Before & After: Rail Spurs Economic Development

[Metro Jacksonville]

Before & After: Rail Spurs Economic Development



In an effort to prove local rail-based mass transit can bring density and economic development to a sprawling region like the First Coast, Metro Jacksonville presents a visual argument of this phenomenon taking place in peer cities across the country.

Full Article
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2010-jun-before-after-rail-spurs-economic-development

[JeffreyS]

Wow investing in your community is a good way to spur Economic Developement. Some on this forum will say we do not have the money and I say if we never invest in this community with quality of life projects like passanger rail we likely never will.

[reednavy]

Nothing from Denver? I'd like to see what I'm looking forward to by moving there in a few weeks.

[Doctor_K]

Awesome article with amazing visuals and descriptions.

But - there are too many proven outcomes here.  I guarantee you detractors and JTA officials alike (aren't they one and the same?) will still bend over backwards and invert themselves to try to come up with plenty of excuses as to why that won't work and shouldn't/can't happen here.

For the rest of us in reality, this is inspiring.

[brainstormer]

Reed, you are going to love Denver.  The development there is very similar to the examples above.  And their bus system is easy to use and well integrated with other forms of mass transit.  JTA could learn a lot from Denver.

[thelakelander]

Nothing from Denver? I'd like to see what I'm looking forward to by moving there in a few weeks.

Here you go.

Before: 1999 (old industrial wasteland)


After: 2010 (an urban extension of DT)


Before: 1994 (a suburban dead mall)


After: 2010 (a suburban TOD)

[L.P. Hovercraft]

Wow--a couple pictures are definitely worth a thousand words.  These are pretty damned convincing; I would think even a semi-literate, near-sighted good ol' boy could see the benefits of fixed rail transit in Jax after viewing these pics (no offense meant to any semi-literate, near-sighted good ol' boys out there).

[CS Foltz]

LP.....I agree with your take on this situation! You have to remember that the "Nifty Fifty" actually run things here in Jacksonville and thats not good for the people in any shape fashion or flavor! We, the taxpayers, just get to pay for it all plain and simple! JTA (the Just Today Agency) has no vision, management or organizational skills at all.............just interested in keeping their jobs.....I mean look at the shelters, or the lack thereof, routes that get changed about every six months and we get to subsidize them also! Until we round file all of the those bufoons, we are stuck with know nothings and wasters or our resources!

[stjr]

A tale of "two" types of cities:  Ones that think they have a future, vision it, and make it happen versus one who talks about a future and does little right to get there due to parochial interests embedded in developers' political lackeys (such as the City Council), road building agencies who give lip service to mass transit or other facets of planning and land use, and special interests.

We need a long term entity with broad interdisciplinary authority that can rise above daily political winds and create and execute a vision for this City without special interest interference and political micromanagement.

[JeffreyS]

You are right stjr it is about fashioning your city the way you want it to be not just trying to figure out how to spend less to just barely serve the sprawlburg you now have.

[ralpho37]

Makes me sad because i know it will never happen here

[JeffreyS]

I think your wrong ralpho37 the national attitude and locally the influence of Metrojacksonville.com as a watchdog and idea distributor have pushed a bunch of the "behind the scenes" work that will make the next 5 years very exciting and productive.  You will see ideas like this taking shape on the ground. The only caveat to my prediction is if you see the national politics swing back to the we spend our money overseas not at home party.

[tufsu1]

clearly Metrojacksonville (and other groups) have been helpful in reviving the project...but the real credit goes to the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council, which has been working on this for over a decade....hopefully it will get 50% funded through this round of TIGER grants (the other 50% comes from FDOT).

[Ocklawaha]

Yes TU, the credit goes to Treasure Coast and Dr. Kim Delaney, for the full relaunch.

HOWEVER...

Kim DID pull us aside and told Stephen and I that our loud passenger train articles (what she called our "Bomb Throwing") are the reason TCRPC was able to get the project rolling again.  Aparently as a State Agency they could NOT solicit for "desire or public demand" and thus could not find a way to secure the funding for another run at this. Then, according to Kim, we tossed one of our many AMTRAK BOMBS, which allowed them to show independent public support and demand... That's all it took.

Bottom line, like I've said before, YOU CAN CHANGE CITY HALL!


NEVER GIVE UP! NEVER SURRENDER!


OCKLAWAHA

[thelakelander]

Locally, it's time to figure out how to get that Amtrak station back DT.  Even if the temporary no-frills solution is just adding a siding, simple covered platform and converting some of the space inside the old terminal for Amtrak's use.  Since Amtrak trains are proposed to be split in Jacksonville, this project sets our city up as a passenger rail hub.  We receive no economic benefit from this project if trains are still rolling into the Amshack on the Northside.  Get this thing back downtown and we'll have an additional thousands of people per year exposed to downtown's offerings.