Jacksonville Ranked 40th for Easy Commuting
(http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/photos/624759524_xzHpm-M.jpg)
Despite being much smaller than many cities with better commutes, Jacksonville scored poorly in the study done by the Texas Transportation Institute.
Full Article
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2010-mar-jacksonville-ranked-40th-for-easy-commuting
I see a trend in some of the top performers, a street grid system.
According to this study, every Florida city is terrible. We are actually the best in Florida!!! Not the best thing to be proud of, but I'll take it. We need some serious AND USEFUL commuter rail. The key to this is useful. Another half assed sky rail is not how to solve a problem. You don't just put you toe in the pool, you gotta just jump in and get wet.
Ths list sems a bit odd....look at NYC...its #1 in "green ranking" yet #60 in "travel time"....so it comes in at 46....huh?
Basically you'll note that the largest metro areas...even those with significant transit (like NYC, Chi, and DC) and complete grid systms rank near the bottom.
btw...I think this is actually a Forbes study....just used TTI's travel time index as one of the factors.
QuoteBasically you'll note that the largest metro areas...even those with significant transit (like NYC, Chi, and DC) and complete grid systms rank near the bottom.
Lesson to be learned. You can't rid yourself of traffic congestion. So instead of paying more to widen roads, which make the problem worse in the long run, invest a little more money on implementing viable multimodal options to give residents a real transportation choice.
This just seems to be pretty hard evidence that the 20th century interstate/feeder road sprawl model cannot scale. Road networks worked sufficiently when the number of users was small, but the ability of that network to handle traffic decreases exponentially proportional to an increase in usage. For large number of users, it seems like you need a backbone of mass transit, moving most people between known transportation nodes. Car usage, or something like it, should only be necessary at the edges - where not enough people travel there to justify mass transit.
Quote from: thelakelander on March 08, 2010, 08:29:09 AM
QuoteBasically you'll note that the largest metro areas...even those with significant transit (like NYC, Chi, and DC) and complete grid systms rank near the bottom.
Lesson to be learned. You can't rid yourself of traffic congestion. So instead of paying more to widen roads, which make the problem worse in the long run, invest a little more money on implementing viable multimodal options to give residents a real transportation choice.
Couldn't have said it better, Lake.
Quote from: Jason on March 08, 2010, 08:57:34 AM
Quote from: thelakelander on March 08, 2010, 08:29:09 AM
QuoteBasically you'll note that the largest metro areas...even those with significant transit (like NYC, Chi, and DC) and complete grid systms rank near the bottom.
Lesson to be learned. You can't rid yourself of traffic congestion. So instead of paying more to widen roads, which make the problem worse in the long run, invest a little more money on implementing viable multimodal options to give residents a real transportation choice.
Couldn't have said it better, Lake.
Mayor John Delaney,at the height of his love fest with area enviros and green glow, once exclaimed that we couldn't build our way out of comgestion.Shortly thereafter,he nudged the "Beltway" along during key Florida Department of Transportation permit application placed to Corps of Engineers & Water Management District for "STAND ALONE" Brannon/Chaffee leg,which of course,as planned by the promoters,morphed in to 'de-facto' full blown beltway,the realization not of viable "growth management" but rather decades old urbanization dream and scheme.
The demise of Blanding Blvd. through poor local planning efforts is but one classic example of missed opportunity that has and will cost us dearly.
This isn't terrible news. It's not good, but considering the title, I thought it would be worse. I thought it was going to be 40th out of the biggest 40 cities, as usual. Considering we have ZERO green transit, our ranking isn't That bad. If we could build up our mass transit, we could soar up the rankings.
The lesson I learned living in Indy, Honolulu, Atlanta, Jacksonville and even Valdosta is that if you drive at the same time as everybody else you will sit in traffic with everybody else. If you live a long way away it will take longer to get to and from work no matter the mode of travel. If you come in early, leave early, or leave late you'll miss most of the traffic.
I used to have an office in the Quadrant on JTB. If I left 5 minutes before 5pm I'd be OK but if I left 5 minutes after 5pm by 5:45 I'd be sitting on JTB west bound across from the office. I could just stay and do some extra work and be more productive and less frustrated.
