passengers
Streetcar capacity 170 passengers

Bus total capacity 19 vehicles = 760
With 19 drivers

Streetcar capacity 5 vehicles = 850
With 5 operators

Bus life expectancy = 12 years
Streetcar life expectancy = 30 years

Your end cost (30 years out) at current dollar levels would be:
New Buses - $33,179,652.5 the fleet will then have only 6 remaining years until it's 3rd replacement.
New Streetcars/LRT - $0 the fleet will be replaced at the end of 30 years.

BRT busway/street resurfacing (26 miles x $1M per mile / per 10 years) $52,000,000 - $78,000,000.
New railroad track 2 - 30 years, NONE with approximately 15 years remaining at the end of the 30 year time.

Number of drivers @ 20 years employment each:
BRT = 38
Rail = 10

As 'ExNewsMan,' so ably demonstrated this past week, many on here think I hate JTA and everyone and everything connected to it. Bologna! I actually rather like JTA, have had breakfast with Nat and spoken to Brad on many occasions. No anger, no hate, no ill-will. My fairly constant critiques deal with transit issues from the viewpoint of a former regional supervisor for Tamiami Trailways (Millennials? think Greyhound) and as a railroad planner. What I detest is the political games and public smoke and mirrors that make something as basic as the new (expensive) not quite BRT Lite, (by international standards) into a booming economic engine that will 'transform Jacksonville.' As Simms, Lakelander and myself have repeatedly pointed out, they are setting themselves up (nobody at MJ is doing this to them) for another huge failure. When the people recall the promises of what they are mislabeling BRT and then realize it is just another bus, a bit more frequent, different color, their creditability will tank worse then it has to date. They are practicing that Jacksonville art of shooting themselves in the foot.

And I agree Simms, I believe their should be legal recourse for this breech of faith with JTA's 'streetcar studies' and/or the $100,000,000 voted for and then stolen from JTA for the courthouse.

[AaroniusLives]

Incidentally, you can find pro-transit, anti-streetcar studies as well, notably at CityLab.

http://www.citylab.com/commute/2014/09/overall-us-streetcars-just-arent-meeting-the-standards-of-good-transit/379516/

To be clear: there's no inherent reason streetcars can't provide good mobility options for city residents. On the contrary, if they run in dedicated lanes and with high frequencies as part of a wider network, they can perform quite well. It's the way too many new streetcars are being deployed—as economic engines first and mobility tools second (if at all), even after being constructed with painfully limited transportation funding—that's inspiring much of the criticism.

Jacksonville's diet-not-really BRT also has these same issues, really, but it will cost less...

http://www.citylab.com/commute/2013/11/4-hard-truths-about-transit/7526/

...yep, less! And Canada's study is actually looking at exclusive lane BRT...and over the timeframe of 25 years. Ock is right in that buses have higher vehicle replacement costs over time, but that's it. You could and should have exclusive right of way BRT for less cash than shared traffic streetcars.

http://www.citylab.com/commute/2014/02/why-more-us-cities-need-embrace-bus-rapid-transit/8480/

http://www.metro-magazine.com/news/story/2013/09/brt-a-cost-effective-catalyst-for-urban-development-study-says.aspx

BRT is pretty much proving to be quite effective, both cost and transit wise, provided the have ROW and meet international standards.

http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2013/09/clevelands_healthline_gives_mo.html

...and will offer more bang for your development buck, although probably not in Jacksonville's watered down version of it.

Incidentally, since you're calling out places playing with streetcars, it's interesting...

http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2014/08/striking_gold_with_silver_line.html

...that Grand Rapids launched a semi-exclusive ROW BRT line that delivered 3 times as much transit for less than half the cost of their 3-ish mile proposed downtown streetcar line.

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/housingcomplex/2014/10/23/city-names-three-finalists-to-oversee-scaled-back-streetcar-network/

In DC, my town, we've curtailed expansion of the streetcar network, notably because it doesn't remotely solve anybody's congestion issues and demographic and economic realities are doing the gentrification and renewal lifts at this point.

http://blogs.rollcall.com/the-container/a-streetcar-setback-in-d-c-suburbs/?dcz=

And in big news up here, as super liberal Arlington County is the poster child for transit and density, they cancelled their streetcar because  "that it's not worth trying put in new transportation options that are focused on economic development and do not actually improve travel times or accessibility for people."

You know what DID launch in the metro region up here this year?

http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/24029/alexandrias-metroway-brt-open-and-carrying-passengers/

Yep. BRT.

[thelakelander]

To be honest, BRT spurring a bunch of development in Cleveland is a bunch of bull.  I covered this after a trip to Cleveland last year:

http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2013-jun-a-look-at-brt-clevelands-healthline

The Health Line is an excellent BRT example that other cities should try to copy.  However, the billions being touted as TOD would have came regardless of if transit were present or not. For example, dig into the data and you'll find out they are calling college dorms, classroom expansions, and medical center expansions.....TOD because the Health Line runs down a street adjacent to pre-existing colleges and medical centers.  Also, since it penetrates downtown, everything in downtown within a 1/4 mile radius of Euclid Avenue is also being called TOD.



