Metro Jacksonville

Mayor Questions Validity of JTA's Transportation Center

(http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/photos/744226263_EJQtm-L.jpg)

Mayor Alvin Brown was wise to slow down the momentum on the proposed Jacksonville Regional Transportation Center. Currently estimated to cost a whopping $180 million, the Mayor's Office, City Council, and JTA would be smart to consider reducing and compacting the scale of the enormous complex. Here are examples of recently completed or expanded transportation centers in cities of similar size along with their overall capital costs. In addition, aerials illustrate the scale of Jacksonville's proposed complex in relation with those in actual operation.

Full Article
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2011-jul-mayor-questions-validity-of-jtas-transportation-center

Touche! JTA is beside themselves trying to rush in and stick Greyhound up on Adams Street. "Everything is a go," we were told, "Greyhound MUST move within two years so we have to start now!" So we are about to launch this monstrosity anyway so Greyhound can have a station 7 walking blocks from the trains. Have we even attempted to sell them on the idea that we ALREADY HAVE A HUGE 1919 STATION 'HEAD HOUSE' SO WHY WOULD ANYONE WANT US TO SHATTER OUR CHANCES TO CONSOLIDATE EVERYONE INTO ONE STATION? This is insanity in action and another typical case of Jacksonville Past, reacting to a perceived situation rather then planning for the same.


JTA claims that Greyhound insisted on Adams Street to be near the freeway exits, yet a repositioned Stuart Street could open up the Jacksonville Terminal site to compact development and keep Greyhound even closer to the freeway. Traffic lights at the base of the off ramp would be no different then similar lights all over the country and it might slow people down to a pedestrian safe speed. 

Greyhound 'might' have to be out within two years due to a property sale, but what would it hurt to allow them to access the west lot of the Convention Center and use the original station for... um... let me think... um... A STATION!

In the examples listed as well as New Orleans, Santa Ana, Bakersfield etc... the bus to train transfer takes all of 30 steps, not four blocks and NOT 7! (Calculate from the tracks it is 3 blocks to Bay Street {part of which is up stairs over the tracks then back down to the station}, then JTA wants to route all passengers one block west of Lee to another upstairs concourse which makes 4 blocks, hence 2 blocks north, down the stairs and 1 block east = 7) 7 blocks to transfer from bus to train and we're still calling this a 'center?'

Good people don't keep their favorite dog 7 blocks from home and neither should Jacksonville. Someone PLEASE call in the dog.

OCKLAWAHA

keep in mind...JTA and Greyhound are asking for up to $5 million from the Feds to built the new station at the JRTC....I doubt that money will come easily.

On another note Ock...I like your idea of extending Stuart St, but not as shown...teh intersection with Forsyth will be way too close to the I-95 off ramp...it would be as bad, if not worse, than then one a few blocks north at Union St.

Well if you reduce the footprint and reduce the project to a fraction of 180 mil losing the outside chance at 5 mil won't sting too much.

true Jeffrey...but its not like they have any of the other $175 million either

I am surprised at how expensive the planned transportation center is, and really surprised at how much less expensive other cities' transportation centers have been.

How is this type of thing allowed to happen here? This and the insanely expensive courthouse. It looks like the Mayor is trying to put the brakes on this. Can the Mayor successfully stop this project and order a redesign? How much power does he have in this situation?

Who pays to add the additional rails for the amtrack station?  And when that project commences, do you go ahead and add the infrastructure for light-rail or would it already be in place as well?

Here are a few features that cause our center to be much more expensive than the others:

1. Structured Parking - The JRTC design includes two parking garages that when combined, total over 2,000 parking spaces.  On average, you'll pay somewhere around the +$20k/space range to construct a garage.  With simple math, that's at least $40 million spent on parking alone.  On the other hand, most of the other centers don't include structured parking.

2. Office Building - The JRTC includes a new office building for JTA.  Most of the other centers don't have a major office facility attached to them.

3. Separate Terminals - The JRTC includes individual terminals for rail, skyway/BRT, local bus and Greyhound.  In short, the JRTC is really several separate transit stations placed next to each other as opposed to being a true intermodal center.  That means we're spending four times as much on spaces such as restrooms, waiting areas, construction labor, etc.  On the other hand, most of the other transit centers have shared terminal spaces.  Considering it works for airports (ex. at JIA, a single terminal serves Airtran, Delta, Jetblue, etc.), it should be able to work for ground transportation too.

^These three things alone will significantly push your capital costs up and we still haven't dived into the arena of annual maintenance costs for multiple facilities as opposed to shared facilities.

This would mean a complete redesign but looking at Ock's map, why not attempt to place ALL bus operations on the three blocks bounded by the I-95 off ramps, Forsyth, Lee and Bay Streets and use the space around the skyway terminal as a centralized terminal for all of those operations?  Also, instead of immediately building structured parking, use the existing paved lots in the area as parking until the market is ready for private sector infill development in the area.  The more and more I look at this thing, significant improvement that will make it more efficient and drop costs can be done regardless of what eventually takes place with the convention center.

Quote from: Non-RedNeck Westsider on July 15, 2011, 09:14:13 AM
Who pays to add the additional rails for the amtrack station?  And when that project commences, do you go ahead and add the infrastructure for light-rail or would it already be in place as well?

Taxpayers would.  However, the expensive of laying track is peanuts compared to building parking garages, an office building and four stations side-by-side (taxpayers will have to fund these as well).  Also, LRT/streetcar would not run on the same track as Amtrak and freight rail, so that would be a separate expense.  However, the expensive of streetcar would be covered in the costs of constructing the streetcar system.  It would not need a separate terminal, unless we just desire to spend millions on that too.  Instead, the streetcar could just stop and let people on and off.  If those people need facilities that come with terminals, we already have four of them to choose from at the site.

And of course there is the fact that it looks like and area high school building and not a city trying to grow into the future.

I find this article hilarious.  How are we able to spend 10 times what other cities are spending??

If we nix the current plan, what's going to happen to all the concrete that was going to be sold to the city?

The build contracts?

Lets' not be hasty, folks... Concrete magnates gotta eat too!

^Lol, we can spread the wealth.  You still need concrete and asphalt for bikeways, jogging trails, convention centers, streetcar lines, commuter rail track ties, etc.

They need a better design.  It is horrible looking.

Quote from: buckethead on July 15, 2011, 09:39:21 AM
If we nix the current plan, what's going to happen to all the concrete that was going to be sold to the city?

The build contracts?

Lets' not be hasty, folks... Concrete magnates gotta eat too!

Do you really think that the folks over at Gate will miss very many meals if they don't get more city (our) money?

JTA's already getting the parcels between Adams and Houston. Even if Brown puts the brakes on the rest of the project, the Greyhound station's still going between Adams and Houston, over three blocks from the train tracks.

Stopping the rest of the project would be pointless if the Greyhound station isn't moved. Is there anything that can be done to that end? Also, we need to keep in mind that the Prime Osborne isn't actually up for grabs now; it's currently the convention center. And I for one am skeptical that they'll be moving the convention center out any time soon.

What's the deal with the office building? Is that REEEALLY necessary?

Also doesn't it seem kind of ass backwards to have that many parking spaces at a public transportation center? Isn't the goal to use public transportation to get there?

Could the city perhaps find someplace to fit in the demolition of a few historic structures? I hear there are still a couple left downtown.

Quote from: TheProfessor on July 15, 2011, 09:59:02 AM
They need a better design.  It is horrible looking.

Dear JTA Transportation Center,

U-G-L-Y, you ain't got no alibi. You ugly!

Quote from: Tacachale on July 15, 2011, 10:33:12 AM
JTA's already getting the parcels between Adams and Houston. Even if Brown puts the brakes on the rest of the project, the Greyhound station's still going between Adams and Houston, over three blocks from the train tracks.

Stopping the rest of the project would be pointless if the Greyhound station isn't moved. Is there anything that can be done to that end? Also, we need to keep in mind that the Prime Osborne isn't actually up for grabs now; it's currently the convention center. And I for one am skeptical that they'll be moving the convention center out any time soon.

Wouldn't that be up to Greyhound?

I mentioned that in a previous post when it was suggested that the folks over at Greyhound were spoon fed the reasons that would be the best location for a new bus terminal. My belief is that no competent operations manger would agree to a site without making his/her own on-site evaluation and looking at ALL the information, especially that of the MJ contributors.

Ock or the Lakelander posted back that the information was forwarded to Greyhound.

Just because JTA now has a remote parcel of land doesn't mean that Greyhound is locked in to the location. I sincerely hope their management is not on the same page as JTA.

The office building is dead or at least pushed back indefinately. it is also important to remember that FDOT is the lead agency for this whole project. JTA is responsible for the Greyhound piece. Sometimes this gets lost with all the focus being on JTA.

Does JTA currently control any other adjacent land where Greyhound would potentially go? If not, we run the risk of them choosing to stay where they are.

Quote from: Tacachale on July 15, 2011, 10:33:12 AM
JTA's already getting the parcels between Adams and Houston. Even if Brown puts the brakes on the rest of the project, the Greyhound station's still going between Adams and Houston, over three blocks from the train tracks.

Someone still has to magically come up with the money to build Greyhound's new terminal. 

QuoteStopping the rest of the project would be pointless if the Greyhound station isn't moved. Is there anything that can be done to that end?

This thing is $180 million.  Greyhound or not, it would not be pointless to attempt to trim the overall costs to make this a financially viable project in addition to a more efficient one for the everyday user. 

If the office building is no longer a part of the plan, it still makes all the financial sense in the world to combine the local bus and BRT terminals, eliminate the structured parking and place those facilities around the existing skyway station and office building site.  That will leave the Greyhound building a block north of the rest of the facility but that block is an existing paved lot that can be used for parking for the terminals. 

QuoteAlso, we need to keep in mind that the Prime Osborne isn't actually up for grabs now; it's currently the convention center. And I for one am skeptical that they'll be moving the convention center out any time soon.

I'm skeptical we'll get $180 million for a transit center.  For proof, I offer up +25 years of this thing being discussed by JTA and its still sitting on paper.  Nevertheless, regardless of what happens with the convention center, it seems like there is opportunity to reduce the costs and increase the efficiency.

