Nat Ford: Why Jax should invest in the future of transportation, Downtown

[thelakelander]

Two months ago Mayor Curry and the Jacksonville Transportation Authority (JTA) announced plans to increase the local option gas tax to pay for much-needed transportation upgrades. The plan would free up money to remove failing septic tanks in long-neglected Jacksonville neighborhoods.

In some parts of town, I have heard concern over the proposed transformation of the Skyway into the Ultimate Urban Circulator, or U2C. I believe it would be short-sighted not to pursue the conversion of this '80s-era elevated structure into a more viable modern transit system to move people in and out of downtown into surrounding neighborhoods.

And contrary to the belief of some, Downtown Jacksonville is not dead. It's truly waking up and we are planning for that continued growth through good transportation planning. Don't let the naysayers fool you, there's plenty of progress being made in Downtown Jacksonville.

Projects like the Brooklyn Vista, Broadstone River House, The District, the Doro and what's being proposed for areas like the Berkman II property, the Ford at Bay, along with the investment by local developers into historic restoration infill projects in the Northbank Core are creating the type of infill density Downtown hasn't seen in decades.

Brooklyn is a prime example of an area that has completely transformed since 2015. And there is no stopping that momentum with construction crews building new hotels, apartments, dining and retail and office space right now.

The Downtown Investment Authority estimates there are more than 6,200 residents in what we think of as traditional downtown and that doesn't include the progress we're seeing in Springfield, Riverside and San Marco.

Vystar, FIS and other major employers are investing millions into building new campuses or expanding existing spaces. Restaurants like Cowford Chophouse, Bellweather, Jump'in Jax and Super Food & Brew continue to thrive in Downtown, along with local breweries like Bold City, and Intuition Ale Works. Ruby Beach Brewing relocated to the Urban Core, and investments from the Bread & Board, the Greedy Spoon and others continue.

The U2C also provides a solution to the most criticized element of the Skyway – a lack of good origins and destinations.

Our plan will transform an existing 2.5-mile taxpayer-funded structure, the Skyway, and covert it to a road at elevation. That route will come down to street level and expand an additional eight miles into Springfield, San Marco, Riverside and Brooklyn. These neighborhoods were always contemplated to be part of the original Skyway plans. This solution is much more cost effective than building more permanent superstructures, which would be disruptive and have a much longer build out.

Miami and Detroit followed through on their commitments to build out their people movers decades ago and they are now reaping the economic benefits of those decisions. In addition to being able to circulate people throughout their urban core, businesses and residential units have popped up all around the systems. Even with the limitations of the Skyway, we have seen residential units develop around our existing system. Vestcor alone has completed four housing developments with more than 500 new units in recent years, all built within steps of or within walking distance of a Skyway station. The Jacksonville Regional Transportation Center was built around a Skyway station with direct access into the heart of the building.

More residential and mixed-use development is being proposed on the vacant parcels surrounding the JRTC, and the possibilities with the current convention center property are endless. Imagine being able to quickly go from Riverside to a Jumbo Shrimp game, or from UF Health to the growing medical complex on the Southbank. By finally connecting these nearby neighborhoods through the U2C, Downtown Jacksonville will once again become the heartbeat of this community, and in turn, strengthening our entire region.

https://www.jacksonville.com/story/opinion/2021/05/02/nat-ford-why-jacksonville-should-invest-future-transportation-downtown/7411423002/

[thelakelander]

Still a very high level and empty form of promoting an unproven solution that is more expensive than proven transit solutions that would support downtown and connect to various neighborhoods. Replace the U2C with a streetcar or high frequency bus corridor with dedicated lanes, etc. and you can achieve everything mentioned here at less cost to the tax payer, lower long term maintenance cost, and with a shorter implementation timeframe because these technologies already exist. People really need to do their homework here and not operate under the assumption that improving our community has to be a U2C at $379 million with LOGT revenue or bust. There's a million things we can accomplish with that type of money and that even includes doing the first $44 million phase of the U2C to TIAA Bank Field without a dime of LOGT money, since it's already funded.

[thelakelander]

Btw, I've never heard the Detroit Peoplemover described as a success until now. Detroit actually went the opposite route of what we're doing with the Skyway. They left their peoplemover alone and built a new modern streetcar line that tied their downtown (and existing peoplemover) to their Amtrak station, several miles north in New Center. That project was significantly less per mile than the U2C though.

The math all depends on how you want to describe your system. The QLine is either 3.4 miles or a 6.6 mile loop. At $144 million, that's either $42 million or $21 million per mile. I mention the numbers this way because the only way the U2C comes out to +10 miles would be to include a new bridge across the river (seriously doubt that one happens) and to show the Bay Street Innovation Corridor as a loop. That voodoo math puts the U2C at around $42 million and at a significantly higher cost per mile if the bridge were subtracted (after all, the bridge cost isn't included in the $379 million LOGT ask) and if the Bay Street Corridor were identified as the actual 1.3 mile corridor it is from Hogan Street to TIAA Bank Field.