Another thing that stands out about that system is it's complimentary to the pre-existing heavy rail line that parallels it a few blocks south of Euclid between DT and University Circle.  Once one realizes the surrounding context, it's totally understandable that most of this "TOD" is occurring where BRT meets heavy rail stations or on the campuses of the two universities and several medical centers that were already present.


I have a hard time calling hospital expansions "TOD" just because the transit agency put up a nice bus stop across the street.

The problem with calling development along Euclid Avenue "TOD" is that others believe just putting in a nice bus will deliver similar results in their communities. It's not the bus or its branding, it's the selected route and pre-existing development/land uses surrounding it.

Also, unless we're not counting the capital costs of roads where lanes are removed for exclusive bus ROW, true BRT will cost you just as much as rail.

Overall, I don't think we should play these systems against each other. They both have their positives and negatives and work best when part of a comprehensive, well connected and integrated multimodal transit network.

[thelakelander]

Also, running a streetcar in mixed traffic makes no sense, imo.  If you're going to invest in fixed transit, it needs to have its own dedicated lanes or ROW. If you're not going to do that, you might as well run a bus in mixed traffic.

[Ocklawaha]

Incidentally, you can find pro-transit, anti-streetcar studies as well, notably at CityLab.

http://www.citylab.com/commute/2014/09/overall-us-streetcars-just-arent-meeting-the-standards-of-good-transit/379516/

To be clear: there's no inherent reason streetcars can't provide good mobility options for city residents. On the contrary, if they run in dedicated lanes and with high frequencies as part of a wider network, they can perform quite well. It's the way too many new streetcars are being deployed—as economic engines first and mobility tools second (if at all), even after being constructed with painfully limited transportation funding—that's inspiring much of the criticism.

Jacksonville's diet-not-really BRT also has these same issues, really, but it will cost less...

http://www.citylab.com/commute/2013/11/4-hard-truths-about-transit/7526/

...yep, less! And Canada's study is actually looking at exclusive lane BRT...and over the timeframe of 25 years. Ock is right in that buses have higher vehicle replacement costs over time, but that's it. You could and should have exclusive right of way BRT for less cash than shared traffic streetcars.

http://www.citylab.com/commute/2014/02/why-more-us-cities-need-embrace-bus-rapid-transit/8480/

http://www.metro-magazine.com/news/story/2013/09/brt-a-cost-effective-catalyst-for-urban-development-study-says.aspx

BRT is pretty much proving to be quite effective, both cost and transit wise, provided the have ROW and meet international standards.

And you could and should have exclusive right of way streetcar for less cash than BRT. The first 5 miles of Metroway is costing $42.5 million dollars for 5 miles of busway. That's $8,500,000 per mile, without the buses. The 10, 42 passenger buses add another $6,985,190 which will be repeated every 8-12 years, though the industry is pushing for an 8 year cap. The busway itself, considering the 20,000 pound axle load of the BRT buses and temperate weather will not last 10 years without a rebuild or at least a recap or milling... Another $1-2 million per mile ever 10 years. To that add the cost of 10 drivers per 8 hours running those 92 daily trips. The expected initial passenger load is small, roughly 3,500 per day, or a little less at first but growing when the rail station is established at Potomac Yard. So the BRT will  work, fed by rail.

http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2013/09/clevelands_healthline_gives_mo.html

...and will offer more bang for your development buck, although probably not in Jacksonville's watered down version of it.

As Lakelander has pointed out, the claims on Cleveland's Silver Line are much more suspect then those of Tampa's lowly streetcar or Kenosha's streetcar. Here's another table from Reconnecting America.

Incidentally, since you're calling out places playing with streetcars, it's interesting...

http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2014/08/striking_gold_with_silver_line.html

...that Grand Rapids launched a semi-exclusive ROW BRT line that delivered 3 times as much transit for less than half the cost of their 3-ish mile proposed downtown streetcar line. The 9.6-mile line that connects the center city and the Medical Mile with its southern suburbs of Wyoming and Kentwood, supporters say, it should offer an efficient alternative by cutting a typical 45-minute drive to a 27-minute commute. Except that the same was said of the Los Angeles Orange Line BRT until they discovered that the buses tended to bunch up at stations, and the 18 minute savings per Grand Rapids claims using the LA experience will be more like 5 minutes. Grand Rapids is equipping the new line with 10 hybrid electric buses that run full electric to 25 mph, then combine diesel and electric power. They cost $700,000 each, and at 42 passengers, can carry 420 in total with 20 daily drivers covering the schedules. 3 modern streetcars, requiring 6 daily operators would carry 540 passengers in total, the 30 year cost being $10,500,000 dollars. Those buses will end up costing
$17,500,000 over the next 30 years.