Commuter Rank Metropolitan Statistical Area
Travel Delay Rank- Green Commuter Ranking- Travel Time Rank
1 Salt Lake City, UT 26- 13- 11 ---- Light Rail - BRT - Bus
2 Buffalo-Niagara Falls, NY 2 36 1 ---- Light Rail/Subway - Bus - Corridor Rail
3 Rochester, NY 1 40 2 --- Corridor Rail - Bus - Light Rail study - ( subway abandoned )
4 Milwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis, WI 14 33 5 --- Corridor Rail - Bus
5 Albany-Schenectady-Troy, NY 8 32 10 --- Corridor Rail - Bus - Commuter Rail Demonstration Project - BRT study
5 Fresno, CA 14 23 16 --- Corridor Rail - Bus - BRT under construction
7 Tulsa, OK 8 48 4 --- Bus - Commuter Rail infrastructure construction - Light Rail advanced plan
8 Pittsburgh, PA 5 14 40 --- Bus - BRT - Subway - Light Rail - Funicular Rail
8 Tucson, AZ 31 18 23 --- Bus - Streetcar - Light Rail under construction
10 Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor, OH 4 41 14 --- Bus - BRT - Light Rail - Heavy Rail - Regional Rail plan
11 Portland-Vancouver-Beaverton, OR-WA 38 8 31 --- Bus - Light Rail - Streetcar - Commuter Rail - Corridor Rail - Regional Rail
12 Oklahoma City, OK 11 52 3 --- Bus - Light Rail study
13 Albuquerque 22 28 22 --- Bus - Streetcar - Commuter Rail
14 Dayton, OH 5 54 6 --- Bus - Trolley Bus - Regional Rail plan
14 Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI 31 29 18 --- Bus - BRT - Light Rail - Commuter Rail
16 Las Vegas-Paradise, NV 42 22 20 --- Bus - Monorail - BRT
17 Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, CT 11 46 12 --- Bus - Corridor Rail - Commuter Rail - BRT plan
18 Honolulu, HI 31 3 46 --- Bus - "BRT" disappointment (officially) - Rail under construction
19 Louisville-Jefferson County, KY-IN 27 43 9 --- Bus - BRT demonstration - (abandoned EL)
20 Kansas City, MO-KS 2 58 7 --- Bus - BRT - Regional Rail
21 Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News, VA-NC 22 37 19 --- Bus - Light Rail - Corridor Rail
22 Richmond, VA 5 44 21 --- Bus - Corridor Rail
23 Memphis, TN-MS-AR 11 49 15 --- Bus - Streetcar - Regional Rail study
23 San Antonio, TX 29 27 28 --- Bus - BRT in roll out - Commuter Rail study
25 New Haven-Milford, CT 10 34 32 --- Bus - Commuter Rail - Corridor Rail
25 Cincinnati-Middletown, OH-KY-IN 22 47 13 --- Bus - BRT (abandoned subway)
27 Austin-Round Rock, TX 38 17 36 --- Bus - Light Rail - BRT
28 Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA 38 6 48 --- Bus - Monorail - Light Rail - Commuter Rail - Corridor Rail
29 Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH 36 5 51 --- Bus - Trolley Bus - BRT - Light Rail - Corridor Rail - Commuter Rail
30 Columbus, OH 22 57 8 --- Bus - Regional Rail plan - BRT plan - Commuter Rail plan
30 Charlotte-Gastonia-Concord, NC-SC 34 35 24 --- Bus - BRT - Streetcar - Light Rail - Corridor Rail
32 New Orleans-Metairie-Kenner, LA 19 24 43 --- Bus - Streetcar - Commuter Rail plan
32 Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD 37 9 49 - Bus - BRT - Light Rail - Heavy Rail - Commuter Rail - Corridor Rail
32 Denver-Aurora, CO 45 21 33 --- Bus - Light Rail - Commuter Rail Plan
35 Raleigh-Cary, NC 19 45 26 --- Bus - Corridor Rail
36 Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, AZ 42 16 44 --- Bus - Light Rail - BRT - Regional Rail Plan
36 Sacramento--Arden-Arcade--Roseville, CA 48 15 42 --- Bus - BRT - Light Rail - Corridor Rail - Commuter Rail - Regional Rail
36 San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA 52 25 30 --- Bus - Light Rail - Corridor Rail - Commuter Rail
39 St. Louis, MO-IL 14 51 25 --- Bus - Light Rail
40 Jacksonville, FL 29 42 27 --- Umm?? The link below is listed under "JACKSONVILLE TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY, Bus is Better Then Rail"
http://www.jtafla.com/futureplans/Media/PDF/BRT-LRT%20Comparison.pdf
OCKLAWAHA
Ock...I get your point...but to be fair you should list Jax w/ corridor rail (same as all those other cities listed) and bus
Quotehe lesson I learned living in Indy, Honolulu, Atlanta, Jacksonville and even Valdosta is that if you drive at the same time as everybody else you will sit in traffic with everybody else
I can testify to that, i lived in NJ, hit the manhattan tunnel and drove to Brooklyn at 6am, left brooklyn at 3pm and back in NJ before 4, easy! But if i was late by 30 minutes, heavy consequences!
