Downtown Bus Rapid Transit Project Moving Forward

[AaroniusLives]

How does a bus get a passing mark in an environmental impact study? Light rail/fixed trolley would be more friendly in that aspect, no?

Yes, but buses are much more environmentally friendly than cars. Putting this plan into context, it's plainly obvious that the powers that be are trying to make bus rapid transit appear to fail, which might be good (in that it will be off the table,) or bad (in that it might be represented to voters as "all mass transit will fail in Jacksonville.")

San Francisco and Seattle rely heavily on bus transit within the city, but they do have a rail component.

They also, like DC, have invested heavily in new, clean, comfortable buses for the more upscale areas at least (in DC, cracktown gets the old buses. Sigh. Welcome to America.)

i came from Atlanta and miss the rail...and miss having a voice. Rail is something people shouldn't give up on.

I lived in Atlanta as well, prior to DC, and MARTA is mos def not something for Jacksonville to emulate. Less than 5% of the metropolitan population uses MARTA's trains everyday. Moreover (and hysterically, considering the topic of this forum,) the system is widely perceived to be an expensive failure that the only plans for expansion that are actively moving forward are...Bus Rapid Transit. I for one, used the Buckhead station to get to and from the airport and sometimes Midtown, but in general, the stations don't go anyplace I need them to go. The other rail project that is starting in Atlanta is the Inner Beltway light rail or streetcar, but that's expected to be done in 30 years (!!!!)

Leaving aside the obvious racism that helped to hobble MARTA, the system doesn't serve the metro area with practicality. Like it or not, Atlanta tore itself apart for the car, and even as it has embraced denser development, it's meant to be driven to and experienced, rather than transit-ed to. Take the vaunted Atlantic Station, built over a multi-tiered parking deck, and on the other side of the monster Downtown Connector.

[dlupercio]

How long ago was that? i was in Atlanta just two weeks ago...using the Metro like I always do. And a lot of riders like I always remember. Mostly everyone that live in my complex midtown rode the Metro to work. BECAUSE THEY WENT PLACES. And i remember front page articles announcing that Marta is the 7th busiest in the country. So i think your facts might be a bit outdated. How long ago did you live there??? Did you live in midtown??

[tufsu1]

San Francisco and Seattle rely heavily on bus transit within the city, but they do have a rail component.

true...and many cities are adding BRT....even NYC is proposing it right through manhattan

remember that the previous administration in Washington supported BRT almost exclusively....which is partially why JTA started down this path in 2002.

In the end, just like roads, our public transit system needs to be comprehensive and include mutliple forms....commuter rail, BRT, streetcar, local bus, skyway, etc.

btw...thanks for the support folks...I'll keep trying to provide useful iknformation (occasionally along with an opinion or two).

[CS Foltz]

tufsu..............as you so plainly put it "

BRT is first up, does thing mean we can pass on any form of rail for the next 20 years? Will a complete intermodal system ever be discussed beyond another study (which will cost us more money and we still will have just a form of bus no matter what its labeled) I have seen nothing that discusses other options and to be perfectly honest, Washington has been disconnected from the taxpayers for quite some time now! In our world, Jacksonville, JTA appears to do what they wish, when they wish and poop on any discussion regarding any intermodal transit system other than more concrete.......whether its plain old bus, BRT or auto! I think we need to consider autogyro's but thats just me!

[tufsu1]

CS...don't tell me you haven't seen anything that dicusses other options....you've seen JTA's transit vision, the TPO's 2035 LRTP, the City's mobility plan, and countless articles on MetroJax

and the good news is the JTA will be moving forward with the next step in implementing commuter rail (environmental studies) very soon.

[Ocklawaha]

http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2007-may-brt-killing-downtown-the-final-chapter

BRT is not a "thing", rather it IS a vague system of doing things, as "track and field" describe an Olympic type sport, any combination of events might describe the actual article. This is why I call BRT a cafe, it is a true smorgasbord of bus theory, and bus concepts, with some imitation LRT/Streetcar idea's added for spice.

Again I must say that BRT is not bad, in fact it can be very good and is an excellent way to feed into a larger system. Imagine a bus on Blanding during the morning rush leaving Orange Park in the stop and go traffic until it reaches FSCJ at Kent Campus. Talk about a long ride! Meanwhile it must still navigate Park Street all the way to a job at BOA Downtown for example. Now your talking about a REALLY long ride!