Quote from: copperfiend on July 15, 2011, 10:39:11 AM

Quote from: TheProfessor on July 15, 2011, 09:59:02 AM
They need a better design.  It is horrible looking.

Dear JTA Transportation Center,

U-G-L-Y, you ain't got no alibi. You ugly!

Ha! Ha! you seen that movie too huh? LOL

Quote from: Tacachale on July 15, 2011, 11:17:10 AM
Does JTA currently control any other adjacent land where Greyhound would potentially go? If not, we run the risk of them choosing to stay where they are.

I'm not sure that's even a bad thing.  The Greyhound block is about the only thing alive in that section of DT 24/7.  This is for another thread, but a fear of mine is the Greyhound block becoming another dead space or surface parking once they relocate.  The future of that property (and its impact on DT) is also something that should probably enter this JRTC discussion at some point or at least in JTA's official response to the Mayor's office.  Anyway, the JTA and the city own every parcel between I-95, Adams, Lee and Bay Street and their all dirt or surface parking.  Other communities have overcome more significant land ownership, design and urban contextual situations.  If JTA/Jacksonville really wants too, we can do the same much easier.

Quote from: thelakelander on July 15, 2011, 11:21:34 AM
This thing is $180 million.  Greyhound or not, it would not be pointless to attempt to trim the overall costs to make this a financially viable project in addition to a more efficient one for the everyday user. 

If the office building is no longer a part of the plan, it still makes all the financial sense in the world to combine the local bus and BRT terminals, eliminate the structured parking and place those facilities around the existing skyway station and office building site.  That will leave the Greyhound building a block north of the rest of the facility but that block is an existing paved lot that can be used for parking for the terminals. 

I can agree that. Still, it would just be a waste for the Greyhound terminal to be so far north of everything else.

Quote from: thelakelander on July 15, 2011, 11:21:34 AM
I'm skeptical we'll get $180 million for a transit center.  For proof, I offer up +25 years of this thing being discussed by JTA and its still sitting on paper.  Nevertheless, regardless of what happens with the convention center, it seems like there is opportunity to reduce the costs and increase the efficiency.

Good point, especially looking at the mayor's proposed budget.

Great article. The JTA and FDOT concept looks like a carrier battle group invading other cities.

(http://www.netmarine.net/bat/porteavi/cdg/photo62.jpg)

It makes no sense at all.

hahaha, Lunican, you're right.  The aerial pictures looks like my normal setup for a game of battleship.

Always turn the destroyer 90 deg. to confuse your enemy.

I would like to know why we have to reinvent the wheel with a transportation center in Jacksonville...  IMHO, it is a waste of money for us to create new buildings from scratch when we could do a much better job integrating existing structures into the complex.  It seems like the JTA has misplaced priorities.

Here are my thoughts, Operate Amtrack and Greyhound out of the Prime Osborn (which we own), and let them keep the land weve granted them for possiable commuter rail stations, street cars, Brt, etc. Completey stracth the other building all together and let the DOT be housed in a building already downtown. (this will also help fill up vacancies in DT)

JTA's Steve Arrington talking about why the JRTC was designed as it was. The story starts about 4:45 into the show, right after the land swap story for Greyhound. Interesting.

http://www.jtafla.com/vid/makingMoves/MakingMoves-July2011-web.wmv

dont we have enough empty office space downtown to warrant jta's offices dont need to be located on-site?  if they keep those two separate, maybe someone would ride the skyway.

Convention needs to move, amtrak & greyhound need to be in the sam building. These project is too big, takes too much land. Get the Convention Center out of there.

Great link.  It pretty much validates why a redesign is necessary.

1. Arrington makes a claim that it follows the city's master plan.  What exactly is the city's master plan for these individual parcels in LaVilla?  You'll be hard pressed to find one because it doesn't exist to that level of detail.

2. Arrington speaks of TOD but where exactly would it be located and how will the JRTC as configured be set up to promote seamless integration between this TOD?  In addition to that, how would this "TOD" fit in with the hidden master plan?

3. Arrington claims this is a complex site.  Other than the convention center, its all dirt parking lots.  Yes, there is a railroad and an interstate nearby but that's pretty common within a downtown or urban area.  One can only imagine if actual buildings existed north of Bay Street.  Judging from some of the transportation centers shown above, I'd say the JRTC is one of the easiest to design for, given the moonscape.

4. It was mentioned that to redesign would make the center cost more than $180 million.  Only if you refuse to cut the duplication and extras in the plan.  Quite frankly, we don't "need" a new office building or garages with as much as 2,000 spaces.  This isn't NYC.  We already have more parking spaces available than people in DT.  No level of redesign on paper will cost more than the $100 million you'd chop out by losing the office building, parking garages and combining a bus terminal or two.

5. Also mentioned was that this was being designed under the guidance of FDOT and JTA.  Florida is a pretty pitiful state as far as transit, bicycle and pedestrian focused planning and implementation goes.  Are there any examples of successful transit centers in operation that JTA and the FDOT have put together in the past?  If not, even our authorities may be novices at this, which opens the doors for more questions to be raised about design before spending $180 million.

6. According to Arrington, this sound design should stay the way it is and that if the convention center leaves, a private development will come in and make the area even better.  Look that the development schemes proposed in DT for the last 40 years and things will begin to sound like a broken record.  The flip side of that is, you end up with a vacant blighted box in the middle of your center, which fails to be as popular as you believe it may be (someone once said the skyway would have tons of riders too 20 years ago...), due to it being too spread out.

Anyway, I love that debate is now taking place concerning this issue.  Hopefully, the result will be a project that ends up being more efficient, cheaper and integrated into the surrounding environment than what exists today.

Even if they were concerned about parking it would be much cheaper to build compactly and use the other parcels for surface parking in the near term until an actual need for a parking garage actually arises. If we leave those parcels open then we could encourage future private TOD include extra parking as a part of their designs, too.

I agree that we don't need to build a new office when office vacancies are so high.

As I recall, the offices we part of the Regional Traffic Management Center that would house the whole alphabet soup of transportation --- FDOT, COJ traffic engineers, FHP, TPO, JTA, etc.  Consolidating all these groups under one roof is not a bad thing. Putting it at that location make sense if that's where you're putting a multi-modal transit center. The TPO moving would also free up their building behind Prudential.

This seems like a good planning effort

Transit Oriented Development With Walk Score

Phoenix, Arizona is using Walk Score data to analyze the performance of existing light rail stations and to model the performance of proposed stations. The Phoenix planning department combined Walk Score, housing, and employment data to measure transit oriented development (TOD).

“Walk Score data helps us understand which corridors and station locations perform best from a land use perspectiveâ€"which is often a key missing input in transportation planning where the primary focus is on ‘node’ (stations) rather than ‘place’ considerations,” said Curt Upton, the Light Rail Planning Coordinator for The City of Phoenix Planning and Development Services Department.


(http://blog.walkscore.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/ws-corridors.jpg)

http://blog.walkscore.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/WS-Phoenix-TOD-3.pdf

I agree with a previous poster who wonders aloud why the Greyhound and Amtrak cannot be housed in existing buildings at the Prime Osborn already.  It would be simple to make the most of what we already have instead of trying to waste time trying to build a Taj Mahal.  The problem, IMHO, is that we are procrastinating abd delaying because we are trying to spend money on a giant new facility instead of making smaller but more realistic steps now. 
I happened upon the multimodal train/bus station in St. Louis, Missouri - it is nowhere near the mess that we are trying to plan in our humble city...

http://donnajgamache.wordpress.com/2008/10/18/st-louis-gateway-station-new-multimodal-transporation-center-soon-to-open/
http://www.greatamericanstations.com/station-news/st-louis-opens-26-4-million-transportation-hub/?searchterm=passenger

Quote from: exnewsman on July 15, 2011, 03:31:11 PM
As I recall, the offices we part of the Regional Traffic Management Center that would house the whole alphabet soup of transportation --- FDOT, COJ traffic engineers, FHP, TPO, JTA, etc.  Consolidating all these groups under one roof is not a bad thing. Putting it at that location make sense if that's where you're putting a multi-modal transit center. The TPO moving would also free up their building behind Prudential.

Consolidating these offices is one thing.  However, building a new structure for them in a downtown with 24% vacancy rates is another.  COJ's consolidation of offices around Hemming Plaza and Everbank's proposal to head to the AT&T Tower are good models to follow.  We have several buildings within close proximity to existing skyway stations that could accommodate this need.  In addition, to being cheaper, placing a couple of 100 more office employees in the heart of the Northbank would be a great economic shot in the arm for struggling small businesses in the area.

Quote from: Jaxson on July 15, 2011, 04:11:13 PM
I agree with a previous poster who wonders aloud why the Greyhound and Amtrak cannot be housed in existing buildings at the Prime Osborn already.  It would be simple to make the most of what we already have instead of trying to waste time trying to build a Taj Mahal.  The problem, IMHO, is that we are procrastinating abd delaying because we are trying to spend money on a giant new facility instead of making smaller but more realistic steps now. 
I happened upon the multimodal train/bus station in St. Louis, Missouri - it is nowhere near the mess that we are trying to plan in our humble city...

http://donnajgamache.wordpress.com/2008/10/18/st-louis-gateway-station-new-multimodal-transporation-center-soon-to-open/
http://www.greatamericanstations.com/station-news/st-louis-opens-26-4-million-transportation-hub/?searchterm=passenger

Here is that St. Louis transportation center with the JRTC overlayed on the same graphic. 

(http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/photos/1382925451_8g5z8N2-M.jpg)

This thing is actually partially constructed under an interstate and its ramps to reach the railroad.  Now that's what I'd consider a complex urban site.  Not one with blocks and blocks of open space that happens to be adjacent to an interstate.  Oh, and it cost a fraction ($30 million) of what the JRTC is estimated.

Sooo, that all said, can this thing be stopped? Is that actually possible??

(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-gT_jizTwCMM/TiClfuOcwsI/AAAAAAAAFO0/vFdba0Z6ygU/s800/MAP-Stuart-Street.jpg)
TUFSU1 REVISION

The only catch being with the nonsense that typically comes out of JTA they'll probably claim that if the little building at the end of the Skyway were taken down all of the roads in the city would magically revert to dirt.

