Riverplace Skyway station is on fire...

[stjr]

Wow, that looks like it spread pretty fast.  Hard to believe there is no better protection of the building via design or sprinklers.

Hate to see the likely self-insured JTA waste more money fixing this.  Maybe they should just close the station.  It probably won't be missed.  I wouldn't be surprised if this was the least used of all $ky-high-way stations.

[copperfiend]

Is the fire a metaphor for something?

[fsujax]

That is a great station, for us northbankers to access the Southern Grill, it is a nice ride over the river and less than a block walk. It also provides easy access to Mortons and the Sushi place at San Marco Place condo.

[tufsu1]

I hear it was probably an electrical fire....and I think someone posted on here the other day about a Skyway train shooting off sparks as it approached a southbank station...wonder if there's any connection?

[David]

That is a great station, for us northbankers to access the Southern Grill, it is a nice ride over the river and less than a block walk. It also provides easy access to Mortons and the Sushi place at San Marco Place condo.

Yep it's a great station for southbankers too. It drops you off right in Hemming Plaza which gives you more options for your lunch hour... that is if you can get a tram running straight there without making you transfer at Central.

The convention center station should've been the one to burn! Riverplace was so young....

[DetroitInJAX]

Why do those photos solicit laughter?

Talk about irony.

I'm honestly surprised it didn't burn to the ground.  Apparently the only time people realize the skyway is there is when its on fire.

Maybe they should do that more often then.

[stjr]

I'm honestly surprised it didn't burn to the ground.  Apparently the only time people realize the skyway is there is when its on fire.

Maybe they should do that more often then.

Fire and Detroit - now there are two words that go together!  

[David]

Yeah I’m surprised no one's torched that city to the ground yet.

Detriot.

In other news, there are no underutilized public transportation facilities on fire tonight. All is quiet on the Southbank.

[Deuce]

The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire,
We don't need no water, let the mother-f burn,
Burn mother-f burn.

[Southbanker]

FYI - I heard a JTA person on the news last night say that 400+ people a day use that Skyway station.  That was a little higher than my original estimate of 12. 

Seriously, I think as development on the Southbank continues ridership has and will increase.  But I know several people in my bldg that work downtown and still drive over instead of taking the Skyway. 

Jax is such a car city!  Even the people who live in the core just don't want to walk a few blocks.   

[David]

Cars are just too convenient here. Parking isn't really that bad, traffic's fairly light for a medium sized downtown and we all know the deal with public transportation. Work's 1 mile from my place currently, I do try to bike at least 2-3 days a week but when the temps hit 90...forget about it. a/c car ride the whole 2 mile roundtrip son!

It's hard to do the professional office worker thing when you're soaking with sweat in your business casual attire.

But back on point: cities that have thriving public transportation systems do so by being more appealing than taking your car. We just don't have that yet.

[Ernest Street]

Southbanker, Remember when it first opened riders were so scarce JTA employees were spotted riding back and forth... LOL.

[stjr]

Southbanker, Remember when it first opened riders were so scarce JTA employees were spotted riding back and forth... LOL.

For those unfamiliar, this actually happened when ABC News came here to unmask the $ky-high-way as the pork barrel project it was and still is.  JTA, being aware of the visit since their officials were asked to try and explain the fiasco, had employees pose as riders to make the cars look full for the film footage accompanying the story.  As I recall, ABC wasn't fooled and just edited all or most of those scenes out.  Your tax dollars hard at work?!

Here is the 2002 transcript of one of several ABC stories.  Per the transcript, it followed similar stories in 1993 and 1994.  I like Arrington's comment that it was built for the next 20 to 30 years.  Times a tickin'.  Only 10 more years and it will be time to replace it based on this schedule!!

$200 Million Ride to Nowhere
Almost No One Is Riding $200 Million Skyway

By Charles Herman
J A C K S O N V I L L E, Fla., July 29, 2002

The 2.5-mile Jacksonville Automated Skyway Express is a model of efficiency. Completely automated and controlled from a central operation center, the Skyway makes eight stops throughout the northeastern Florida city that is split in two by the St. John's River.

The only problem: hardly anyone rides it.

"It's strictly a waste of money from beginning to end," decried longtime Jacksonville critic Marvin Edwards. He blames the builder and supporter of the Skyway, the Jacksonville Transportation Authority (JTA).

"They lied about ridership projections," explained Edwards. "They said 56,000 a day at first, then dropped that to 30,000, then last it was 18,000 to 19,000."

Currently, the Skyway sees 3,000 riders per day who pay 35 cents a trip. In fiscal 2001, the Skyway brought in $513,694 in revenue but its expenses were $3.5 million.

Fights for Funding

The Skyway was first proposed back in 1971. It took more than a decade before the funding  federal, state and local  could be secured to start construction. At the time, the goal was mainly for development so the Skyway to connect the downtown core with parking facilities away from downtown.

The Jacksonville Skyway was part of three demonstration projects to see if "people-mover" systems could stimulate business expansion in downtown centers. Detroit and Miami received federal funds for similar projects.

Some officials within the Department of Transportation's Federal Transit Authority questioned the ridership projections for the Jacksonville Skyway.

In an interview with ABCNEWS' John Martin in 1994, Federal Transit Administration official Gordon Linton said, "We and this department, this administration and previous administrations, have not supported it."

Nevertheless, Congress eventually provided more than half the funds for the $182 million Skyway.

In 1987 construction began on the first 0.7-mile portion of the system.

"It was mainly for political reasons, not transportation reasons," explained former Rep. Bob Carr, who chaired the committee that approved funding for transportation projects in the early 1990s. "Like so many projects, they get a camel's nose under the tent and then it gets very very difficult to stop them."

Few Riders From the Start

In 1989 the first section was completed and opened to the public. Jacksonville's transit leaders projected more than 10,000 people would ride the Skyway a day on this 0.7-mile starter section.

Instead, only 1,200 rode the Skyway.

In 1993 Transit Authority member Miles Francis defended the system to ABCNEWS. "Until this thing is finished, there's no way to measure its performance or its potential."

Now it's finished and the Jacksonville Transit Authority is still waiting for the riders to come.

Open for Business

In November 2000, the complete Skyway opened to the public. Nearly two years later, with ridership at an average of 3,000 a day, the Skyway has not met even the projections for the starter section.

"No one will argue with the fact that ridership is not where we would like it to be," admitted Steve Arrington, director of engineering with the Jacksonville Transit Authority. He says the lack of riders is attributed to economic recessions in downtown Jacksonville in the early 1990s that led to a decrease in development in the area.

"Any number of things predicted to occur that didn't occur development-wise has an effect," he added. "Fuel prices, parking prices."

Arrington still believes in the Skyway and expects to reach its ridership goals. "You don't build a system like this or a roadway for the next four years," said Arrington. "You try to built it for the next 20 to 30 years."

Riding an empty car from one station to another, critic Edwards disagreed. "This really is a public rip-off and a total waste of money that could have gone for something not quite as fancy, but a lot more practical."

ABCNEWS' Jeffrey Kofman contributed to this story.

[CrysG]

In the 12+ years I've lived here I've only used the Skyway during my downtown worker days. Even then it was only to go from the Convention Center(where I parked) to Hemming Plaza(where I worked).

I grew up in Annapolis and I remember riding on a light rail to Washington DC. We need a reason for people to ride the skyway. The way it's set up now there isn't any reason for a normal person to ride it for leisure and it doesn't go far enough into half of downtown to make it work for workers.

[tufsu1]

there is no light rail to DC...do you mean light rail to Baltimore or Metrorail to DC?