I love this site, and I remember seeing a drawing plan for the original buildout plan of the Skyway way back when they first introduced it and said it would make Jacksonville the true Gateway to the South. However, I have searched here and cannot find it ... can someone please refer me to proper link? I remember the Riverside line was drawn to extend down Riverside Avenue with two stops before moving over May, up Rosselle and terminating at Annie B. Lytle, which would have been converted to a transit station with streetcar service down College. Another of the plans had shown the Bay Line extending down Bay Street up AP Randolph and terminating in a station at Beaver in the Fairgrounds. If you have seen this and know where I saw it, please help me out with a link ... thank you!
You are in the right state of mind, friend!
Mr.Ennis Davis, Mr.Bob Mann, Mr.StephenDARE, can certainly, most definitely help you find info
I think the plan you describe is Ock's Plan. If I remember correctly, the original Riverside leg went down Riverside, stopping at the Blue Cross building; the Stadium leg went down Bay, stopping near the south end of the stadium (then the old Gator Bowl). There was also a north line that continued north along Hogan thru the FSCJ (then FCCJ) campus, then followed Hogan's Creek to Shands (then University) Hospital. Thee was also a San Marco leg, continuing the current south leg to near Atlantic Blvd. and Kings Ave. (which does match Ock's route).
The Skyway concept in 1973:
(http://www.metrojacksonville.com/images/skyway/original-route-map.jpg)
Here is what was built:
(http://www.metrojacksonville.com/images/skyway/original-actual-map.jpg)
(http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa111/Ocklawaha/TRANSIT%20monorail%20and%20Skyway/SkywayMapshowingexpansion.jpg)
Article from the Jax Biz Journal in 2000 when the current Skyway was finished.
Two Skyway stations open, new extensions proposed
Jacksonville Business Journal by Lisa R. Schoolcraft
Date: Monday, November 6, 2000, 12:00am EST
The final leg of Jacksonville's Automated Skyway Express opened Nov. 1, but that may not be the end of the line for the $183.9 million project.
"This is the end of the Skyway for the immediate future," said Steve Arrington, director of engineering for the Jacksonville Transportation Authority. "But the project was planned for extensions on each of the lines. If you drive out to any of the lines, you can see where they will be extended."
Arrington knows something about the Skyway system. He joined the JTA in late 1978 to be part of the planning process.
He did not expect the Skyway to take more than 25 years to complete.
"I don't think anyone did," Arrington said. "I don't know what we would have done had we known. This is not necessarily a large system as transit systems go."
Planners thought the Skyway would be complete in the mid- to late 1980s, he said. "And that would have been pushing it," Arrington said.
Funding, planning and design slowed the process, he said.
Skyway's future
Like Arrington, Ed Castellani, JTA manager of rapid transit projects, joined the JTA in 1978 to be part of the Skyway system.
The project was designed to be extended from the system's operations and maintenance shed, a small spur just before the Skyway turns to cross the river, to Riverside.
Its terminal at Florida Community College at Jacksonville is designed to extend to Eighth Street and its Central Station is designed to be extended down Bay Street, possibly as far as Alltel Stadium.
"At the time [of the initial planning] there wasn't much activity down there," said Castellani. "There was only one game a year, the Florida/Georgia game."
The Skyway never was designed to be a "transit system," which entails longer routes and more rapid vehicles. Buses and light rail are more efficient transit systems, he said. JTA's design considers light rail from the outlying areas linking to the Skyway's Kings Avenue station, Arrington said.
Light rail links from Kings Avenue to traffic corridors like Mandarin and the Beaches would help make the Skyway "part of our commute," said Jim Citrano, managing director of CB Richard Ellis and vice chairman of one of the citizens committees studying the project.
"A People Mover is not a transit system," Castellani said. "It's a distribution system for people. When you get to Downtown, it's hard to get around. The idea of a People Mover is you park your car and if you want to circulate Downtown, you get on the People Mover."
The original Skyway system also included elevated walkways, but those were never added to the system, he said.
Plans also considered a stop at what is now City Hall Annex, 220 E. Bay St., which until 1998 was City Hall.
In the beginning
The Florida Department of Transportation began a conceptual study of an automated guideway system in Jacksonville in 1972. In 1976, DOT and the city of Jacksonville asked JTA to get involved in the project.