OCKLAWAHA

Quote from: danem on July 15, 2011, 04:39:14 PM
Sooo, that all said, can this thing be stopped? Is that actually possible??

Yes. The fact that no one has $180 million keeps it on the drawing board for years.  There are a lot of variables out there that could take things in several directions.  The convention center situation is a key factor Brown's downtown redevelopment plan.  Its also cheaper than the transportation center at full build out, meaning it will probably happen sooner.  Also, the fact that Brown and the council didn't hand over all the desired property and the media finally paying attention to this issue, creates pressure on JTA to modify or at least attempt to sell what they have from a holistic perspective.   Looking back a few years ago, this is the exact same path that ended up with the $1 billion dedicated busway plan dying, JTA doing commuter rail/streetcar studies, rail-based solutions making it into the city's visioning plans and TPO's 2035 LRTP.  It's also the same path that ended up with Peyton restoring Friendship Fountain.  My advice would be to keep beating people over the head and eventually some type of change will happen.

Quote from: danem on July 15, 2011, 04:39:14 PM
Sooo, that all said, can this thing be stopped? Is that actually possible??

If the city does not grant them the land, they can not build it. so essentially it can be stopped

Bringing Amtrak and Greyhound into the Prime location right now would still allow most of the Prime to function as a convention center until a new one is built.  After the new convention center opens, then the POCC can go back to being a real terminal with retail and JTA offices if need be.  Then complete the station by building bus/skyway/streetcar on the block between Forsyth and Bay and then you're done.  Doesn't this just make sense?  Sounds like everyone would be happy except JTA.  Like someone else said, then sell the rest of the land for TOD.

The present rendering/plan for the transportation center is too big for our britches. Not only do we not have the metro population to support or justify it being this big, but the core and/or urban population does not justify a transportation center of this size either. In addition, comparing to other cities close to our size or even bigger, we are spending too much money. 180 million dollars is way too much money; it's a waste for a city of our size. Something along the size and cost of 30 million, in comparison to the other cities listed (comparison) would be more justifiable. There are some cities a little larger than Jax that have transportation centers that cost in the 10 to 20 million dollar range. Mayor Brown did the right and honorable thing of putting the brakes on this money monster. We can use the extra money for something else to upgrade downtown and/or the urban core.

"HU"

Right on, Ock!  Silly us.  The station has been there all along!   ::)

+1

Ock that was better than all the posts about this put together.  You get extra credit.

Ock is 100% correct.  I wonder if JTA wants a real solution or wants to build a Taj Mahal...

Well here are some numbers, and if the Mayor is reading this PLEASE check my facts.

The old station contained:
RPO - Railway Post Office
Baggage Rooms and Claim (Home of a railroad industry legend, a crime stopping BOB CAT in a trunk.)
Railway Express Agency
Travelers Aid
3 shops, gifts, snacks and news.
Car Rental
The BEST RESTAURANT in town (especially for breakfast)
Ladies Lounge
Men's Lounge
White and Black waiting room which was merged into the main waiting room
ticket offices and windows for 4 major railroads
Offices for a number of other railroads (sales agents)

It handled 250 trains a day at its peak with 41,000 daily passengers or 15,000,000 passengers per year. It even did this AFTER the black waiting room was closed off. That's more passengers per year then all of Greyhound, Amtrak, JTA BUSES, and the Skyway combined...

...and Steve Arrington thinks we'll need 5 more depots just to handle the crowds and TOD the JRTC will generate?
Really? Seriously? Oh Please!

OCKLAWAHA

Who is the architect on this project?? The design is terrible not withstanding the lack of functionality.

I'll have to go and check for sure but I believe the JRTC's architect is RS&H.

I've been a casual reader of the blog for some time, but I can't help but speak up after reading this article. I really appreciate and respect the post and the conversation that has been sparked as a result -- I for one am completely floored by this project's state of affairs.

I admit I have been extraordinarily excited about the idea of a consolidated transportation center -- dare I say, an urban hub -- in Jax since the idea's very inception, but I had not expected to see such a vapid, banal, convoluted proposal be issued without jest.

This is such a phenomenal opportunity for Jacksonville to take a step forward as a city, and it is one that effects every community in our conglomerate of urban, semi-urban and suburban neighborhoods. This hub is an emblematic gateway for our city, nothing less. If we mess this up, we will be stuck with its stain for generations.

With the proposal as-is, I am appalled to see such an arcane separation of services and a total lack of appreciation for crafting a rich, complex architectural solution to a complex urban problem/situation. On top of any functional  criticism one might put forward, there is also a jarring vacancy of poetics in the proposal. More than just saying it is “ugly,” and more than any superficial stylization could possibly compensate, the proposal offers no deep connection to the community and culture within which it sits. Would you be inspired if you arrived (or worked) in such a place? Should a station not inspire? Does this proposal whisper (or scream) “…Jacksonville…” when you imagine standing in or beside it?

Can we not embrace this task with an innovative, progressive attitude towards urban life? Why settle for another thoughtless expression of sprawl that has claimed and, apparently, continues to claim the constitution of our city? We should be treating the site as precious city fabric, not as an expendable suburban commodity.

There are two productive stances as far as I can see: one, design a hub that reflects the complexity and richness of the site and urban context; or two, if no such richness exists, IMAGINE and CREATE a place in which it does. This is a symbol of the city, whether it is regarded as so or not. It is not some vestigial rehashing of a lost time when public transportation meant something to our city. It is about a present and future condition in which we occupy our city and region with the impunity of affordable and responsible mobility.

We need the hub to be a place; a place (not a building, a facility, a lot, a shelter, or a terminus – a PLACE) is only as interesting and valuable as you make it. Such a place provides incentive to -- as well put above -- “create jobs, spur adjacent sustainable transit-oriented development, and become an economic powerhouse for the downtown area.” But it should also be one that inspires and incentivizes a new generation to choose a burgeoning downtown Jacksonville as a place to live and a place to visit. And it MUST – this really is not optional – be an attractive, desirable, and functional place to be.

As a graduate architecture and planning student in Philadelphia at the moment I can be nothing but ashamed with this project as a reflection of my hometown. Is this really the best we can come up with?? This project represents a significant piece of our urban kaleidoscope -- why can’t we treat it with a bit more pomp?

Am I off base to want this for our city? Must we be so myopic? Where is the leadership? Making DT a viable, attractive community -- to the benefit of all of Jacksonville’s factions -- is going to require people to MAKE it so.

JTA and Mayor Brown, please assemble a group of collaborative, innovative (young…? ;-P ) designers, planners, engineers, thinkers (I can tell you that there is plenty of serious talent looking for work out there across the country) to help rethink BOTH the problem and the solution. Jax, FL, and the region will all be the better for it.


(Apologies for the diatribe and certain repetition.)

Quote from: thelakelander on July 17, 2011, 01:33:07 PM
I'll have to go and check for sure but I believe the JRTC's architect is RS&H.

That wouldn't be a surprise at all.  I hate to speak poorly of a company that I work for every once and a while, but it seems that their whole design team is focused on one thing - inexpensive - although their prices don't reflect that.

Every design that I've seen from them over the past several years has a copy and paste feel to it.  I briefly mentioned them in another thread for the same reason.  I've reviewed several drawings that are identical to one another in scope, materials, spec, etc....  Boxes.  Stucco.  Industrial.  They've apparently lost any kind of innovation and seem to keep using the same generic school/hospital template for anything that they do.

Until people quit paying them good money for effortless design, I would imagine that they'll keep doing more of the same.

Here is a closer look at the Salt Lake City Intermodal Hub.  Modes served include Amtrak, Greyhound, UTA TRAX light rail, UTA frontrunner commuter rail and UTA local bus service.  The price tag for this intermodal facility was a little over $20 million.

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/75/Salt_Lake_City_Intermodal_Hub_Diagram.jpg/800px-Salt_Lake_City_Intermodal_Hub_Diagram.jpg)

Major differences between this center and JTA's $180 million proposed JRTC:

1. JRTC includes an office building for JTA

2. JRTC includes two parking garages with over 2,000 spaces

3. The Salt Lake City hub is all on ground level (no need for elevators, pedestrian overpasses, etc.)

4. Salt Lake City's local bus and Greyhound operations share the same apron.

(http://www.metrojacksonville.com/photos/thumbs/lrg-4717-delts145-ssp-4.jpg)

(http://www.cyclingutah.com/cms/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/btc.jpg)

Salt Lake City's hub also includes a bike transit center.  I wonder if we have considered one for the JRTC?

Quote
On September 25th, the Canyon Sports Bicycle Transit Center (BTC) opened in Salt Lake City at the Intermodal Hub. The new facility combines self-service bicycle storage for commuters, shower facilities, do it yourself repair facilities along with a full service bike shop. The facility was funded through a partnership of the Utah Transit Authority, Salt Lake City, Wasatch Front Regional Council, Utah Department of Transportation, U.S. Department of Energy and the Salt Lake City Mayor’s Bicycle Advisory Committee and will be run by Canyon Sports.

The BTC will have storage for 86 bicycles. Memberships are needed to store a bicycle and are available on a daily, monthly, or yearly basis for $2, $12, or $96 respectively.

The BTC is located in the UTA Intermodal Hub at 250 S., 600 W. in Salt Lake City.

Find out more at bicycletransitcenter.com or call 801-359-0814.

http://www.cyclingutah.com/advocacy/road-advocacy/canyon-sports-bicycle-transit-center-opens/

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4a/Salt_Lake_Intermodal_Hub_platform.jpg/800px-Salt_Lake_Intermodal_Hub_platform.jpg)
Rail platforms at grade level in Salt Lake City.

(http://www.railpac.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/frontrunnertrainwithamtrakplatformshowing.jpg)

Detroit's recently completed $22.5 million Rosa Parks Transit Center.  Modes served include the Detroit People mover, local bus and Detroit's LRT starter line (construction starts this year).