Next imagine exclusive bus/HOV lanes on both Kingsley and Wells roads, the ability to circulate blanding during the rush hour and meet a train at the CSX crossings. Bingo, we just cut 20-45 minutes off the trip to downtown. This DOES require select bus lanes, and signal priority would be a great aid, toss in "Next bus" or "Google bus", decent stops, low floors, new more comfortable equipment and you have BRT that WORKS!

Why I want to protest JTA's current BRT plan is because:

1. It spends $20 Million dollars to largely duplicate our $200 Million dollar Skyway, thus we compete with ourselves and for all of the funds, still haven't moved the system 100 feet closer to real destinations. This same amount would probably take the Skyway all the way to Atlantic in San Marco and ignite some real ridership.

2. The abandoned nature of the streets on the Southbank route speaks to the fact that there is absolutely no need to spend 5 cents on "upgrades" to "BRT standards," whatever the hell that might be.

3. The reconstruction again focuses only on engine powered - polluting - rubber tired transit, completely missing the bike rider commuter which is daily making up more and more of America's younger, healthier commuters. While broad and Jefferson makes all the sense in the world yet reconstruction plans demonstrate little more then the same old city streets without a single modern multimodal consideration.

4. How can BRT JAX do anything to improve bus ridership when the agency refuses such common conviencies as simple transfers?

5. Even if BRT runs every 2 minutes on these routes, when one reaches the end of the lines, the next bus is likely in 45 minutes which brings us back to start, no improvement seen.

6. BRT even in it's finest hour will not perform the economic miracles that are seen with streetcar and frankly for an equal amount of money, we could have streetcar. Understand that this money is from the Federal Government and we COULD NOT use it to build anything but the approved BRT plan. The frustration is not that anyone thinks we should use those funds for rail, rather it is in the fact that JTA wasted the last 5 years trying to sell a flawed bus system that they claim was "Just like rail" when they could have been moving toward rail. At the very least JTA should have sought funds for BRT as a compliment to a future rail system rather then a stand alone mass transit solution.

7. Amazingly $20 Million should be enough to provide many of the BRT type improvements over a whole bus route. Las Vegas managed to build one of the "model" BRT systems for $2 Million per mile. Since prices are generally lower in the Southeast then in the West, sort of makes one wonder WTF is going on?

Perhaps it's time to organize that protest?  A friendly demonstration that the people WANT RAIL! NOT BRT! At least not BRT that will neuter whatever is left of the Skyway's ridership.

When I rant about mass transit and JTA in particular, I want to make it clear that I have no single person in mind, it's not personal, it's general. The Neanderthal's are FDOT, JTA, COJ, or anyone and anything else that continues to have such flippant disregard for the desires of our fair metropolis.

Don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining!

OCKLAWAHA

[spuwho]

I looked at this BRT route map. The only thing I can see is that the Skyway will be shut down in 12 months.

The Feds paid to have it built, now the Feds will pay for its "replacement".

Absolutely insane and a waste of my tax dollars. Just insane.

[CS Foltz]

tufsu...........your correct with your post to a certain extent! I have seen study after study, I have been to several public meetings and have seen consulting report after consulting report issued.......BRT is being pushed as the panacea for mass transit? I beg to differ! BRT should be one slice of the intermodal model .....not the only one! Routing is going to fight with the Skyway for ridership and both systems will suffer in the long run! Reconfiguring streets and re timing lights for BRT useage is money going down the tubes, just like HSR down Orlando way! We need an outside agency to plan, execute and implement........Not JTA who has a proven record of cooking their books with figures that substantiate whatever plan they have in mind. ( this is when they provide figures ....still waiting for current ones!)Current bus system needs simple things ......like shelters for stops, pull offs for bus's to discharge or take on riders. Headway needs to be better managed....in other words, when we have the current system fully up to speed and running like a Swiss watch, by then we may be able to add BRT and get our monies worth, but not before! With me it is a matter of dollar signs, I want the most I can get for my tax dollars and this ain't it!

[Doctor_K]

Whatever happened to Ock's proclamations of "good news involving rail and skyway are closer than you think!" ?  Not for one minute do I doubt Ock's knowledge and abilities, but man - if this is the 'news' we've been waiting for, color me disappointed. 

It maddens me to no end that the Skyway isn't being touched and is now being duplicated for the sake of fulfilling some JTA idiots' wet-dream obsession with buses.  Why, WHY WHY?!?!  WHY the hell are there no 'official' discussions about doing something productive and proactive with the existing infrastructure of Skyway or streetcar or anything else?