Jacksonville got into the Skyway system through a special federally funded project, Arrington said.
Jacksonville was one of seven cities selected by the federal Urban Mass Transit Administration, now called the Federal Transit Administration, to participate in an automated system program.
By 1978, Jacksonville got a $277,000 grant for a feasibility study to begin the Skyway process. A citizens advisory committee and a multi-agency task force eventually drew up plans for a 4.6-mile system. The system would have linked the three hospital complexes -- the former University, Methodist and Riverside hospitals -- on the north through the Downtown business district to the south.
From then on, federal, state, local and JTA money funded the project, which began construction in 1987.
The first segment, seven-tenths of a mile from the Prime Osborn Convention Center to Central Station, provided park-and-ride service to the central business district.
The Skyway added stations at Hemming Plaza and FCCJ, plus a route across the St. Johns River via the Acosta Bridge to San Marco. The Riverplace and Kings Avenue stations opened Nov. 1.
Rigid system
One flaw in the Skyway system is its rigidity, Citrano said. "I can see after 20 some odd years of hindsight we did some stupid things."
Citrano wishes the system had been kept at street level, making it more pedestrian-friendly.
"As soon as you separate the pedestrian from the street, you lose them," he said. "Technology that was there when we planned it changed. We could have had a much better system."
Still, Citrano is hopeful the Skyway system will catch on and offer relief for Downtown parking.
He also hopes "it leads to a penetration system from the 'burbs with light rail. When we first started, we had traffic problems in Downtown and not in the 'burbs and now it's reversed."
When the citizens committee looked at the Skyway and determined its route, that's where the traffic counts were at the time, he said.
"There were a lot of things I didn't like in the end," Citrano said. "But the proof will be in the ridership. This thing has to be used. We have to make it part of the infrastructure and I think the free-market system will make that happen. We will see some activity in Kings Avenue area to help make that happen. I think ridership will increase as people get used to riding it."
Legacy
Whether the Skyway will be extended remains to be seen.
"A few years ago we looked at extending it to the stadium," Arrington said. "It's not unlikely that will occur, but to have that happen, we will need more development in the mid-areas."
Construction of the residential project Berkman Plaza and the Adam's Mark Hotel, both near City Hall Annex, help with that goal.
"But we need about three Berkman Plazas and a lot of retail" to justify the expense of extending the Skyway, Arrington said.
Another kink in any proposed extension would be funding, he said.
"I'm not sure it would be any harder to get funding to extend the lines, but there is more competition for the dollars and that does affect the process," Arrington said.
The Skyway did take longer than expected, said former Mayor Jake Godbold.
"There were times when we thought it would never be complete," said Godbold, mayor from 1979 to 1987. "When I went in office, they had stopped funding it all together and we had to revive that thing. I always thought by now it would be being used a lot more than it is. And that has been a little disappointing."
Skyway ridership is about 2,300 people a day on weekdays.
But Downtown is still growing and the Skyway will grow with it, he said. "There's a lot of people who have made fun of the skyrail, but I still believe that people will look back and say someone knew what they were doing."
Thanks, Lake! I forgot about the angle of the river crossing part. Glad they were able to integrate it into the Acosta rebuild, that new bridge would have really messed up the skyline/fountain views.
Yes and No, actually the ORIGINAL route plan of the Skyway did indeed have a Riverside/Lackawanna Branch. It traveled down to Blue Cross, then headed west on Roselle to McDuff, presumably where a park-n-ride lot would be offered. There were also plans for an intermodal link at Roselle and King and the CSX crossing. My plan simply truncated the route at ANNIE. While I'm no fan of public ownership of TOD'S (which sort of defeats the purpose) in the case of ANNIE LYTLE we're talking about a historic building that once was publicly owned. Even with that ownership, it seems like a decent lease-purchase or similar deal could be cut with a developer to create the synergy of a private TOD.