Quote from: tufsu1 on March 08, 2010, 01:22:02 PM
Ock...I get your point...but to be fair you should list Jax w/ corridor rail (same as all those other cities listed) and bus
Ummm was not my purpose to list anything for Jax. as I figure our readership already knows what is here. If I were to list us it would have been Bus, Skyway. We do NOT have Corridor Rail, though we have been named by 3 different corridor groups and labeled for 4 different routes. Currently we are a railroad ghost town, a mere shadow of what is rightfully ours.
OCKLAWAHA
QuoteWhy the anti-urban bias?
By Edward L. Glaeser | March 5, 2010
THE BILLIONS of dollars being spent on infrastructure across the nation provide an opportunity to plan for a better America, but politics-as-usual favors sprawl over city. This anti-urban bias of national policies must end.
Over the past 60 years, cities have been hit by a painful policy trifecta: subsidization of highways, subsidization of homeownership, and a school system that creates strong incentives for many parents to leave city borders. Nathaniel Baum-Snow, an economist at Brown University, has documented that each new federally-funded “highway passing through a central city reduces its population by about 18 percent.’’
Subsidizing transportation decreases the advantage of living close together in cities, which should make every urbanite worry about the Senate’s fondness for using highway spending to fight recession. The current Senate jobs bill calls for a more than $30 billion increase for transportation over the next two years.
It is a mistake to think that spending on trains balances the scales. Cities will always benefit far less than exurbs from transportation because dense areas already have good means of getting around, like walking. Urban advocates would do better to either reduce highway subsidies or to balance that spending with more funding for urban schools.
Political leaders have long championed homeownership, but subsidizing homeownership is also anti-urban. Sixty-two percent of Boston homes are rented; 78 percent of Wellesley homes are owner-occupied. Cities are defined by apartments, and more than 85 percent of homes in multi-unit structures are rented. Suburbs are known for their single-family detached houses, and more than 85 percent of such homes are owner-occupied. Subsidizing homeownership, through Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the home mortgage interest deduction, lures people out of cities.
For many suburbanites, schools loom larger than fast commutes or subsidized mortgages. America’s local school system creates large incentives for education-oriented parents to move to homogeneous enclaves outside of city limits. Cities would benefit if the school system moved leftward, toward a more uniform national system like France, or rightward toward state-level vouchers that break the link between where you live and where your children go to school. School reforms that enable city schools to work more like a private market can harness the urban edge in innovation and competition that works so well in other industries, like restaurants.
The forces of history have created a moment where the right leadership could make America less anti-urban. The housing crisis, a renewed interest in infrastructure, fear of global warming, and the education reform movement could help bring about fairer policies for cities.
The housing bust exposed the myth that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were costless and exposed the folly of encouraging people to bet everything on the vicissitudes of the housing market. It is time to lower the million-dollar limit on the home mortgage interest deduction and to gradually reduce federal support for mortgage lending.
Across the country, a flurry of experiments is building the knowledge needed to improve urban schools. Education Secretary Duncan is trying to harness “a perfect storm for reform’’ by leading a “race to the top.’’ Education is not just the “great equalizer,’’ it is the great nation and city builder. Our country’s cities depend on the reformers’ success.