::goes to smoke and calm down::

[thelakelander]

^If people want change, the best way is to make mass transit a major issue during this mayoral race and back a candidate that promises to flip the apple cart.

[Doctor_K]

I'm all for that, Lake.  Truly. 

Are we going to/Would it be prudent to form a MetroJax PAC and really make a statement?

I'm just sick to death of wanting to add to the current fleet of empty buses with more empty buses!

[AaroniusLives]

How long ago was that? i was in Atlanta just two weeks ago...using the Metro like I always do. And a lot of riders like I always remember. Mostly everyone that live in my complex midtown rode the Metro to work. BECAUSE THEY WENT PLACES. And i remember front page articles announcing that Marta is the 7th busiest in the country. So i think your facts might be a bit outdated. How long ago did you live there??? Did you live in midtown??

I lived there until 2007, so not too long ago. I lived in Buckhead and periodically took the MARTA to Midtown and the airport. But MARTA is a woefully underused system. Anecdotal usage by you and your friends does not a successful application of mass transit make. And the 7th busiest in the country doesn't exactly provide the context. Miami's utter failure of the Metrorail ranks as 10th, for example.

If you look at that list, there is one really huge application of heavy rail transit: New York Subway. You drop 7.5 million riders to get to second place, DC.  And then you drop nearly 400,000 to third place in Chicago. And then you drop another 400,000 daily riders to get to MARTA.

[TheProfessor]

I agree that the MARTA rail/buses seem to be used on a perenctage basis about the same as Jacksonville.  People with cars only use it to get to the airport or get to work downtown typically.  Most people rely on the car.

[AaroniusLives]

BRT is not a "thing", rather it IS a vague system of doing things, as "track and field" describe an Olympic type sport, any combination of events might describe the actual article. This is why I call BRT a cafe, it is a true smorgasbord of bus theory, and bus concepts, with some imitation LRT/Streetcar idea's added for spice.

To be fair to Bus Rapid Transit, it is a "thing" when applied correctly. Like any other mass transit method, give the buses their own lanes, or grade separate them from traffic, and BRT can effectively move people from Point A to Point B. Build the stations a reasonable distance apart, and the bus can build up speed on their dedicated right of way and rapidly go from station to station.

What Jacksonville is proposing isn't BRT. The stations are waaaaaaaay too close together for effective speed (and really, use.) The majority of the routes are on shared right of way. In effect, it's a streets program, where the roads have been "enhanced for transit." But it's not BRT, at least not according to that map.

What politicians do in the United States is describe any form of enhanced bus services as BRT. Their bastardization of the concept has, in effect, created the "cafe" you describe (and brilliantly, I might add.) But the concept itself is sound and easily defined. Dedicated rights of way that attach to a transit station an appropriate distance apart, only using buses instead of light or heavy rail = BRT. "BRT" that shares lanes with other traffic is a bus with "RT" attached for fun. "BRT" that has three stops in seven city blocks (!!!!) is a megamall parking lot shuttle, at best.

This is my main issue among many here. I mean, if you're gonna build a BRT system, it better damned well be a real BRT system, instead of just a glam bus line.   

[thelakelander]

Great description, AaroniusLives .  Jax's BRT Phase I is essentially a streets program.  Eventually, when a few BRT corridors come on line, there will be a bus route that only follows those corridors.  However, like phase 1, existing bus routes will also use these streets that are "enhanced for bus transit" as a part of getting to where ever they are going.

Dedicated rights of way that attach to a transit station an appropriate distance apart, only using buses instead of light or heavy rail = BRT. "BRT" that shares lanes with other traffic is a bus with "RT" attached for fun. "BRT" that has three stops in seven city blocks (!!!!) is a megamall parking lot shuttle, at best.

This is my main issue among many here. I mean, if you're gonna build a BRT system, it better damned well be a real BRT system, instead of just a glam bus line.

To be fair to JTA, this is what they originally had planned and we blew this concept right out of the water because it would have cost us more than building rail.











If you're going to go through this much trouble to create dedicated busways, you're better off spending less money to implement "no-frills" rail lines and complementing them by revising the existing bus system to feed riders into the rail-based spines.  At least that type of investment would create a string of TOD opportunities and linear urban growth in a sea of suburbia.