Is U2C serious? Help me make it make sense....

[Ken_FSU]

And don't call me Shirley.

Tell me, Charles. Have you ever been in a Turkish prison?

[Jax_Developer]

https://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/news/2025/jun/27/jtas-driverless-navi-van-service-starts-downtown-on-june-30/

The service will be free from June 30 to Sept. 30. After that, it will cost $1.75 per passenger. It will operate 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday-Friday.

The service will roll out with eight vehicles, costing $392,000 each. There will be 14 vehicles in the fleet when its complete, JTA documents report.

The (stops) will be the most lit, the most monitored and the safest area of our city," Moye said.

The factory is expected to bring $300 million in economic impact to the city, Deegan said.

- Fantastic service hours
- Outlay for 14 vehicles equivalent to more than 150 Robotaxi's
- $300M in economic impact but we paid how much for that? Oh right..

Are we in a simulation?

[Charles Hunter]

Mayor Donna Deegan took the crowd at the ribbon-cutting on a trip in the near future. She imagined UF students finishing classes and taking a NAVI to Intuition Brewery or Manifest Distillery and then finishing the evening at a nightspot on Bay Street.

The service will be free from June 30 to Sept. 30. After that, it will cost $1.75 per passenger. It will operate 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday-Friday.

These two statements are not compatible.

When the $1.75/ride fare begins, watch the ridership go from scores of passengers per day to tens of passengers.

[Charles Hunter]

Just saw this FB post from JTA

Due to various events at the VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena and Daily's Place, Routes 11 and 18 will have detours and adjusted bus stop locations today, Friday, June 27th through Sunday, June 29th. For full details, please visit jtafla.com.

How will the Navi vehicles, with their pre-programmed routes ("down to the inch" per the ribbon-cutting article) NAVIgate such a situation?

[jaxoNOLE]

Downtown residents & office workers are sure to jump at the chance to catch a NAVI to dinner, and then Uber back to wherever they need to be.

The route has been mapped out to the inch, JTA CEO Nat Ford said.

"Imagine it is on virtual rails. So we are driving a specific route on the Bay Street, Innovation Corridor," he said.

"We know at any instant in time exactly where the vehicles are, exactly where the vehicles can be, and that helps us deploy these without additional infrastructure, in a very, very safe and predictable format."

Imagine if it were on actual rails! I also suppose the command center and $60M+ spent on BSIC aren't considered "infrastructure." How predictable and safe are the cars & pedestrians NAVI will be operating in mixed traffic with?

The service will roll out with eight vehicles, costing $392,000 each. There will be 14 vehicles in the fleet when its complete, JTA documents report.

Don't worry -- this is a temporary issue. Once Holon is up and running, we'll capture the efficiency of scale and the price will drop to **checks notes**

JTA has reserved 100 vehicles from Holon, including an initial batch of 14 that will be purchased at $409,000 each.
[...]
The Holon project is receiving city and state incentives. The state is providing an $8 million incentive award and a tax credit. Jacksonville is contributing $7.7 million in property and training grants.

Oh.

[Ken_FSU]

The average city bus costs $450,000, and can carry over 100 passengers seated+standing.

The U2C Bay Street Corridor costs $60 million, and has a total capacity, across all 8 vehicles, of 72 human beings.

Seventy-two fucking people.

For SIXTY MILLION DOLLARS.

With an occupancy of 9 people per vehicle, including a "JTA Ambassador" with his hand under the table Wizard from Oz style making sure it doesn't fall into the river, God forbid more than a handful of people ever need to use this system in mass. Said bus could move 100 people in a single trip. The U2C would require an hour and a half to fully board all passengers.

Operational hours of 7 AM to 7 PM from Monday - Friday: Insane.

Stated standard use case of graduate students (650 tops in early years) traveling from UF's (still speculative in many ways) LaVilla campus to Intuition Ale Works (which is for sale) - Insane.

Even in the BEST CASE SCENARIO IMAGINABLE, this thing does not have the capacity to be a success if it cannot even carry people at any volume.

This press conferences have gotten to the point of either pure delusion or intentional gaslighting.

Stupid, self-inflicted wound that will be felt for decades.

[thelakelander]

Definitely bordering on pure delusion or intentional gaslighting with this one. What a colossal waste of public money.

[Ken_FSU]

$60 million in taxpayer dollars.

To move 8 groups of up to 8 people roughly a mile in either direction.

In terms of why the public isn't blocking entrance to City Hall every day protesting the ~2% upcharge on every gallon of gas they'll buy for the next 30 years that is being used recklessly and exclusively to fund the U2C, I almost think that there's a certain element of the, "The bigger the lie, the easier it is to believe" going on here.