(http://www.instablogsimages.com/images/2009/08/05/rosa-parks-transit-center_1_XaF4n_69.jpg)

(http://www.building.co.uk/Pictures/web/h/c/e/Parsons_bus_Detroit_Rosa_Parks_3.jpg)

(http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Rosa-Parks-Transit-Center.png)
Transferring between modes doesn't involve walking multiple blocks.

(http://www.86073.com/UploadPic/2010-12-0/2010124213416645.jpg)

(http://lansingrocks.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/4297688138_8d55821270.jpg)

QuoteLocated at Michigan and Cass Avenues, the Rosa Parks Transit Center is a 25,000-square-foot indoor facility with over two acres of exterior transit access. It enables customers to make connections to 21 DDOT bus routes, the SMART suburban bus system, Transit Windsor for international connections, and taxi access in a single downtown transportation hub. It also provides pedestrian connectivity to the Detroit People Mover stations at Michigan and Times Square, and was planned to eventually connect to the city’s future light rail transit system.

http://michpics.wordpress.com/2010/05/25/the-bus-stops-here-detroits-rosa-parks-transit-center/

Fort Worth's Intermodal Transportation Center.  Modes served include Amtrak, Greyhound, local bus and TRE commuter rail.  Again, everything is basically at ground level.

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/TRE%40FWITC.jpg)
A single platform serves local bus, Amtrak and TRE commuter rail, making transferring easy and construction cheap.

(http://pics4.city-data.com/cpicc/cfiles13533.jpg)
A single terminal building serves all modes.

(http://cache.virtualtourist.com/4939106-Transportation-Fort_Worth.jpg)

(http://img.groundspeak.com/waymarking/display/dbe97918-ba2f-4444-bb8a-3574f3bf37f8.jpg)

Quote from: thelakelander on July 17, 2011, 01:33:07 PM
I'll have to go and check for sure but I believe the JRTC's architect is RS&H.

teamed with AECOM

AECOM = formerly DMJM

Fort Worth is part of a much larger metropolitan area then Jacksonville, this photo appears to be taken about midday (no shadows). In spite of the metro size and the number of carriers it serves, I can count 5 people in this photo... That's a number that ought to work out for Jacksonville, because IF we go ahead with this stupid design that would be ONE CUSTOMER PER BUILDING!

Bottom line really is, WE ALREADY HAVE A TERMINAL BUILDING... USE IT DAMN IT.  We don't need 5 new buildings or 1 new building, we've been given a gift of a 'free' transit hub and we're apparently to dumb to see it.


Now tell me we can't handle the combined crowd at any given time equal to our current JTA Rosa Parks Center, everyone you see over at Greyhound, the Skyway's throngs and finally the folks out at the Amtrak Station, all in this same waiting room space. We could do it several times over with room left over for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

OCKLAWAHA

Images of St. Louis' Gateway Transportation Center.  Modes served include Amtrak, Greyhound, local bus and light rail.  Total cost was a little over $31 million.

(http://66.151.101.112/Images/baa78983-c1b4-4502-b6f3-6dabad3d492c_tcm20-446927.jpg)

(http://66.151.101.112/Images/ec96c7d9-5093-4dd6-b2d7-e130dcd2883b_tcm20-446935.jpg)

(http://media.connectingstlouis.com/500/st-louis-mo-transportation-center.jpg)

(http://info.aia.org/aiarchitect/thisweek09/0306/0306d_stlouis5.jpg)
On the JTA Making Moves video, Steve Arrington made it sound like the Jacksonville site being so complex was a major reason for the $180 million price tag.  The St. Louis site appears to be a much more complex design solution for the same modes of transit, yet it still came in nearly $150 million less.

(http://urbanreviewstl.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/img_1712.jpg)

(http://urbanreviewstl.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/img_1708.jpg)

(http://www.bdcnetwork.com/photo/213/213185-bdc0902npp4b.jpg)

QuoteTwenty years in the making, St. Louis recently opened its $27 million Gateway Transportation Center, a 37,000-sf multi-modal building that provides facilities for Amtrak passenger train and Greyhound bus service in a single 700-foot-long structure. Designed by KAI Design & Build, St. Louis, the facility features a long, curving design that illustrates its purpose for moving people. Train passengers walk through an enclosed multi-colored glass walkway and two sets of stairs, elevators, and escalators to reach the Amtrak train platforms at one end of the building. The Building Team included general contractor K&S Associates, architect Kiku Obata & Company, civil engineer Jacobs, and landscape architect SWT Design Inc., all based in St. Louis.

http://www.bdcnetwork.com/article/construction-completed-st-louis-gateway-transportation-center

Local St. Louis resident's comments about the pros and cons of their new transportation center: http://urbanreviewstl.com/2010/12/readers-like-st-louis-gateway-transportation-center/

I think these projects in our peer cities really show where we've gone off path locally and why our center is too expensive to get off the drawing board.  Building facilities with parking garages above them and an new office building in an abandoned DT are highly questionable and expensive decisions that have little to do with the core needs of a transit center.  The last expensive decision is the ideal of building a separate terminal station for each mode.  There's tons of building material and labor cost duplication, not to mention the whole point of having an intermodal transit facility gets lost by making it more inefficient for the average transit user to transfer between modes.

Imagine if we had to deal with St. Louis' site conditions instead of having vacant blocks of property that happens to be next to a convention center, railroad and an interstate?  My guess, is that we'd just throw our hands up in the air, claim it can't be done and move on.......or kick out viable businesses and demolish a couple of blocks of downtown instead.

QuoteSt. Louis Gateway Transportation Center

KAI Design & Build had a difficult task: To design a train, bus, and light rail depot that stretches under four highway overpasses.

Dignity has been restored to the rails in downtown St. Louis. For more than 25 years, until recently, boarding Amtrak in the city involved not a station but the “Amshack,” a modular number hidden under the freeway on what looked like a set from The Wire. You would buy your ticket and pray the wait wouldn’t be long. Then you had to make your way through a treacherous gravel yard to reach your train. All along, there was a wonderful Romanesque train station nearby: Union Station, opened in 1894, was once the world’s biggest and busiest station. It closed in 1978 and reopened in 1985 as a hotel and shopping mall, butâ€"this is the sad partâ€"without trains. In 2004, the local Riverfront Times reported that the Amshack was “thought to be the oldest temporary depot in the world.”

How far things had fallen in the way of railroad romance. But they have now swung upward again with the completion of the St. Louis Gateway Transportation Center, a new downtown depot built to serve Amtrak. It’s not Union Station’s limestone castle, but, with 16 trains a day, St. Louis can live with less, and these days, two platforms serving four newly built tracks is enough. More important than capacity are the connections. The Gateway Center, which cost $27 million, gives Amtrak passengers a modern portal but also direct access to MetroLink, the local light rail system, and to Greyhound buses.

Fitting these functions together on the site that was available took surgical skill, because Metro, the local transit authority, owned only one parcel downtown where all three transit systems met. It happens to be directly beneath four overpasses of Interstate 64, so the 35,700-square-foot building appears to have been slippedâ€"or pouredâ€"around several of their columns.

“It wound up being a very curvilinear project because of all the site constraints,” says Melissa Kreishman, the project architect at KAI Design & Build, a St. Louis firm that led the Gateway station’s design. The building stretches 700 feet, with angled façades and windows laminated in syncopated Mondrian-like colors to suggest the notion of movement. Along the north wing are Greyhound’s operations, including 10 bus bays and turnaround space. At the far northern end is a sidewalk crossing to MetroLink trains and the MetroBus station. The south wing extends an enclosed skywalk over the Amtrak lines and down to the two platforms. Between the wings lies the main ticketing and waiting area, with a broad view north toward downtown.

There were constraints on the ground but also from above: There is constant highway noise to keep out and huge loads of plowed snow that may crash onto the building from the overpasses. So the building needed a certain amount of armor for the harsh environment.

“It was not easy squeezing the project onto that site,” affirms Tom Behan, the city’s chief construction engineer. “But it’s now a whole lot neater than what was there.”

http://66.151.101.112/transportation-projects/st-louis-gateway-transportation-center.aspx

Heaven forbid any design that has to be more than the sum of its parts. This can be likened to an architect trying to place a building on a lot with a number of older majestic irreplaceable trees. Rather than design the structure to complement what is already there, the design butcher decides the trees have to go so his monument can be ofcookie cut parts to meet his standard of perfection.

St. Louis is a great city.  Love the lite rail there. Sometimes it's elevated then ground level and even a subway at times.  Designing what is beat for each situation.

I agree with Ock that we have the perfect building for a transportation hub.  The problem is that we have too many people in town who want it to become their boondoggle...

How true, I just came off of listening to Arrington's diatribe and I'm convinced that the poor guy has completely lost his mind. He seems to be 100% convinced that his way is the only way but then perhaps he has forgotten the Skyway, one of his other achievements. Remember this is the same guy that said the Skyway would carry 60,000 people a day, then blamed its failure to get more then 5% of that number on downtown parking garages and retail failure. Without a doubt retails exodus from the CBD effected the ridership, but even if the retail had doubled we'd have to assume that every single person that works downtown would rush to the Prime Osbourne "commuter lots" and ride .50 miles on the Skyway. He and JTA is using that exact kind of math, plus lobbying the Mayor and Council with a disinformation campaign... "QUICK! BUILD GREYHOUND OR THE WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY CLOSES!," one of them recently told me.

The "window of opportunity," can only mean the opportunity to grace our city with a leviathan of a project and they are using Greyhounds possible sale of their station as the grounds for such ridiculous statements.  If they were really interested in revising their plans what would keep them from going to the city and temporarily moving Greyhound onto the Prime Osbourne property? When the convention center moves out, Greyhound gets the best terminal in their entire systems history. All of this is possible if we just stop this insanity before they start digging.
Give them a couple of lots on Adams and like termites they will shortly infest the other 14 acres with their scheme with "Phase two" demands.

WE DON'T NEED TO ADD A SINGLE BUILDING FOR A REAL TRANSPORTATION CENTER, PLEASE STOP THEM MAYOR BROWN.

OCKLAWAHA

The JTA proposal is insanity. I can only hope the mayor is listening to other opinions. A big shakeup in JTA management would be a nice start.

