Metro Jacksonville

So this is a story in today's NY Post about the return of the famous trolley line that the Brooklyn Dodgers were name after:

http://www.nypost.com/f/print/news/local/brooklyn/trolley_good_time_u02KdQfKLOtQxVVKaHSRKO

Unfortunately, very little info is available so far, and the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership has nothing about it on their web site.  But I wonder, being that it is a gas operated trolley and not electric, could this be repeating what JTA has done?  A trolley frame on a bread truck?

If so, it just goes to show that even the Big Apple (which a lot on this site [myself included at times] seem to make comparisons with) doesn't have the transit thing completely figured out.  Being that I share my time between NYC and Jax, and frequent this area often, I am really hoping that it is a true tracked trolley system. 

Maybe I won't have to wait for JTA to build a real trolley for my first ride after all.

Interestingly Bloomberg may be serious, but he is likely playing the role of the COJ and or JTA/FDOT in paying lip service to the streetcar project and tossing out a bit of chum in the form of more PCT (Potato-Chip-Truck-Thinks-Its-A-Trolley) buses. And make no mistake, the PCT'S are NOT TROLLEY'S and are not even decent buses. Brass plated plastic and plywood will NOT make a bus a trolley any more then sitting in a Mc Donald's makes one a hamburger. When running for local office one would certainly welcome the contributions of Gate Concrete, or the local highway contractors and there is no evidence of CSX, NS, or FEC being "streetcar fans." This makes political support hard to come by and only then from true believers who have done the homework and understand the benefits. 

As was proved in Tucson, PCT buses do NOTHING to suggest the ridership on a future fixed rail streetcar. In fact the Tucson experience was so profound that a real vintage streetcar running only a few hours on weekends at a much higher fare and a truncated route, outperformed the city's PCT buses running daily on the same route and reaching into downtown. In the end the streetcar ridership was remarkably higher then the bus.

Riders eagerly payed a dollar to ride Tucson's historic streetcar line while a rubber-tired "trolley bus" with a 25-cent fare got half the ridership.
READ IT HERE: http://www.heritagetrolley.org/TNERJTucson.htm

The City of NY, already did a study which ended poorly due to political shenanigans.

QuoteNYCDOT "Double Billed" the Federal Highway Administration for nearly $97,000 on the original BHRA Red Hook Streetcar project.  Then NYCDOT "Framed" BHRA.  Finally, NYCDOT "Scuttled" And Then Physically Destroyed The Original Red Hook Streetcar Project To "COVER IT UP" :(

Sound far-fetched?

Here are the original NYCDOT DOCUMENTS PROVING THIS  - DO THE SIMPLE ARITHMETIC FOR YOURSELF:
READ IT HERE: http://www.brooklynrail.net/NYC_DOT_fuzzy_math.html

Funny thing is, from the actual studies and from the Historic Railway Association Website comes these positive reports:

QuoteSTREETCAR AS AN URBAN INVESTMENT

Most discussions of streetcar focus solely on transit issues, but the implications are much wider. Streetcars stimulate invest­ment and buses don't. This has been powerfully demonstrated in Portland, where the introduction of a modern streetcar line spurred the high-density development that helped the City of Portland  recoup construction costs through significantly in­creased tax revenues. Between 1997 and 2005, the density of development immediately adjacent to the new streetcar line in­creased dramatically. Within two blocks of the streetcar line, $2.28 billion was invested [Editor's Note: a total of $3.5 billion through a six block wide corridor centered along the streetcar tracks], representing over 7,200 [ibid 10,212] new residen­tial units and 4.6 million [ibid 5.5 million] square feet of additional commercial [office, institutional, retail, hotel] space; even more impressive, new development within only one block of the streetcar line accounted for 55 percent of all new development within the city's core. To put this in perspective, prior to construction of the new streetcar line, land located within one block of the proposed route captured only 19 per­cent of all development.  (Pg 33)

Most attribute this impressive increase in investment to the presence of the streetcar line. Developers for the new South Wa­terfront development at the other end of the downtown from the Pearl District would not proceed before the city guaranteed to extend the streetcar line to the site. These developers, the same ones who had created the highly successful streetcar serv­ing Pearl District, knew from experience how important the streetcar is to success. If the free market tells us anything at all in this case, it is that the economics of the streetcar, when the value of new investment is included, is much more cost effective than an investment in rubber-wheeled diesel buses or heavy transit.  (Pg 34)

Streetcar Vs.  Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) - results of an award winning DC streetcar study:

The recent award winning DC streetcar study states that Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) doesn't make the cut,  The study determined that the streetcar is far superior in terms of cost-to-benefit ratio, and local economic development.  The D.C. study determined:

"In terms of taxpayers dollars, the “streetcar offers a better ratio of benefits to costs compared to Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) or Light Transit. While BRT is less expensive to implement, it does not generate the real estate investments to the same degree that streetcars can. While light rail can produce similar benefits to streetcars, implementation costs are many times more than that of streetcar.” Further details can be found here.  A copy of the study can likely be obtained from the consultant Goody Clancy.

We sincerely hope that NYC DOT and URS, heed this study's findings. The new Washington DC streetcar line added $10 Billion- $15 Billion to their local economy.

Information from The Brooklyn Historic Railway Association, http://www.brooklynrail.net/index.html

Here's an interesting page from the study:

Oh now that map would be a great service line!  Unfortunately all that is currently being planned is much smaller and in the area of the new Barclays Center (Home of Brooklyn Nets).  Shocking to read that trolley service is SO MUCH CHEAPER yet Jacksonville and NYC have both turned their backs to it.  Looks like my next time in Jax will include a ride to Tampa so that I can at least say I rode a real trolley car. 

NYC is always moving, and their mass transit system is wonderful, however buses are the slowest form of transit and I have been on several that have broken down en route and need to wait for replacement which is literally just minutes.  Being that I have heard the same from those that use JTA buses (just with extended stall times), why aren't more urban routes served via trolley?  Not only savings in just bus maintenance, but also cheaper overall to operate ... seems like simple 1+1=2 Logic to me.