It's such an egregious misappropriation of public money for such an empirically bad project that it's almost hard to wrap your head around.

[jaxlongtimer]

The only real thing on Bay Street will be the Four Seasons. 

Let's see...TV executive, celebrity VIP, commissioner of NFL or opposing team owner pays close to, or more than, $1,000/night, walks out their room, stands on a street corner, and takes a $1.75 ride maybe 6 blocks "into town" with the common folk for an evening dinner, one way, since it won't be running at the end of dinner.

LOL, not gonna happen.  There is a better chance of finding pots of gold at the end of rainbows. 

Maybe not even the above, since it won't be running on game weekends (thank God! Imagine hitting all those fans in the streets...wait, where did they come from?  We didn't "program" them to be there!).

And, then there are all these reasons given to use the U2C, which mostly run past 7 PM... so what's the point of a one-way trip at best?

The stretch, called the Bay Street Innovation Corridor, will stop to provide a convenient walk to restaurants, bars and nightlife spots, arts and culture facilities, parks, hotels and shopping opportunities along the route, according to the JTA.

[Charles Hunter]

Will service stop even earlier in the winter, when it gets dark earlier? Will it operate in typical summer thunderstorms?

[Jax_Developer]

https://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/news/2021/aug/26/jta-awards-design-engineering-contracts-for-skyway-replacement/

"We have to make sure we're not picking the Blackberry but we're picking the iPhone," Ford said.

He said construction likely will start next year [2022].

https://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/news/2022/jan/28/jta-signs-dollar49-million-contract-with-balfour-beatty-for-skyway-replacement/

"It's always kind of a risk with a lot of startups and this technology being so new, you'll see other players that are going to come and are going to go."

JTA and Balfour Beatty likely will choose the vehicle when the U2C design reaches the 60% mark, Schmidt said.

https://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/news/2023/may/31/jta-automated-vehicle-project-could-start-bay-street-construction-this-year/

"We are at the phase now where we are through our 60% design and starting construction by our build grant mandate. We will start revenue service in 2025. So we're well underway and advancing," he said.

https://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/news/2024/sep/04/german-autonomous-ev-maker-holon-to-open-100-million-production-facility-in-2026/

"Jacksonville is positioned to be a national and even international leader in the technology behind AI-driven traffic," she said.

"Do we stand by while other cities innovate, or do we take this opportunity to lead the way?"

"So all the hotels and the airlines need to get ready because folks will be traveling to this facility. They'll be traveling to Bay Street to see how it's done. They'll see the pride that Jacksonville has in this new technology," he said.

Putting these few quotes together makes this program look even more like a joke. Donna may have done a lot of good, but her political support for this is absolutely appalling. The quotes here demonstrate a complete lack of understanding & lack of duty to the taxpayer. We, the Duval taxpayer, have been supplementing R&D for an immensely complicated application that already exists.

No, there are no other cities investing in this as city transportation, on purpose. No, Jacksonville is not the first city to have low-capacity autonomous shuttles. No, this isn't new technology & nobody will travel to experience it. In fact, this is already dated technology that has been implemented for years in the right environments. You won't need to worry about the iPhone or Blackberry decision, we're clearly picking Nokia. Not a single decision maker with any idea of how the technology works... surely they have the full picture.

In reference to the comments around the hours of operation... that is almost certainly due to the lack of efficient coding from the LIDAR/RADAR & the camera sensors. Waymo has been at it since 2015 - working to make everything air tight with google as a backer... the equipment is only as good as the code, and its not like Holon (aka Benteler) has any background in this stuff. They're a Tier 1 supplier, not a tech company (shocking). LIDAR/RADAR works fine in dark settings, but not the cameras. Meaning, we likely won't see any extended hours for quite some time. My guess is, they will try to introduce it on some semi-closed course as some event shuttle thing.

An almost 10 year old link of true pioneers: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/03/google-self-driving-car-trial-washington-state-rain

[Charles Hunter]

There's an article on WJXT's website about the NAVI starting service tomorrow.  I found this interesting,

"As NAVI begins operations, passenger feedback is essential," the JTA added. "Riders are encouraged to complete a brief survey following their ride, which will inform updates and service enhancements as the JTA and its partners continue to refine and expand this groundbreaking mobility solution."

https://www.news4jax.com/news/local/2025/06/29/jacksonvilles-first-driverless-public-transportation-service-begins-monday/

I wonder what rider surveys from denizens of The Jaxson would say?