Their chief transit planner should be given a nice retirement package (For YEARS of services rendered, Skyway, Kings Avenue Garage, JRTC etc) and shoved out the door.

OCKLAWAHA

QuoteMULTI-MODAL PLAN
Another boondoggle
I cannot understand why we end up with frustrating delays and costly overruns in this city.
And, just when I thought that we learned from our experience with the county courthouse, we see another monstrous mistake in the making - the proposed regional transportation center.
With a price tag of $180 million and a facility that sprawls out over half-a-dozen blocks, this transportation center lacks the basic common sense of making the most of the buildings that we already have.
I do not see why Amtrak and Greyhound service cannot be located in the old Jacksonville Terminal building at the Prime Osborn Convention Center.
Instead of a common-sense solution, the Jacksonville Transportation Authority chooses to create a Taj Mahal that dwarfs multi-modal stations in similar-sized cities.
It does not allow people to travel quickly and efficiently between modes of transportation - the whole point of combining such facilities.
JTA needs to go back to the drawing board, and we need to move forward with a better plan sooner rather than later.
John Louis Meeks,
Jacksonville

Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/opinion/letters-readers/2011-07-21/story/letters-readers-exaggerated-impact#ixzz1SkJfI2nm

Source: The Florida Times-Union

Quote from: Jaxson on July 21, 2011, 09:29:13 AM

QuoteMULTI-MODAL PLAN
Another boondoggle
I cannot understand why we end up with frustrating delays and costly overruns in this city.
And, just when I thought that we learned from our experience with the county courthouse, we see another monstrous mistake in the making - the proposed regional transportation center.
With a price tag of $180 million and a facility that sprawls out over half-a-dozen blocks, this transportation center lacks the basic common sense of making the most of the buildings that we already have.
I do not see why Amtrak and Greyhound service cannot be located in the old Jacksonville Terminal building at the Prime Osborn Convention Center.
Instead of a common-sense solution, the Jacksonville Transportation Authority chooses to create a Taj Mahal that dwarfs multi-modal stations in similar-sized cities.
It does not allow people to travel quickly and efficiently between modes of transportation - the whole point of combining such facilities.
JTA needs to go back to the drawing board, and we need to move forward with a better plan sooner rather than later.
John Louis Meeks,
Jacksonville

Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/opinion/letters-readers/2011-07-21/story/letters-readers-exaggerated-impact#ixzz1SkJfI2nm

Source: The Florida Times-Union

The only problem with this letter is it doens't take into account that when the JRTC was being designed the city didn't have any plan (and still doesn't) to move the POCC from its current location. Had that been a definite then I'm sure the while plan would have turned out differently. There's been TALK for years and years about moving it, but only talk. Peyton said publicly it wasn't a priority for his administration.

So you can't move Greyhound or anybody else into an already occupied building.

In theory - that would be the best option for this transit center. But until somebody from the city says YES we're moving the convention center...

We have a new administration in office with new priorities.  Wouldn't it be easier to go sit down with them and figure this out before moving on a $180 million project?  To me, it seems like a simple discussion between Blaylock and Brown regarding the future of both projects is in order.  Until this is resolved, I'd put the entire thing on ice.

Quote from: exnewsman on July 21, 2011, 10:12:19 AM

Quote from: Jaxson on July 21, 2011, 09:29:13 AM

QuoteMULTI-MODAL PLAN
Another boondoggle
I cannot understand why we end up with frustrating delays and costly overruns in this city.
And, just when I thought that we learned from our experience with the county courthouse, we see another monstrous mistake in the making - the proposed regional transportation center.
With a price tag of $180 million and a facility that sprawls out over half-a-dozen blocks, this transportation center lacks the basic common sense of making the most of the buildings that we already have.
I do not see why Amtrak and Greyhound service cannot be located in the old Jacksonville Terminal building at the Prime Osborn Convention Center.
Instead of a common-sense solution, the Jacksonville Transportation Authority chooses to create a Taj Mahal that dwarfs multi-modal stations in similar-sized cities.
It does not allow people to travel quickly and efficiently between modes of transportation - the whole point of combining such facilities.
JTA needs to go back to the drawing board, and we need to move forward with a better plan sooner rather than later.
John Louis Meeks,
Jacksonville

Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/opinion/letters-readers/2011-07-21/story/letters-readers-exaggerated-impact#ixzz1SkJfI2nm

Source: The Florida Times-Union

The only problem with this letter is it doens't take into account that when the JRTC was being designed the city didn't have any plan (and still doesn't) to move the POCC from its current location. Had that been a definite then I'm sure the while plan would have turned out differently. There's been TALK for years and years about moving it, but only talk. Peyton said publicly it wasn't a priority for his administration.

So you can't move Greyhound or anybody else into an already occupied building.

In theory - that would be the best option for this transit center. But until somebody from the city says YES we're moving the convention center...

The POCC is a cop out for kicking the can down the road.  There should be plans for a multimodal facility that shares space with the POCC in the event that the convention center stays put.  It is unrealistic to insist that the convention center move before any plans go forward with the multimodal facility.  For the time being, can we not have Amtrak and Greyhound share the Jacksonville Terminal building and then expand when the convention center moves off the grounds?  I do not think that we can afford to build a sprawling complex simply because we are waiting for the convention center to make the first move.

There are plans for Amtrak, commuter rail, HSR and the POCC to co-exisist.

Quote from: fsujax on July 21, 2011, 11:05:07 AM
There are plans for Amtrak, commuter rail, HSR and the POCC to co-exisist.

1. Do these plans have to cost $180 million?
2. Do these plans have to sprawl out over seven city blocks?
3. Do these plans include actually using the existing buildings in the old terminal building?
...just curious...more aimed at our aimless JTA than you, by the way, fsujax...

What about local bus, greyhound, skyway and streetcar?  Hopefully, plans bring these modes in as well.

Shut the convention center down, let Veterans' Arena and the private hotels handle our small number of events.

Turn the PO back into the transportation hub it was designed to be.

Problem solved.

Quote from: ChriswUfGator on July 21, 2011, 11:38:54 AM
Shut the convention center down, let Veterans' Arena and the private hotels handle our small number of events.

Turn the PO back into the transportation hub it was designed to be.

Problem solved.

From your mouth to God's ears.  Unfortunately, we have quite a circus for a transportation authority...

Anything regarding the future of the convention center would have to handled by COJ.  It's Mayor Brown's baby now.

Quote from: Jaxson on July 21, 2011, 10:29:12 AM

Quote from: exnewsman on July 21, 2011, 10:12:19 AM

Quote from: Jaxson on July 21, 2011, 09:29:13 AM

QuoteMULTI-MODAL PLAN
Another boondoggle
I cannot understand why we end up with frustrating delays and costly overruns in this city.
And, just when I thought that we learned from our experience with the county courthouse, we see another monstrous mistake in the making - the proposed regional transportation center.
With a price tag of $180 million and a facility that sprawls out over half-a-dozen blocks, this transportation center lacks the basic common sense of making the most of the buildings that we already have.
I do not see why Amtrak and Greyhound service cannot be located in the old Jacksonville Terminal building at the Prime Osborn Convention Center.
Instead of a common-sense solution, the Jacksonville Transportation Authority chooses to create a Taj Mahal that dwarfs multi-modal stations in similar-sized cities.
It does not allow people to travel quickly and efficiently between modes of transportation - the whole point of combining such facilities.
JTA needs to go back to the drawing board, and we need to move forward with a better plan sooner rather than later.
John Louis Meeks,
Jacksonville

Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/opinion/letters-readers/2011-07-21/story/letters-readers-exaggerated-impact#ixzz1SkJfI2nm

Source: The Florida Times-Union

The only problem with this letter is it doens't take into account that when the JRTC was being designed the city didn't have any plan (and still doesn't) to move the POCC from its current location. Had that been a definite then I'm sure the while plan would have turned out differently. There's been TALK for years and years about moving it, but only talk. Peyton said publicly it wasn't a priority for his administration.

So you can't move Greyhound or anybody else into an already occupied building.

In theory - that would be the best option for this transit center. But until somebody from the city says YES we're moving the convention center...

The POCC is a cop out for kicking the can down the road.  There should be plans for a multimodal facility that shares space with the POCC in the event that the convention center stays put.  It is unrealistic to insist that the convention center move before any plans go forward with the multimodal facility.  For the time being, can we not have Amtrak and Greyhound share the Jacksonville Terminal building and then expand when the convention center moves off the grounds?  I do not think that we can afford to build a sprawling complex simply because we are waiting for the convention center to make the first move.

Ok. But if the POCC is still operational - where do you put all the Greyhound buses? Amtrak could of course operate in the terminal building. but even the track upgrades and passenger walkways will impact current conv ctr operations. I agree the complex should be more concentrated. No arguement there. But there are issues to overcome.
According to the Arrington interview, the transit center was designed so that it could co-exist shold the POCC stay in place or with whatever the city wanted to replace it with if the POCC moved out.

I like the idea of using the POCC for the multimodal center. Renovating what's already there would seem to be cheaper than to start from scratch. I think JTA and Greyhound and whomever could share external space (bus bays. etc) and have an interanl waiting area with retail, etc inside.

I'm just saying that if the city taken action 10 years ago with the POCC we may not be having this conversation. The design would most likely have been consolidated.

Quote from: exnewsman on July 21, 2011, 12:13:41 PM
Ok. But if the POCC is still operational - where do you put all the Greyhound buses?

Take a portion of that huge parking lot behind the POCC.  We need to start ridding ourselves of excess parking anyway.  There are more then enough surface lots surrounding the POCC to make up for the loss.

QuoteAmtrak could of course operate in the terminal building. but even the track upgrades and passenger walkways will impact current conv ctr operations. I agree the complex should be more concentrated. No arguement there. But there are issues to overcome.

There are issues to overcome but they can be resolved.  However, getting to that point means getting both entities to sit down with one another and coordinate a resolution that works best for Jacksonville.

QuoteAccording to the Arrington interview, the transit center was designed so that it could co-exist shold the POCC stay in place or with whatever the city wanted to replace it with if the POCC moved out.