Detroit People Mover (was not expanded)



The QLine Streetcar (what was constructed) was a totally separate project built at significantly less cost than the U2C. It is what has been generating TOD in Detroit. Not the People Mover.

If Jaxson's were given an option between the two, the QLine or the U2C, I'm pretty confident that they'd go for the significantly cheaper and proven QLine.

[marcuscnelson]

I think the most notable thing is that this article assumes that the AV technology is capable of doing all of this already, which it is not. I was at their test facility on Friday, and while they'd occasionally do some test running through the course without their hands on the wheel/joystick/game controller, the vehicles aren't actually capable of carrying passengers with no driver yet. You can't call the U2C a "modern transit system" when it doesn't exist anywhere else.

And yeah, it seems all of JTA is parroting this line about Detroit's system and how it's been built out and successful.

[jaxlongtimer]

I think the most notable thing is that this article assumes that the AV technology is capable of doing all of this already, which it is not. I was at their test facility on Friday, and while they'd occasionally do some test running through the course without their hands on the wheel/joystick/game controller, the vehicles aren't actually capable of carrying passengers with no driver yet. You can't call the U2C a "modern transit system" when it doesn't exist anywhere else.

Agree, the AV technology is the most important hurdle (aside from unanswered ROI questions related to costs and user acceptance) for now.  Unproven by many who have spent far more dollars and time than JTA and either have yet to prove it out or just given up.  No way JTA is going to find the magic potion before others with their very limited resources and experience.  And, again, why should Jax taxpayers be paying for an R & D project to benefit the rest of the world assuming the very unlikely scenario that they hit a moonshot.  400+ million to one odds this is money down the drain.

Vestcor alone has completed four housing developments with more than 500 new units in recent years, all built within steps of or within walking distance of a Skyway station.

I drive by these Vestcor developments quite regularly.  I have never seen a single resident outside, much less walking to a Skyway station.  All these buildings have gated parking lots/garages and my bet is these residents use their cars to get around.  Can JTA produce a survey validating this audience for the Skyway?  Like so many claims in this article, it appears to be unsubstantiated and speculative day dreaming.

Here is a question:  The article lists all the developments to date "Downtown."  If we added up all the private investment in every single one listed, would it even come up to the $400+ million proposed for the AV/Skyway project?  Or go over it by much?  And, notably, not one was built depending on the existing Skyway or in expectation of this project being completed.  So, where is the correlation?  Is there a single development that JTA can point to that would go forward heavily dependent upon, or only if, this project being/is completed?

That route will come down to street level and expand an additional eight miles into Springfield, San Marco, Riverside and Brooklyn.

Compared to most of the City, these are our most "walkable" neighborhoods.  That said, they are, in my opinion, large enough and lacking the density to support large numbers of people "walking" to an AV stop on Riverside Avenue, Main Street or Hendricks Avenue.  How often and how motivated will those residents be to go at 15 to 25 mph holding on to pole for 15 to 25+ minutes to leave the comfort of their neighborhood and go across town?  It would be interesting to see what ridership studies and assumptions JTA is using to support the ROI on this project.  By the way, have they ever talked about a fare structure that might influence the answer?

[Ken_FSU]

Don't let the naysayers fool you, there's plenty of progress being made in Downtown Jacksonville.

Projects like the Brooklyn Vista, Broadstone River House, The District, the Doro and what's being proposed for areas like the Berkman II property, the Ford at Bay, along with the investment by local developers into historic restoration infill projects in the Northbank Core are creating the type of infill density Downtown hasn't seen in decades.

Just like with the guest op-ed from the DIA a few months back, and the DVI report every year, this narrative of progress being made downtown despite what naysayers in "certain parts of town" claim amounts to pure gaslighting. Really tired of all these organizations patting themselves on the back for projects like Lot J, Berkman II, the District, Ford on Bay, the Laura Street Trio, and other historic redevelopments downtown that are nothing but the same renders on paper that they've been for years while ignoring all the steps backward, botches, and broken promises.

Absolute garbage piece that does nothing to explain why the U2C is needed badly enough to warrant devoting 40 percent of our gas tax to over the next 30 years to a 10-mile project servicing a handful of mostly affluent urban neighborhoods. What crippling transportation problem is the U2C addressing that can't be solved at 10x the efficiency and 1/10th the cost with something as simple as buses? Quickly (Nat's words) getting from Riverside to a Jumbo Shrimp game? Really?

