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

[thelakelander]

All good questions.

All if answered honestly, would end up with an easy decision to not spend additional local tax money on NAVI for phases 2 and 3.

#3 stands out the most to me. Even if it were a success in every way imaginable, you're still only moving a handful of people to a handful of places. This simply isn't mass transit and it doesn't have the capacity or curb appeal to serve our population now. The Skyway on its worse day, still attracts and moves more people....and taxpayers don't have to pay JTA workers to ride it to boost its horrible ridership numbers. We all know the Skyway has its cons. How in the world did we come up with something that cost taxpayers more, while achieving significantly less?!

[Charles Hunter]

Opinion writer A.G. Gancarski, in this morning's Jacksonville Today, takes a look at the Ultimate Urban Circulator.
https://jaxtoday.org/2025/11/09/opinion-jacksonvilles-mass-transit-fiasco/?omhide=true

Daily ridership struggles to hit triple digits — suggesting that for the short distance traversed, JTA employees would be better off pulling people around with rickshaws than having these buses drive people on loop.

JTA CEO Nat Ford seems to think that when the Four Seasons finally goes in, those expense-account warriors and trust fund babies will want to take the automated bus.

In the meantime, conservatives and liberals all have their beefs with the program that, per the Jacksonville Daily Record, has had 6,500 passengers in four months.

[jaxlongtimer]

LOL, Four Season's guests will take rental or personal cars, Uber, Lyft, a private limo, or be transported by a business team member or friend.  Or, maybe many Four Season's guests will be associated with the Jaguars, NFL, Arena performers, etc. given its proximity to the those venues.  Either they will be so famous as to be chauffeured or they can just walk across the street.

Not taking U2C, and where would it take them to, anyway?   Not to private parties, clubs, meetings, suburbs, events, etc.  U2C won't be of any use to any of them given its operating hours and routes.

If the U2C truly catered to the Four Seasons, how would taxpayers like spending $400 million to do so on top of the $100+ million already doled out for that project?  Subsidizing the rich... not what would be politically expedient.

[thelakelander]

Opinion writer A.G. Gancarski, in this morning's Jacksonville Today, takes a look at the Ultimate Urban Circulator.
https://jaxtoday.org/2025/11/09/opinion-jacksonvilles-mass-transit-fiasco/?omhide=true

Daily ridership struggles to hit triple digits — suggesting that for the short distance traversed, JTA employees would be better off pulling people around with rickshaws than having these buses drive people on loop.

JTA CEO Nat Ford seems to think that when the Four Seasons finally goes in, those expense-account warriors and trust fund babies will want to take the automated bus.

In the meantime, conservatives and liberals all have their beefs with the program that, per the Jacksonville Daily Record, has had 6,500 passengers in four months.

Glad to see he mentioned that we said pull the plug on this waste of tax money years ago!

I'm a big believer in mass transit. I don't expect public transportation to make money or even pay for itself. Roads are quite expensive and we never expect them to pay for themselves.

But some have been critical of this particular plan for a while — two years ago Ennis Davis and Mike Field of The Jaxson wrote that it was "time to cut bait on JTA's driverless Skyway replacement" — and now that mostly empty NAVI vans are rolling around downtown, it seems reasonable to raise not only the $370 question, but some $400 million ones.

And that's what City Council's Duval DOGE committee did for a little over an hour Tuesday morning.

Is it a '$400 million gamble'?

Jax and JTA can do all is innovation and technology experimentation with the $66 million riderless loop that's already in place. Holon is just as big as a gamble as this. Nothing to brag about at the moment. If, and that's a BIG IF, they ever get permission to run driverless pods on streets in this country, they can hone in on the Bay Street experiement. No need to spend one penny on Phases 2 or 3. Shift those funds to real community public transit needs.

[thelakelander]

LOL, Four Season's guess will take rental or personal cars, Uber, Lyft, a private limo, or be transported by a business team member or friend.  Or, maybe many Four Season's guests will be associated with the Jaguars, NFL, Arena performers, etc. given its proximity to the those venues.  Either they will be so famous as to be chauffeured or they can just walk across the street.

Right. Someone who can afford to stay at the Four Seasons is most likely not taking any form of mass transit. Especially Ford camper vans.

[Charles Hunter]

Regarding the Four Seasons, it is more likely the housekeeping, kitchen, and other low-pay staff would be the ones using transit to get to/from work - if it matches their work shift.