San Marco is definitely an 'OCK' plan, the reason the San Marco PCT (UGLY TROLLEY THING) failed to catch the lunch time crew is the fact that the crossings are often blocked with 'transfer trains' moving cars from CSX and NS down to the FEC. Transfer trains create a special set of problems, as railroads pay per diem charge on EVERY foreign line car on their tracks. So the need to cross those property lines is urgent to the bottom line. With such urgency pushing the movements, those trains are rarely scheduled operations and the lunch crowd quickly found out they couldn't get back on the clock in a timely manner. The result was the concept of extending the Skyway about 1/2 mile due south of Kings Avenue Station. That Skyway route would cross over the FEC to the west side of the tracks around Landon Avenue. I would add an elevated station at Landon and a ground level station with cross platform transfers to both bus and commuter rail at the west side of the Atlantic and FEC Railway crossing. People working on the south bank but living south of Atlantic could catch the train to this new 'SOUTH JACKSONVILLE' station (an actual historic name for a station that sat nearby) and transfer to either the Skyway or to buses by walking across a platform.
My plan also called for a small Kings Avenue style transit hub where the fair property is located, next to A.P.Randolph. The reason for this is it offers an easy on and easy off place for inbound commuters to park-cheap-and-ride, it taps the baseball grounds and Arena in addition to being close to EVERBANK FIELD. Lastly since stadium lines only get heavy use on game or performance days, the fact that the station is at Randolph and Beaver makes it a convenient east side location and an easy point for a further extension to Randolph and Jessie Streets in the heart of the old 'Florida Avenue' business district, with dense transit dependent housing all around.
North of Rosa Parks, I support getting the line across the 'freeway' known as State Street and continue up Hogan to a station convenient to the north face of the FSCJ campus, just shy of Caroline Street. One more block and a half northward and the track turns northwest and hugs the south and west bank of Hogans Creek. There would be 3 way stations north of FSCJ, PEARL, BROAD and 6TH/VA CENTER, finally a TERMINAL STATION with sawtooth bus bays could be located around 8TH and JEFFERSON.
There are two other possible extensions that I'd like to see studied and one accessory item, 1.) West of the old JACKSONVILLE TERMINAL (Prime Osborn to the unwashed masses) over the railroad yards to the Farmers Market, and perhaps beyond to Beaver and Stockton in the middle of the city's Woodstock Park neighborhood. 2.) East of the Riverplace Station a branchline could easily follow within a block or two of the waterfront, through the JEA property and terminate near Beach and Atlantic in the heart of Saint Nicholas. Again, with both of these I'd give them the sawtooth bus bays and create interchange points for buses and parking for automobiles. 3.) The accessory item is to CYA for JTA'S stupidity in missing 9,000 south bank employees with the Skyway, and discourage them from walking by having to play frogger with a maze of boulevards. Extend a covered 'Skybridge' from the current San Marco Station to the insurance and hospital centers. Do it with style such as the incredible spiral bridges in Madrid, Royal Opera House in London, or Singapore.
The Skyway, Commuter Rail, bus and the STREETCAR would not compete with each other. Every mode would be programed to meet the next, everything would be interconnected and each mode would be allowed to do what it does best.
HERE ARE LINKS TO SOME OF THE ARTICLES:
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/forum/index.php?topic=1246.0
As a Transit Hub
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2008-oct-re-evaluating-the-skyway
Re-evalution of the Skyway
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2011-mar-salvaging-the-skyway
Salvaging the Skyway
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/forum/index.php?topic=12345.90
Skyway On The Move, a thread exclusively for positive input
Thanks everyone, and boy was I surprised to see how long this actually took to get going! I had thought the Skyway had been in Jax since the 80's ... yikes
JayBird, keep in mind the Skyway was NEVER intended to be a regional transit system, rather it is supposed to be the downtown distributer for a regional rail system.
oh how I do hope I live to see the system fleshed out to connect light commuter rail with our three inner city hospitals, Gateway, Woodstock Park, Florida Ave and the Sports district, Fairgrounds, Arena, to BCBS, through New Brooklyn to Annie Lytle and Riverside Park in Five Points, Rooselle/King/CSX, McDuff, St.Nicholas, FEC/South Jax/SanMarco_
yet I fear I may not
Dug up this old thread to show off some interesting things I found.
Happened to be going through the U2C website again, and came across some of the old documents JTA uploaded about the Skyway. Included is this map of the full phase 1 & 2 plans for the Skyway we actually built:
(https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/809324691561906187/849191472389816340/image0.png?width=566&height=716)
And this map, which I don't think I've ever seen before, of the "Regional Rapid Transit System" that presumably would have fed into the Skyway:
(https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/809324691561906187/849197608844656650/image0.png?width=940&height=716)
Apparently it's from a "Jacksonville Urban Area Transportation Study." What's unclear to me is whether this would have been a traditional rail rapid transit like what Miami has, or extending the people mover to this length. The alignment seems to suggest the latter.