Cool how he completely forgets to mention the price tag in the piece. And the speed and capacity issues. And the opportunity cost. Just more platitudes about how great things are downtown and how the pessimists simply can't shut up and appreciate the fact that - despite all evidence to the contrary - our city leaders are the smartest ones in the room.

U2C would be a multi-generational mistake, and it's pretty terrifying that this is a hill JTA wants to die on. 

Have said it since the second the project list was released.

Skyway is gonna kill an otherwise good plan dead in the water.

And JTA seems perfectly content to allow the baby to be thrown out with the bath water.

[bl8jaxnative]

They want to spend 1/2 a billion on clown cars  that can almost not drive themselves from bus stop to bus stop. 

Adam Sadler has a phrase appropriate to invoke if this is "the future of transportation", FMITGA.

[tufsu1]

I wonder what the definition of quickly is?

"Imagine being able to quickly go from Riverside to a Jumbo Shrimp game..."

Imagine instead if we completed the Riverwalk from Berkman II to A Philip Randolph Blvd (the bulkhead work was done almost a decade ago).  One could ride their bike from 5 Points along the Riverwalk to the ballpark in about 20 minutes.

[jaxlongtimer]

Barron's article headline recently posted:

Are We There Yet? Autonomous Driving Has a Long Road Ahead.

Article is behind a paywall but if you are willing to squint your eyes you can read the very light colored text bleeding through the web page.  Bottom line, it says solving this problem is probably the hardest tech issue ever and many are just giving up on getting it done.

It also cites low consumer confidence meaning people are not willing to accept a ride in an autonomous vehicle today.  What will that mean for JTA ridership?

A reader added this interesting comment that would appear applicable to JTA's proposal:

Are fully autonomous cars possible.  Absolutely.  The problem I see is mixing cars that drive based on logic with those driven by irrational, emotional human beings.  If all cars had the capability, and a switch could be thrown that would dictate that all cars be autonomous, there probably wouldn't be a problem.  The human element strikes again!

https://www.barrons.com/articles/self-driving-keeps-getting-delayed-why-autonomous-vehicles-are-still-a-ways-off-51619822210?siteid=yhoof2

Maybe someone here can get a copy of the article and share it with our Council members.

And guess who Tweeted this quote this past week:

"A major part of real-world AI has to be solved to make unsupervised, generalized full self-driving work, as the entire road system is designed for biological neural nets with optical imagers,"

That's right, the king of autonomous tech, Elon Musk.

But, JTA knows better than anyone else.

[thelakelander]

I wonder what the definition of quickly is?

"Imagine being able to quickly go from Riverside to a Jumbo Shrimp game..."

Imagine instead if we completed the Riverwalk from Berkman II to A Philip Randolph Blvd (the bulkhead work was done almost a decade ago).  One could ride their bike from 5 Points along the Riverwalk to the ballpark in about 20 minutes.

We can spend $423 million on having this 15mph transit option available by 2030 and it would still lose out to Uber and Lyft's current services. I'm struggling to see why Jax taxpayers should fund a 1/2 billion experiment for such a privileged use. Riverside to a Jumbo Shrimp game? Seriously?!

[Fallen Buckeye]

You could achieve the same outcomes as U2c with buses tbh. I read that an electric bus costs around $800,000. Install a couple of charging stations and you've got faster vehicles with lower maintenance and operating costs with greater capacity that you can still bill as an "innovative" transit solution for these same routes they'd be running with a U2C...only one costs much less than the other. 

This whole thing stinks of sunk cost fallacy.

[Peter Griffin]

"Imagine being able to quickly go from Riverside to a Jumbo Shrimp game..."

I can do that with a rideshare, bicycle, motorcycle, or in my own car no problem. This is not a problem that needs solving.

I agree, sunk cost fallacy is plaguing this project so badly

[jaxlongtimer]

Nate Monroe weighs in on the gas tax and skewers City Council members for wimping out on dealing with it properly, especially Aaron Bowman, who he paints as a hypocrite for pushing for a referendum:

https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/columns/nate-monroe/2021/05/05/jacksonville-city-council-weasels-out-mayors-gas-tax-plan-nate-monroe/4954058001/?utm_source=jacksonville-News%20Alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=news_alerts&utm_term=news_alert

[thelakelander]

Good points by Nate. It's pretty bad that no one has offered up some alternative proposals with the project list or an alternative funding mechanism, if not a fan of this type of tax in general.

[marcuscnelson]

The fun thing about having an ideology that largely relies on obstructionism vs actual policymaking is that you don't actually have to offer alternatives.

And as I've said in other threads, there's been surprisingly little talk of the projects on the list. Instead the argument seems to be about whether to pass it at all.