I like the idea of using the POCC for the multimodal center. Renovating what's already there would seem to be cheaper than to start from scratch. I think JTA and Greyhound and whomever could share external space (bus bays. etc) and have an interanl waiting area with retail, etc inside.

I'm just saying that if the city taken action 10 years ago with the POCC we may not be having this conversation. The design would most likely have been consolidated.

I agree.  Nevertheless, since everything is still on paper, we're not past the point of no return.  It's time for JTA and COJ to sit down together and plan in unison.

We may not have a good convention center but we do have a good station.  In my own opinion we should use the station for a station and give up on the convention center, at least until we can afford to build a new one.

If I was planning a convention for somewhere around here, I'd be looking at Orlando not Jacksonville.

Jaxson. To answer your questions. No, No and Yes

I think its is a horriable idea to "give up" on the convention center. As someone stated earlier, Blaylock and Brown need to have a conversation about this. Because at this point, they have conflicting visions. Both projects are very important and need to be done right.  I dont think us as a city need ti give up on anything. Giving up and lack of a vision is why a downtown is a rotting corpse now. 

Quote from: fsujax on July 21, 2011, 01:24:07 PM
Jaxson. To answer your questions. No, No and Yes

Thanks, amigo

Quote from: Dashing Dan on July 21, 2011, 01:05:39 PM
We may not have a good convention center but we do have a good station.  In my own opinion we should use the station for a station and give up on the convention center, at least until we can afford to build a new one.

If I was planning a convention for somewhere around here, I'd be looking at Orlando not Jacksonville.

+1

Quote from: duvaldude08 on July 21, 2011, 01:24:43 PM
I think its is a horriable idea to "give up" on the convention center. As someone stated earlier, Blaylock and Brown need to have a conversation about this. Because at this point, they have conflicting visions. Both projects are very important and need to be done right.  I dont think us as a city need ti give up on anything. Giving up and lack of a vision is why a downtown is a rotting corpse now. 

That ship already sailed. Nobody hosts conventions here, and the building is the least of our problems with competing in that market. Holding on to a 1980s-era pipe dream of luring convention business that ultimately went elsewhere and isn't moving back is only going to submarine what we actually need downtown, which is the train station and transit facility.

Quote from: duvaldude08 on July 21, 2011, 01:24:43 PM
I think its is a horriable idea to "give up" on the convention center. As someone stated earlier, Blaylock and Brown need to have a conversation about this. Because at this point, they have conflicting visions. Both projects are very important and need to be done right.  I dont think us as a city need ti give up on anything. Giving up and lack of a vision is why a downtown is a rotting corpse now.

This city has long been in the habit of biting off more than we can chew. 

Along with a lack of vision, downtown is also suffering from indigestion.

Quote from: Dashing Dan on July 21, 2011, 01:05:39 PM
We may not have a good convention center but we do have a good station.  In my own opinion we should use the station for a station and give up on the convention center, at least until we can afford to build a new one.

If I was planning a convention for somewhere around here, I'd be looking at Orlando not Jacksonville.

Excellent point.  Orlando has a lot more to offer to conventioneers...

Maybe Im just greedy. I want us to have the best of everything. I still think that both projects should happen. ( the right way)

thats not greedy. they can both happen. and they both will happen.

While I sit here and contemplate a 25 acre, $180M, urban transportation center......

I just wish that I could crap beige colored turds of stucco.  I could make a fortune!

Quote from: Non-RedNeck Westsider on July 21, 2011, 03:08:16 PM
While I sit here and contemplate a 25 acre, $180M, urban transportation center......

I just wish that I could crap beige colored turds of stucco.  I could make a fortune!

Ha! The turds probably would make it look better!

^^it's called Jacksonville Beige!

Does anyone want to take a tour of the "Jacksonville Doo-Doo Beige Paint Factory?"  I am sure that it is in a top secret location that one of us can unearth rather quickly with an online search...

Quote from: Dashing Dan on July 21, 2011, 01:05:39 PM
If I was planning a convention for somewhere around here, I'd be looking at Orlando not Jacksonville.

unless of course you actually want even a little city atmosphere...Orlando's convention center is surrounded by Mickey and crap

Quote from: tufsu1 on July 21, 2011, 09:54:46 PM

Quote from: Dashing Dan on July 21, 2011, 01:05:39 PM
If I was planning a convention for somewhere around here, I'd be looking at Orlando not Jacksonville.

unless of course you actually want even a little city atmosphere...Orlando's convention center is surrounded by Mickey and crap

Yet at the same time it's not even near that stuff! I mean, it's sort of close to Sea World and that's it. If you want to see anything outside of the OC Convention Center, I hope you have a car! Ditto for the Gaylord. Islands of resort and/or meeting space pretty much in the middle of nowhere.

I was thinking mainly about air service.

Quote from: duvaldude08 on July 21, 2011, 03:04:06 PM
Maybe Im just greedy. I want us to have the best of everything. I still think that both projects should happen. ( the right way)

Greed? More like insanity. You are the Duvaldude but you'd just about be able to see that monstrosity from Nassau and St. Johns.

Really JTA? REALLY? We might board 10 mil passengers a year and Greyhound and Amtrak combined maybe a half million... So your going to build a station 5 times the size of the one that easily handled 15 million passengers a year!  Oh and that 10 million is no where close to the small percentage that will actually use any one stop.

Yes to a Transpiration Center at the old Jacksonville Terminal.
NO! Absolutely stupid to go with the JRTC plan.

OCKLAWAHA

Ock, where are you getting your statistics and what station are you comparing the JRTC too?  I'd like to source them, so we'll have them on file to further strengthen the argument for redesign and cost cutting.

The Jacksonville Terminal numbers are published throughout local history books, including mine, and I don't recall where I last read it. I committed it to memory long ago, I don't know why, maybe for just such a stupid plan as this.

The JTA ridership numbers are published in their own release of a ridership count a year or so ago, this number isn't exact, seems to me it was more like 9 million and some change. The annual Metro Magazine top 100 survey issue ranks the systems by size, and under JTA'S noble mass transit leadership, JTA has 'grown' from somewhere around number 65-70 back in the early 80's, to until today, when it is about 100. Amazingly surpassed by Gainesville, Tampa, Broward, Metro Dade, Palm Beach, and Orlando. Watch out JTA because Callahan might be next.

We've dropped off the chart in several categories including, if I recall , fleet size. They remind me of a infamous Japanese Admiral, 0.18 seconds) Matome Ugaki, who's diary was published under the title "FADING VICTORY." After news of the surrender, he boarded an airplane and flew out looking for an American ship to crash, his last words were typed out on a telegraph key (instant messaging back in the day) "I am going higher, higher, higher..."
He never found any allied ships and vanished forever somewhere over the Pacific. I just keep expecting someone at JTA to publish how they are going higher, higher, higher...

Amtrak's numbers are around 50,000, published by Amtrak in 'The Amtrak Florida Fact Sheet' online. Greyhounds 2450,000 is a liberal estimate based on my years as the supervisor for Trailways.

I can probably dig up the exact numbers for all of them if you'd like.

OCKLAWAHA

Yes.  See if you can dig up the numbers for Jacksonville (as they are right now), Fort Worth, St. Louis and Salt Lake City.  All of their stations were built within the last decade for a fraction of the JRTC's cost estimates, while still serving local bus, Greyhound, Amtrak, commuter rail (SLC, FTW), and LRT (SLC, STL).

The newest Amtrak Fact Sheet published 70,728 at Jacksonville, Kissimmee boarded 43,163, and little Sanford came in at 244,252 (with only one extra train daily) for prosepctive. Orlando and Tampa were the other heavyweights.

Put all of those Jacksonville rail passengers in the grand old station, remove the buses as JTA plans and listen to the sound of one hand clapping and for the evening train CHIRP, CHIRP.

OCKLAWAHA

Wow JTA, 193 rail passengers a day, obviously we'll need the entire PO just to contain them...

OCKLAWAHA

Good news and bad news for JTA and the JRTC.
First the good news: After a wild guess or two based on memory the total bus and transit riders in Jacksonville amounts to 12,897,974 passengers.

Now the bad news: That's EVERY SINGLE PASSENGER IN THE CITY no matter where they are picked up or where they are going. So lets just say that if a full third of of all JTA passengers used the JRTC, (A figure that is about as likely as teeth in a hen) we're talking about 3,273,246 total JTA fantasy passengers. Now lets add the 3,278,000 from Greyhound into the mix and we get a grand total of 6,551,246 passenger a year.

Put another way that's 17,948 passengers per day, but divide that by 4 giant stations and you get 4,487 passengers a day per station.

Prospective? Jacksonville Terminal (also called the PO Convention Center) just the old station portion alone, served 15,000,000 passengers per year or 41,095 each and every day with ease. That's 9 x times the volume of traffic that might be expected to show up not only in the original station but in 3 new massive stations. Ya know if the nutz down at the 'tea party' want something to rant about just do a little research into this indefensible waste of the taxpayers money.  Just how complicated does this have to get before the Minions of Myrtle Avenue wake the up?

9,627,246 SOURCE JTA, October 7, 2010 (includes Skyway)
70,728 SOURCE AMTRAK FLORIDA FACT SHEET 2010
3,200,000 SOURCE, Greyhound Lines CEO

12,897,974 TOTAL SURFACE TRANSPORTATION RIDERSHIP IN JACKSONVILLE!

OCKLAWAHA

Yeah I think the 'Tea Party' people need to do a little research on the original 'Tea Party' purpose as well... because they got that one wrong too.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject:    Re: JTA use of Prime Osborne
Date:    Wed, 20 Jul 2011 16:50:42 -0400
From:    John Malseed <malseedj@wdn.com>
To:    Crescimbeni, John <JRC@coj.net>


John,

Do you think you can get the Architect who designed the King Street Parking garage before the City Council and ask him or her about alternate uses for the top floor?  Most parking garages have the significant load bearing capabilities needed to add enclosed space on the top floor.  We could add a HVAC and provide useable working or storage spaces on the top floor.  Perhaps we could move JTA there from their high rent spaces, they own it!  It might make a great location for their proposed Operations Center.