Has anyone asked Mr. Ford if the Holon vehicles will be able to operate at night, or in the rain, or in Event traffic, or any combination of these?

If someone wanted to do some back-of-the-envelope capacity calculations, some needed info:
1. How long does it take one van to make a complete loop?
2. How many vans are in service?
   a) Is that number constant all day? If not what are the variables?
3. What is the seated capacity of a van?

[Steve]

No way they DIDN'T design the Four Seasons with ample employee parking, and in a city like Jacksonville they can't charge employees for parking.

Impossible that the designers of the building saw the JTA plan and said, "yea, this will be a reliable option for someone to get to work to perform a $300/hour massage for someone worth 8 figures."

[Charles Hunter]

No way they DIDN'T design the Four Seasons with ample employee parking, and in a city like Jacksonville they can't charge employees for parking.

Impossible that the designers of the building saw the JTA plan and said, "yea, this will be a reliable option for someone to get to work to perform a $300/hour massage for someone worth 8 figures."

Oh, I agree with you, but the only]/i] traffic to 4S I could see would be lower-level employees. Or maybe a local who wants to look at how the other half live?

[jaxlongtimer]

No way they DIDN'T design the Four Seasons with ample employee parking, and in a city like Jacksonville they can't charge employees for parking.

Impossible that the designers of the building saw the JTA plan and said, "yea, this will be a reliable option for someone to get to work to perform a $300/hour massage for someone worth 8 figures."

Oh, I agree with you, but the only]/i] traffic to 4S I could see would be lower-level employees. Or maybe a local who wants to look at how the other half live?

I am familiar with a temp labor agency that hires hundreds of people in the $15 to $25/hr. range.  Nearly all drive to work.  I doubt the Four Seasons will be paying anything less than $20 to $25/hour if they are trying to fill positions with the cream of the crop to deliver top notch service.  I am including housekeeping, maintenance and kitchen workers in this view.  As such, I wouldn't expect many, if any, to take public transit to work unless their car breaks down and a family member or friend can't offer them a ride.  Then, they would possibly resort to Uber or Lyft.  Why spend 1 to 3 hours changing transit vehicles each way to work?... even their time has value.

[Charles Hunter]

^ Well said, jaxlongtimer

[Jones518]

I'm wondering what would it take to completely stop this U2C madness.... I'm willing to get behind whatever can stop the madness... so much time, money, energy, resources, etc.  wasted....

[marcuscnelson]

More and more news coverage on this topic: https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/columns/mark-woods/2025/11/07/jta-autonomous-vehicle-plan-facing-questions-after-first-100-days-of-navi/87122897007/

If I could ask Ford one question it would be what problem is the U2C solving? No one needs to take a trip to the stadium during the work week, and all the other bars/restaurants are within walking distance of the office towers. Even if it gets expanded to San Marco, why would I ever take the risk of getting stuck in a van with a questionable person when I could just pay for an uber that might cost me an extra $10. I imagine most people in larger cities take public transportation because they have to, for many reasons, not because they want to. No one will ever need to use these things.

If I could ask Ford one question it would be what problem is the U2C solving?

This is one of two fundamental questions I've been asking since the day this thing was announced.

1. What existing problem does it solve? (there isn't one - the need for the U2C simply doesn't exist)
2. Is U2C duplicative of what the private sector will soon do better and cheaper? (yes, yes it is).

Can you imagine what the ridership numbers would have been in comparison, at 5% of the cost, had JTA moved forward with a no-frills Skyway expansion into Brooklyn? Easiest layup they'll ever have, mothballed for 20 years.

This is a tech experiment funded through local tax dollars. It should be evaluated from that perspective.

Then I would add these questions which JTA board members should be asking:

1. Why and how do you think you can prove and implement this tech better with no plan, $400 million and 5 years or so vs. tech and auto companies that have spent billions and decades and are already at the point of perfecting it (e.g. Waymo) or are still struggling mightily to do so (e.g. Tesla)? 

2. Why are we doing this vs. just inviting others, such as Waymo, to walk in and deliver it for free (it's a business for them) or at very little cost?

3. How does moving a handful of people in small slow moving vehicles in traffic with drivers equal (autonomous?) MASS transit which should be our mission?

All good questions.

All if answered honestly, would end up with an easy decision to not spend additional local tax money on NAVI for phases 2 and 3.