And, who knew NAVI is an acronym

The Neighborhood Autonomous Vehicle Innovation, otherwise known as NAVI,

[jaxlongtimer]

There's an article on WJXT's website about the NAVI starting service tomorrow.  I found this interesting,

And, who knew NAVI is an acronym

The Neighborhood Autonomous Vehicle Innovation, otherwise known as NAVI,

Or NAVI could stand for NON Autonomous Vehicle Incompetency.

[Ken_FSU]

There's an article on WJXT's website about the NAVI starting service tomorrow.  I found this interesting,
And, who knew NAVI is an acronym

The Neighborhood Autonomous Vehicle Innovation, otherwise known as NAVI,

Or NAVI could stand for NON Autonomous Vehicle Incompetency.

NAVI = Not A Viable Investment.

[thelakelander]

Lol we're a city full of suckers!

Technology akin to 'virtual rails' guiding autonomous shuttles

Please stop comparing cargo vans to any type of rail. It does Jax a disservice.

In a city where mass transit has long taken a backseat to the automobile, the most crucial assessment will come from residents and visitors deciding whether they will use NAVI, which is short for Neighborhood Autonomous Vehicle Innovation.

When riders and residents fail to support this long term, please don't claim Jax isn't ready for real transit.

NAVI, which is pronounced like "navigation" and rhymes with "savvy," will run from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday on a 3.5 mile route that JTA calls the Bay Street Innovation Corridor. The system will have 12 covered stations where the electric-powered NAVI shuttle will arrive every seven minutes.

So no night or weekend service....Why? What's the point of going to the Sports District when most of the events there are at night and on the weekends?

JTA spent $65 million to create the initial leg of the system, including the construction of a new command center on West Bay Street and 14 electric-powered vehicles that have NAVI brightly painted on their sides.

JTA awarded a five-year contract for up to $36.3 million with Orlando-based Beep, Inc. for handling operations and maintenance of NAVI on the Bay Street service.

So we're looking at another long term subsidy that taxpayers will have to support at the expense of more pressing underfunded needs city wide. The big winner here is definitely Beep.

JTA will have a human operator on board to take control of the vehicle as needed during the initial months of running the service. But eventually, the only people in the NAVI shuttles will be the passengers themselves.

Something we said here years ago:


A potential mobility solution to fill the first-mile, last-mile gaps in public transportation, while shuttles may be autonomous, current laws require human attendants.[/img]

Full 2019 article: https://www.thejaxsonmag.com/article/autonomous-shuttle-service-launches-in-orlando/

NAVI ridership will hinge

on growth of downtown

NAVI's ability to draw riders will be closely tied to the development of downtown.

Don't blame downtown residents and development for when this fails. There is no correlation. If the adequate analysis and planning has been done over the last decade, we should have a pretty good idea of how things should play out immediately.

Mayor Donna Deegan noted JTA cut the ribbon for NAVI three days after City Council approved an agreement for the University of Florida to build a new graduate campus along West Bay Street in the LaVilla section of downtown where the Skway runs.

She said that will give downtown the UF campus on one end of Bay Street and the sports and entertainment complex — home to the arena, baseball park, football stadium, and amphitheater — on the other end "with so much to do in between."

She talked about how a UF student finishing a long day of classes could hop on a NAVI shuttle for a trip down to Manifest Distilling or Intitution Ale Works at the sports complex and then get on NAVI again to catch a concert at Decca Live on Bay Street.

Or a family could go for few hours to the new Museum of Science and History that will be built off Bay Street near the sports complex, then go to Riverfront Plaza for its playground and cafe, and finish the outing with a nighttime performance at the symphony.

"I cannot wait to take a ride and create my own adventure, and I'm sure a lot of you feel the same way," she said. "Today's announcement has been years in the making, and it would not be possible without bold vision."

At least in the short term, those adventures connected to NAVI will take place between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. weekdays. That will be shorter than the Skyway's schedule of 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Friday. Unlike regular JTA buses that run seven days a week, NAVI won't have weekend service.

Damn...

Ford said the benefit of using autonomous shuttles, as opposed to building a far more costly system using streetcars, is JTA can customize the service by adding shuttles to meet ridership demand. Those shuttles carry fewer passengers than a standard bus does, but JTA can increase and decrease the number of shuttles on the route depending on how many people use the service.

Apples and oranges. What we've unfortunately come to realize here over the years is that NAVI is more costly than a traditional streetcar system, carries a fraction of riders while not stimulating TOD. We're paying over $7 million annually to operate a few vans up and down Bay Street. Adding and operating anything to that small fleet also dramatically raises the operation and maintenance costs. Historic and common sense has long proven there's efficiency and cost savings when you can produce (move) more with less.