We could use modular construction and simply set the modules on the parking deck making sure that we positioned the load over proper supporting members.  If vibration due to vehicle movement from lower floors is a problem, we can set the modules on isolation mounts.  The parameters of the vibration can be easily measured and the proper mounts obtained. They are used all over earthquake prone areas.  I have been involved with similar solutions  that shock mounted buildings in underground facilities. These facilities were designed to protect computer systems from a nuclear shock wave.  It is not rocket science or costly to provide additional support under the top deck if necessary.

I am very familiar with parking garages. The maintenance costs will increase dramatically as the structure ages unless proper preventative maintenance is provided.  I notice from a GOOGLE photo that the top deck may need sealing.  JTA may be using what is known as the Deferred Maintenance Concept.  It is a recipe for disaster.  It also hides true maintenance costs.

The top deck on a parking structure is usually designed to intercept all the water and prevent it it from reaching other floors.  If the water is not intercepted, It begins to affect the structural integrity of the parking garage due to rusting of the reinforcing bar in the concrete on each level.

I am sending my resume for a bit of background, I speak from years of experience--- I am quite happy working for Lockheed Martin and am currently on long term disability after a bout with cancer.  I am also recovering from broken back, caused by an accident at Saint Vincents Hospital.  No lawsuit, just an accident.

My few points would make a hell of a grilling for Mr. Blalock, one that would show him to be a buffoon in front of the City Council.


V/R

John Malseed
771-6343

On 7/20/2011 12:07 PM, Crescimbeni, John wrote:
>
> Mr. Malseed:
>
> 
>
> Thank you for your email.
>
> 
>
> On a $14 million investment (made in 2001 in the Kings Avenue parking garage) the JTA has â€" for the whole ten year period â€" lost money.
>
> 
>
> On June 17, 2002, Michael Blalock was quoted in the Times Union as stating “my belief is that in three to five years, you won’t be able to get a parking space at Kings Avenue.”  Well it’s now nine years later, not 3-5 years, and there are more than 1,200 spaces (70% of the available parking) available on any given day.
>
> 
>
> This kind of prognostication along with the equally unsuccessful forecasting of 10,000 riders per day on the Skyway Express tells me the JTA has no business being in the land or “commercial” development business.
>
> 
>
> 
>
> John R. Crescimbeni
>
> City Councilman, At-Large, Group 2
>
> Office of the City Council
>
> City Hall at St. James
>
> 117 West Duval Street, Suite 425
>
> Jacksonville, Florida 32202
>
> (904) 630-1381
>
> 
>
> From: John Malseed [mailto:malseedj@wdn.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, July 20, 2011 8:39 AM
> To: Crescimbeni, John
> Subject: JTA use of Prime Osborne
>
> 
>
> John,
>
> I am a strong conservative as you.  Corrine Brown is not my favorite Legislator, but she is a supporter of AMTRAK.  In my view JTA is out of control and needs strong management oversight.
>
> I also called you office about the possibility of using the top floor of the parking garage for office space.  That is just one possible use. Perhaps a bit of out of the box thinking is needed to recover from JTA incompetence.
>
> V/R
>
> John Malseed
> 771-6343
>
>
>
> Dear Congresswoman Brown,
>
> An e-mail similar to the one below was sent to our new Mayor Alvin Brown---It suggests extending the AMTRAK Palmetto Train to Jacksonville.  We need to provide a well thought out and doable Regional Transportation Center in Jacksonville.  The overall plan includes moving the bus terminal next to the existing AMTRAK Station.
>
> Staff at JTA does not seem to understand that funding has dried up for grand ventures. We must engineer viable and affordable solutions to our transportation issues.
>
> An additional benefit would be the train maintenance jobs picked up in Jacksonville for the Palmetto, as this would be its terminus.
>
> John Malseed
> 771-6343
>
>
>
> Dear Mayor Brown,
>
> According to AMTRAK records, an average of 193 riders either got off in AMTRAK train in Jacksonville or boarded an AMTRAK train in 2010.  This is a combined total so less than 100 riders came to or departed Jacksonville each day.
>
> The data is included in the attached link---
>
> http://www.amtrak.com/pdf/factsheets/FLORIDA10.pdf
>
> With that poor ridership, how long would it take to pay for the restoration of AMTRAK capability at the Prime Osborne.
>
> Our best bet at this time is the restoration of the Palmetto AMTRAK service to Jacksonville.  This will allow for a evening arrival  from cities North of Jacksonville.  It will also allow an early morning departure to cities North of Jacksonville. The Palmetto currently ends its run in Savannah, Georgia.  We could use  the additional arrivals and departures.  Savannah is shown to have about 180 riders who use the station each day.  That is combined as above so about 90 riders came to or departed Savannah each day
>
> http://www.amtrak.com/pdf/factsheets/GEORGIA10.pdf
>
> This in addition to recommendations in my last e-mail will allow business travelers to actually use AMTRAK for travel to Jacksonville.  An often overlooked fact, is the availability of track time to add additional passenger trains.  Restoring just the Palmetto to terminate in Jacksonville, may require some arm twisting with CSX, to accomplish.
>
> Their is no viable reason on earth to attempt the reuse of the Prime Osborne as a AMTRAK Station or as a Commuter Rail Station.  We have the same problem with limited track South of Jacksonville.  Who is going to pay for the additional track requirements for Commuter Rail?
>
> Adding a Bus Station at the Prime Osborne would end its use as a Convention Center.  I do not know of a Convention Planner, in his or her right mind, who would recommend its use after such a stupid move by the City.  Unless one has lived on another planet there entire life, the fact that Bus Stations draw an unsavory lot, should be well known.
>
> I am a fan of AMTRAK and Commuter Rail.  I just need to see full plans, costs, and proposed schedule before deeding land to JTA as is being done.  In my view our City Council did a poor job on the issue so far.
>
> V/R
>
> John Malseed
> 771-6343

Here's more information indicating that the JRTC is extremely too large and out of scale for Jacksonville's needs.

APTA 2011 1st quarter total transit ridership numbers:

St. Louis - 10,062,900

Salt Lake City - 10,204,400

Charlotte - 6,162,600

Jacksonville - 2,804,100*

source: http://www.apta.com/resources/statistics/Documents/Ridership/2011_q1_ridership_APTA.pdf

* - Since JTA's statistics were not included in the APTA's spreadsheet, I used the 2010 numbers from JTA's FY2010 ridership report:

source: http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2010-oct-jta-transit-ridership-numbers

As far as Amtrak goes (FY2010 total passengers/station):

St. Louis - 321,629

Salt Lake City - 38,773

Jacksonville - 65,051


Intermodal Transportation Center Capital Costs:

St. Louis - $31.4 million

Salt Lake City - $21 million

Jacksonville - $180 million

Any idea of why Jacksonville needs a transportation center that is significantly larger and more expensive than recently constructed centers in peer communities with significantly higher transit ridership?  While I'm certainly a fan of bringing transportation back downtown, the JRTC as proposed is simply out-of-scale and too expensive.  It's time to go back to the drawing board, even if it means delaying things a bit.

Quote from: malseedj on July 24, 2011, 12:03:16 AM
With that poor ridership, how long would it take to pay for the restoration of AMTRAK capability at the Prime Osborne.

The pay back isn't going to be Amtrak's responsibility. Done right, converting the Jacksonville Terminal back to its original purpose and adding the other modes of travel should create the critical mass to allow the station to have amenity's such as restaurants, gift shops, pub, news stand etc.. Then the pay back becomes returning economic vitality and expansion to an ailing downtown.

QuoteOur best bet at this time is the restoration of the Palmetto AMTRAK service to Jacksonville.  This will allow for a evening arrival  from cities North of Jacksonville

.

The Palmetto has been a political football every since it started running. It has terminated all over the place and been cut, extended and changed more times then I can remember. Currently it is back to its original incarnation as an all day New York-Savannah train. As we have seen before it can easily be terminated in Jacksonville and would be a welcome addition to our lopsided schedules.

QuoteTheir is no viable reason on earth to attempt the reuse of the Prime Osborne as a AMTRAK Station or as a Commuter Rail Station.  We have the same problem with limited track South of Jacksonville.  Who is going to pay for the additional track requirements for Commuter Rail?

Wrong! There is every reason to bring Amtrak, commuter rail and all of the other players together. From a purely transportation guy standpoint its called CONNECTIONS. The ability to board a train in New York, make a seamless change in Jacksonville to bus and ending your trip in Gainesville, for example. (which is also the reason why the professionals represented on this board are fighting to keep all of the modes under ONE roof - in ONE station). The Jacksonville Terminal revived will bring a much needed boost to our sagging downtown.

As for commuter rail, like Amtrak and the rest of the JRTC, it will be paid for with a combination of local, state and federal grants. CSX is moving its freight off of the A line to Palatka which will open up time slots for both Jacksonville and Orlando.

QuoteAdding a Bus Station at the Prime Osborne would end its use as a Convention Center.  I do not know of a Convention Planner, in his or her right mind, who would recommend its use after such a stupid move by the City.  Unless one has lived on another planet there entire life, the fact that Bus Stations draw an unsavory lot, should be well known.

The same might be said for railroad stations, city parks and downtown churches, but that is simply perception and discrimination. The unfortunate and homeless people hang out around the bus station for the same reasons that they hang out in the Library downtown, its a very comfortable, heated and air conditioned space. As a former Transportation Supervisor for Trailways Bus System, I can tell you that the mix on the bus isn't any different then the mix at the airport or train stations. A retiree couple or a college student from a wealthy family going anywhere that doesn't have decent air service, is just as likely to be on that Greyhound as are people from less fortunate social-economic groups. They all share the same key ingredient - they came up with the fare. Done properly nothing will move into the "Prime Osborne" until the Convention business is moved out, the sooner the better.

I would suggest that you and anyone else that believes in the 'bus-trash' theory buys a Greyhound ticket to Daytona Beach, (or Red Coach to Orlando) and find out for yourself that the passengers on the bus are just like all the rest of us.