#3 stands out the most to me. Even if it were a success in every way imaginable, you're still only moving a handful of people to a handful of places. This simply isn't mass transit and it doesn't have the capacity or curb appeal to serve our population now. The Skyway on its worse day, still attracts and moves more people....and taxpayers don't have to pay JTA workers to ride it to boost its horrible ridership numbers. We all know the Skyway has its cons. How in the world did we come up with something that cost taxpayers more, while achieving significantly less?!

The reality of many of the above questions has a lot to do with how JTA's rationales for this project have been forced to shift over the past nine years by the tug of war between the lofty aspirations of the people backing this technology vs the actual capabilities that have been developed and by whom.

Back in 2017, the idea seemed to be that converting the Skyway would carry some limited one-time cost that would then be made up for by long-term flexibility with new generations of autonomous vehicles, which by the time this happened, would include features like platooning and point-to-point travel and overall (since they would be autonomous) would substantially reduce operating and future capital costs. Of course, JTA's leadership would become titans of the industry by achieving such a goal.

The obvious problem is that over the years that followed, it turned out that the industry and technology was much less prepared (or committed) than it claimed to be. Platooning doesn't work, they can't get "attendants" out of the vehicles, point-to-point doesn't work, you still need all this infrastructure, the number of vendors that have gone bankrupt or decided to abandon this sector. But everyone in charge of this project has made it their baby and tied up their credibility in it, and they're still capable of dazzling or silencing the people they needed to, at least until now. They're actually still claiming that "next year" will be when they solve all the current problems with the system, full Elon Musk-style.

The deeper, more fundamental problem is how early JTA leadership appeared to abandon any real goal of seriously developing mass transit in a way that would genuinely be supportive for the region (but would look more like the rail or bus systems being built elsewhere in the state or country) as a public transit agency in favor of this gambit to become a "mobility integrator" that would serve really no one but said JTA leadership, while really betting against the idea of Jacksonville and Northeast Florida becoming the kind of region like Charlotte or Tucson that supports building fixed guideway transit. And then how hands-off the City has been in letting all this money get spent before finally, after the obvious failure has become an obvious failure, claiming that they are shocked that this has unfolded as such.

Ultimately JTA know that they screwed up, which is why they have sequestered themselves from the public beyond the statutory requirements to appear in front of City Council (which largely doesn't want to face these questions either), or on occasions that are rarely relevant to this project, or intentionally timed to be filled with its backers like the "National AV Day" events. They know all these questions don't have answers that actually serve the public's interest, only theirs. But as long as Mayor Deegan and Councilman Salem are going to simply squirm in silence or declare that the ball is in JTA's court instead of their own, those questions won't get answered because they won't have to be. So we'll chance watching that $400 million leave our coffers only to scratch our heads and wonder once more where all the riders are.

[duvaldude]

Say it ain't so... I immediately thought of this thread when I saw this headline and read the article.

Headline: 'Leave the naysayers to the side': Mayor Donna Deegan defends U2C after scrutiny from Duval DOGE

https://www.firstcoastnews.com/article/news/local/donna-deegan-u2c-duval-doge-jacksonville/77-5c0be954-972a-446d-8daf-428271eb2bfd

[Jax_Developer]

I'm just so excited that I can contribute to subsidizing dated technology with entirely local funds. Once we fully fund the U2C, we will be able to bring HOLON to town! We will guarantee them $40M in contracts before any dirt is touched, and give them a $7.5M REV grant.

Moreover, once we finally get the HOLON vehicles on the road... we can finally have the ~$225M Four Seasons Development that only received a $125M incentive package ready to go. Don't forget about the RISE Doro that has 247 apartments or the MOSH that was funded by $50M from the city! They can go enjoy the parks that have more than $200M of city dollars being thrown at them!

Clearly, this deal is financially sound. IDK which deal makes more financial sense.. this one or the Jaguars stadium deal which gives Iguana an exclusive hold on 50+ acres of parking - all while allowing free parking for the Four Seasons (there are only 166 parking spaces for for 174 guest rooms so employees will certainly need the U2C otherwise!).

Meanwhile, the city designed MOSH & Shipyards parks can't sustain the parking required by our Jags Agreement, so we get to further subsidize the Jags! Who needs parking here anyway? All of this is great for public transit that operates M-F during work hours!

[jcjohnpaint]

She was less critical about the nonsense stuff they wanted to cut. What is she doing? Back away!