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/housingcomplex/2014/10/23/city-names-three-finalists-to-oversee-scaled-back-streetcar-network/

In DC, my town, we've curtailed expansion of the streetcar network, notably because it doesn't remotely solve anybody's congestion issues and demographic and economic realities are doing the gentrification and renewal lifts at this point.

http://blogs.rollcall.com/the-container/a-streetcar-setback-in-d-c-suburbs/?dcz=

Setbacks yes, canceled? NO! What happened on Oct 23rd is the District Department of Transportation (DDOT) announced three finalists for its contract to design, build, operate, and maintain streetcar lines. Earlier this year, DDOT had planned for that contract to encompass all of the 22-mile streetcar system: an east-west line from Benning Road to Georgetown, a north-south line from Southwest to Takoma or Silver Spring, and a line from Anacostia to Southwest.

To make that possible, the mayor's office had asked the DC Council to essentially set aside all of the money for the entire system right now.

While they insisted, vehemently, that they still support the streetcar system, the Council dedided they just weren't ready to give it all of the money today. Therefore, this current bidding process can only legally encompass the lines which are in the six-year capital plan—the east-west line and the part of the Anacostia line from Bolling to the foot of the 11th Street Bridge.

The news stories have, accurately, reported that the current funding only lets the system grow to about 8.2 miles. Unfortunately, some of them also gave them impression that DC has "cut" the program. It's going to happen slower, definitely, but that might not even be all bad.

And in big news up here, as super liberal Arlington County is the poster child for transit and density, they cancelled their streetcar because  "that it's not worth trying put in new transportation options that are focused on economic development and do not actually improve travel times or accessibility for people."

You know what DID launch in the metro region up here this year?

http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/24029/alexandrias-metroway-brt-open-and-carrying-passengers/

Yep. BRT.

In the end BRT has it's place, but not at the cost of rail, IE: "Rail is not a good fit in Jacksonville," or "light-rail on tires." Imagine a true exclusive lane BRT line running on the center lanes of the Arlington Expressway. Road and pedestrian overpasses having elevators or ramps down to station platforms in the medians, with left hand boarding. TRUE gold level BRT between downtown and Regency... amazing. Add to that a BRT line down Blanding, which could perhaps use Post Street to Normandy and hence on Cassat to Blanding, setting up a future line on Normandy and Edgewood. The Lem Turner line is a good choice as well. The trouble with the BRT plans locally is they are promising 'Gold or Silver' results with something less then BRT-Lite. The other problem is duplication or near duplication of routes already covered by the Skyway or identified by the streetcar study as streetcar routes. JTA says they understand about streetcars... Yep. Streetcars. 34 years and counting.

I believe we must do BRT right. We also must purchase 6-10 intercity motor coaches to serve our longer interurban routes to the beaches and St. Johns. I am certainly not anti-bus, a good chunk of my transportation career was spent as a regional supervisor for Trailways. But it must be done right, and done right the first time, anything less is Skyway 2.0 .

[AaroniusLives]

Thelakelander, I posted primarily because the story was misleading. Under the thesis statement "is Jacksonville missing the streetcar boat," the article used two systems up here...one of which has been cancelled ENTIRELY in super transit friendly Arlington and the other cut back by 90% because it's a costly, ineffective, inefficient White Elephant...in a city that never met a costly, ineffective, inefficient White Elephant it wasn't willing to feed truffle covered peanuts dipped in gold to.

My point is that there are plenty of places that have found success with BRT, plenty of "leading cities" from Chicago to DC to Paris and beyond that have found success with BRT, and that while a streetcar in mixed traffic may spur economic development, it doesn't exactly function as a transit solution. (Tampa's slow moving, noisy "historical" and poorly used mess of a streetcar could be the poster child for this paradigm. "Look! I went a distance I could easily walk, and I'm uncomfortable! Just like the old days.")

If anything, Metrojacksonville should focus on getting Jax's Diet NotBRT to have exclusive ROW, either now or as a second phase. And to not miss that boat. Especially true in Florida, where they consistently vote down transit of any kind, and especially rail.

As for the Healthline not driving development, we're going to agree to disagree. The existing medical centers and colleges could have very well created car oriented development. Or none at all, considering that it's Cleveland and not exactly growing. And that its in a downtown with existing assets doesn't and shouldn't detract from clever, smart and working transit policies as it relates to BRT. I do agree that they over promise, but c'mon. Doesn't every transit agency over promise? Wasnt the SkyWay supposed to be a gateway to our Epcot dreams?

Where we've gone off the rails, as it were, is in using transit in non-exclusive lanes as a tool for real estate development, versus as a long term, effective way to move people quickly that also tends to spur real estate development. We're putting the cart before the horse and then buying a house cat to drag it.