OCKLAWAHA

I agree with Ock about a decent downtown Amtrak terminal bringing consistent business to downtown Jacksonville.  Right now, Clifford Lane is not very inviting and it does not have the nearby dining and lodging for people waiting to board or those who are arriving in town.   I wonder if those bureaucrats at the JTA care that, right now, Amtrak passengers enter our city via an Amtrak station that is more like an afterthought than an actual gateway into a city.

Quote from: Jaxson on July 24, 2011, 10:08:37 AM
I agree with Ock about a decent downtown Amtrak terminal bringing consistent business to downtown Jacksonville.  Right now, Clifford Lane is not very inviting and it does not have the nearby dining and lodging for people waiting to board or those who are arriving in town.   I wonder if those bureaucrats at the JTA care that, right now, Amtrak passengers enter our city via an Amtrak station that is more like an afterthought than an actual gateway into a city.

Well in fairness, there are motels out there, but I think they only rent rooms by the hour.

Quote from: Jaxson on July 24, 2011, 10:08:37 AM
I wonder if those bureaucrats at the JTA care that, right now, Amtrak passengers enter our city via an Amtrak station that is more like an afterthought than an actual gateway into a city.

just to play devil's advocate...why should JTA care about that...after all, their charter is to operate local transit services.

Quote from: tufsu1 on July 25, 2011, 01:26:52 PM

Quote from: Jaxson on July 24, 2011, 10:08:37 AM
I wonder if those bureaucrats at the JTA care that, right now, Amtrak passengers enter our city via an Amtrak station that is more like an afterthought than an actual gateway into a city.

just to play devil's advocate...why should JTA care about that...after all, their charter is to operate local transit services.

That is a good question.  Here is my answer...
JTA is already moving foward, albeit glacially, on bringing Amtrak back downtown.  Since it is a matter of when and not if, why can't JTA get their stuff together and draft a cost-effective plan that does not reinvent the wheel?  Furthermore, Amtrak could have stronger connectivity with local transit if it were located more centrally.

Quote from: ChriswUfGator on July 25, 2011, 10:10:44 AM

Quote from: Jaxson on July 24, 2011, 10:08:37 AM
I agree with Ock about a decent downtown Amtrak terminal bringing consistent business to downtown Jacksonville.  Right now, Clifford Lane is not very inviting and it does not have the nearby dining and lodging for people waiting to board or those who are arriving in town.   I wonder if those bureaucrats at the JTA care that, right now, Amtrak passengers enter our city via an Amtrak station that is more like an afterthought than an actual gateway into a city.

Well in fairness, there are motels out there, but I think they only rent rooms by the hour.

LOL!

Quote from: Jaxson on July 25, 2011, 01:34:48 PM
That is a good question.  Here is my answer...
JTA is already moving foward, albeit glacially, on bringing Amtrak back downtown.  Since it is a matter of when and not if, why can't JTA get their stuff together and draft a cost-effective plan that does not reinvent the wheel?  Furthermore, Amtrak could have stronger connectivity with local transit if it were located more centrally.

because JTA has no intention of funding the relocation of Amtrak....heck, the Greyhound move is going to require $5 million from the Feds (which is by no means a given).

Quote from: tufsu1 on July 25, 2011, 01:40:45 PM

Quote from: Jaxson on July 25, 2011, 01:34:48 PM
That is a good question.  Here is my answer...
JTA is already moving foward, albeit glacially, on bringing Amtrak back downtown.  Since it is a matter of when and not if, why can't JTA get their stuff together and draft a cost-effective plan that does not reinvent the wheel?  Furthermore, Amtrak could have stronger connectivity with local transit if it were located more centrally.

because JTA has no intention of funding the relocation of Amtrak....heck, the Greyhound move is going to require $5 million from the Feds (which is by no means a given).

JTA funding or not, isn't Amtrak still supposed to be part of the JRTC boondoggle?  The way it is currently designed, it looks more like make work for the beige paint and concrete lobby...

I think the Amtrak part, while over designed, is probably the best laid-out part of the current JRTC plan

I looked in to taking a train to Dallas. It turns out I have to go through DC, onto Chicago, and then to Dallas. Three days. 4-5 times more costly than driving (family of five) but equal +/- to flying.

Wrong thread?

JTA can only move as fast as Amtrak, FRA and the three major railroad carriers in our area on the Amtrak piece. It is probably the most complicated piece of the JRTC. It is a little more complicated than building a platform and opening up a ticket booth in a trailer.

Quote from: fsujax on July 25, 2011, 03:37:36 PM
JTA can only move as fast as Amtrak, FRA and the three major railroad carriers in our area on the Amtrak piece. It is probably the most complicated piece of the JRTC. It is a little more complicated than building a platform and opening up a ticket booth in a trailer.

I agree FSUJAX. That piece is going to take the most work to get accomplished. Its something that will happen like "Ta-da! Here it is." I would imagine there is alot of re-routing and coordinating that will have to take place. And that is easier said than done.

Well at least we know the FEC and skyway aren't going anywhere. So lets design a center that puts all new modes between the two existing fixed routes. In short, there should be nothing new built north of Forsyth Street, if possible.

Quote from: fsujax on July 25, 2011, 03:37:36 PM
JTA can only move as fast as Amtrak, FRA and the three major railroad carriers in our area on the Amtrak piece. It is probably the most complicated piece of the JRTC. It is a little more complicated than building a platform and opening up a ticket booth in a trailer.

I understand that it's all a complicated process, but I do not understand why our process seems to be taking much longer than other cities' efforts to consolidate their transit and transportation facilities.  If it boils down to communicating their intentions and their work, Amtrak and all of the players are doing a poor job. 
Besides, there are federal grants available that our area seems to be ignoring.  Once again, nothing in the news if I am mistaken...
http://www.greatamericanstations.com/

Quote from: tufsu1 on July 25, 2011, 01:26:52 PM

Quote from: Jaxson on July 24, 2011, 10:08:37 AM
I wonder if those bureaucrats at the JTA care that, right now, Amtrak passengers enter our city via an Amtrak station that is more like an afterthought than an actual gateway into a city.

just to play devil's advocate...why should JTA care about that...after all, their charter is to operate local transit services.

Well the demons down at JTA should know when every single land, sea or air passenger transport pulls into any terminal in the city and arrange schedules to respond accordingly. Greyhound at the 8 am, 1 pm and 4 pm hours, Amtrak in the 6 am, 7 am, 9 am, 4 pm, 7 pm and 8 pm hours, and the airport during times when the air carriers cluster flights on the ground (several times daily - yeah, you might be amazed at the people changing flights in JAX), during these time periods JTA should be clustering buses at the various terminals and a REALLY good system would have the ability to hold out for 5 minutes or call ahead for a carrier hold-for-connections order.

Really JTA can either dig worms, cut bait, bait hooks, cast nets, drop lines and bobbers, set traps AND FISH FOR CUSTOMERS AND EXCELLENCE... OR they can continue in their stoic ways, arms folded, watching their own little fish bowl.

OCKLAWAHA

Quote from: buckethead on July 25, 2011, 03:03:05 PM
I looked in to taking a train to Dallas. It turns out I have to go through DC, onto Chicago, and then to Dallas. Three days. 4-5 times more costly than driving (family of five) but equal +/- to flying.

Wrong thread?

that would be because Hurricane Katrina damaged several bridges between Pensacola and New Orleans....they got fixed by 2007, but due to budget cuts (thanks John Mica), Amtrak never reinstated the service.

One fact overlooked by all considering use of the "A" route is that train traffic is growing in Florida.  It costs approximately Seven Million Dollars per mile to build rail.  That figure is on existing right of way. 

The "A' route track availability will rapidly decrease and commuter rail will be very limited in its access.

There is currently a very full schedule of other routes.  Railroad companies were hoping for the HSR project to free up track times and that is now DOA.

Where are you pulling your statistics from because there is no one-size-fits all number out there?  I can immediately lob several examples that came in well above and below that number.  So, $7 million/mile for what type of rail and service?  Nevertheless, even at $7 million/mile, that's still hundreds of millions cheaper than widening Blanding or Roosevelt to deal with congestion in that particular corridor.

Also, where will this traffic increase be headed to down the A-line and even if there is an increase and capacity is needed, you always have the ability to lay additional sidings to expand capacity, since its not like you'll have a commuter rail train running with 30 minute headways anyway.  Last, HSR would have done nothing for freight conditions in NE Florida.  Alive or DOA, our situation in Jacksonville is still the same.

Just horrible, Jacksonville.  I'm currently doing some research for a transit/TOD project in another city and just stumbled across Norfolk's proposed intermodal transportation center.  It will link Amtrak, HSR, LRT, passenger ferry, regional bus, and long term parking.  It will be constructed on the former site of the original Norfolk Union Station (1912-1963).  Here is the crazy part.  The cost will be $16 million.  Why does out center cost more than 10 times as much to accommodate nearly the same modes?

http://hamptonroads.com/2010/08/norfolk-envisions-one-hub-link-seven-modes-transport

Need to get this in the Mayor's hands and JTA's board and maybe do an article.

The TU needs to do a front page compare and contrast.

Here are a few images:

Norfolk Intermodal Center - Phase 1
(http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/Transit/Hampton-Tide-Light-Rail/i-XP4Btgp/0/M/Norfolk-4-M.jpg)

1. Intercity & HSR passenger rail station

2. Light Rail Transit station

3. Passenger Ferry dock and landing

4. I-264 access

5. Regional bus service

6. Local street networks including pedestrian and bicycle facilities

7. Remote parking

Phase 1 Site Plan
(http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/Transit/Hampton-Tide-Light-Rail/i-b8rGhgn/0/M/Norfolk-3-M.jpg)

Phase 1 - Cost Estimates
(http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/Transit/Hampton-Tide-Light-Rail/i-PZtF9PR/0/L/Norfolk-1-L.jpg)

Long Term Buildout with Transit Oriented Development
(http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/Transit/Hampton-Tide-Light-Rail/i-2cXj3TW/0/M/Norfolk-2-M.jpg)

^How is that for site constraints?  They are squeezing this thing in between an existing baseball stadium, freight railroad tracks, elevated expressway and a river.  We have over seven square blocks to work with.

Honestly TU help us expose this.