^ The first map shows that they did, indeed, mostly build out the Skyway as anticipated by their traffic studies. (In 1983, and for decades to follow, there was little or no justification for building the "un-built" portions.) That such studies were off by 90+% shows the fallacy of both the studies and relying on the wishful thinking and sexy promises made by JTA to get these projects done. Are we experiencing deja vu?
The second map labels the extensions as "Rapid Transit Corridors." As there is nothing rapid about the Skyway, I am pretty sure this line of thinking (no pun intended) was more likely the precursor to the BRT we have today. Not even JTA has ever, in my recollection, tried to advocate for extending the elevated portion of the Skyway much beyond the immediate Downtown areas.
Perhaps these have been discussed before, but I thought with the sense of deja vu on JTA's attitude about the U2C I'd reopen this thread with another interesting source: screenshots of the FY 1991 UMTA (now FTA) Report on Allocations:
(https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/847298939618590760/1097602081432555651/Screenshot_2023-04-17_at_3.16.30_PM.png?width=456&height=616)
(https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/847298939618590760/1097602081168294010/Screenshot_2023-04-17_at_3.16.39_PM.png)
(https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/847298939618590760/1097602080891490495/Screenshot_2023-04-17_at_3.17.25_PM.png?width=647&height=616)
This includes a UMTA profile of the expansion project that would complete Phase 1 of the Skyway:
(https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/994396497883963402/1097578624531574814/Screenshot_2023-04-17_at_1.45.02_PM.png?width=489&height=616)
(https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/994396497883963402/1097578624841949254/Screenshot_2023-04-17_at_1.45.08_PM.png?width=563&height=616)
(https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/847298939618590760/1097600892972314654/Screenshot_2023-04-17_at_3.12.53_PM.png?width=783&height=616)
It already seems there was a pretty tangible lack of faith by the federal government in the Skyway soon after opening. Which makes it so strange then that at the end of 1991, Congress would go on to approve tens of millions in additional funding for it:
(https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/994396497883963402/1097585917834821662/Screenshot_2023-04-17_at_2.14.21_PM.png?width=1010&height=223)
Finally, there's then the FY 1997 (https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/docs/FY97_Annual_Report_on_Funding_Recommendations.pdf) and 1998 (https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/docs/FY98_Annual_Report_on_Funding_Recommendations.pdf) FTA reports, which include vague context on even more funding for the system, and weirdly enough an expansion to what appears to be Southside Park in San Marco?
(https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/847298939618590760/1097604100612444170/Screenshot_2023-04-17_at_3.25.13_PM.png?width=488&height=616)
Maybe those of you who've been on longer know, but what happened? Who in Congress was so gung-ho about the Skyway to earmark tens of millions of dollars for a project the FTA already said wasn't doing well? How did we get here?
I don't know if he was a fan of the ASE, but he was exceptionally good at bringing money home to Jacksonville - Congressman Charles E. Bennett. He served Jacksonville from 1949 to 1993, so the earmarks mentioned above we during his tenure in Congress.
Corrine Brown was an enthusiastic supporter as I recall. Mayor Jake Godbold is quoted as saying he was too but then came to regret it (a rare politician that admits a mistake). The Skyway was highlighted by many as a boondoggle before it was ever built, just like people on the Jaxon are talking about U2C. All the pessimistic predictions came true and none of the optimistic ones did. So, truly deja vu.
Non-Jax area congressional reps freely identified the Skyway as pork barrel. Its spectacular failure was even featured in the national press, including ABC News (https://www.planetizen.com/node/7685 and https://www.metrojacksonville.com/forum/index.php?topic=2013.0), for being a worthless project.
Here is a recap of the failed system on its 20th anniversary: https://www.jacksonville.com/story/business/transportation/2010/09/05/after-20-years-jacksonville-skyway-remains-punchline/15932028007/. Not-so-funny reading the supporters' empty promises that perpetuate the thing, now ringing hollow after another 13 years.
It's amazing that anyone would advocate putting another penny into this project. I wish I had swamp land to sell to so many gullible people.