The environmentalist movement is recognizing that cities are far more energy efficient than suburbs due to smaller housing units and less driving. Greens need to fight both against suburban highways and for more urban development.
In 2009, America’s five least dense states were awarded $1,100 per capita in federal recovery grants while the five densest states, including Massachusetts, got $561 per capita. President Obama can change the tilt toward low density. The most urban president since Teddy Roosevelt, Obama needs to fight for cities, not just as a matter of justice, but because cities, and the creativity that comes when humans connect and learn from each other in dense areas, are the best hope for the country.
Edward L. Glaeser, a professor of economics at Harvard University, is director of the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston.
good article...I think the next group of highschools should be in the core. At least 3 or 4. Build Up...maybe 10 to 15 stories. Thats an idea for a young designer.
QuoteTexas Transportation Institute
What, no Oregon Transportation Institute report, or what about an Indiana Transportation Institute report? Since when did we decide we wanted to listen to what Texans had to say about Floridians? Its got to be a Bush conspiracy.
(http://z.about.com/d/geology/1/0/l/7/1/mckittrick8.jpg)
State Rock of Florida??Quote from: mtraininjax on March 08, 2010, 10:58:56 PM
QuoteTexas Transportation Institute
What, no Oregon Transportation Institute report, or what about an Indiana Transportation Institute report? Since when did we decide we wanted to listen to what Texans had to say about Floridians? Its got to be a Bush conspiracy.
I'm curious as to when you checked your brain at the door MTrain? Really? Or are you just joking?? For those wondering what this is all about, various "think tanks," institutes, and divisions of higher University College of Transportation, spend thousands of hours of lab and field time gathering data, making studies, and creating concepts to answer every conceivable mass transit problem. Some are quite political, Heritage Foundation for example, while others are in bed with certain industries, such as the National BRT Institute (at least their honest in their name) or Florida's CUTR, at the University of South Florida. For about 1/2 a century, the State of Florida, which funds CUTR and USF, as a result the studies that come out of this highway lobby stronghold have been blind to anything but endless pavement. No rail, no streetcars, no LRT, no Amtrak, no depots... trademark Official State Rock of the Sunshine State could well be the rare Asphaltic Bituminous Tarmacadam Schist aggregate. CUTR has sufficiently poisoned the minds of Florida Transportation Students and Officialdom that knowing eye's roll when a Florida speaker is a featured guest in some event, in any transit progressive states. One cringes when the audience chuckles at the speakers transparent fallacies as he or she repeats outlandish claims of herculean feats imagined to have been achieved by highway only transit. The whole history of Florida's neglect of alternatives came home to roost recently when we were publicly mocked by the USDOT which told us flat out, "invest in rail STATEWIDE," or kiss your Federal transportation matching funds goodbye.
So YES to studies done by Texas Transportation institute, Light Rail Now, Caltrans or the City of Boston... We certainly can't trust our own "experts" to lead us in anything resembling an unbiased study involving a balance of modes. We are receiving the dividends from years of one sided stupidity, and still seeing some of these ugly plans appear as an unwelcome scar on our lands (9-B anyone?). Florida needs to clean it's DOT from top to bottom and CLOSE CUTR, and remake the USF program. Until that day, I'll go with Texas! or Oklahoma! or Indiana! or Maryland! or ...OCKLAWAHA
Let me suggest "University of South Central Gauducanal".......perfect place for CUTR to end up in!
Quote from: mtraininjax on March 08, 2010, 10:58:56 PM
QuoteTexas Transportation Institute
What, no Oregon Transportation Institute report, or what about an Indiana Transportation Institute report? Since when did we decide we wanted to listen to what Texans had to say about Floridians? Its got to be a Bush conspiracy.
there are many of these think tanks around the nation....Ock has noted CUTR at USF and UF has a lesser-known one in their Engineering School....other major transportation reserach centers are at UC-Berkely, Ga Tech, and Rutgers/NJIT
What we see and "study" is not what we will get:
Even more telling than "study" of current conditions would be to forecast future congestion based on future growth vested to existing highway infrastructure,yet currently unseen.
I was a member of an early 1980's Clay County SR 21/Blanding Blvd. Citizen's Advisory Committee-this during a time when much of the current development and congestion absent on Blanding- the stated purpose of the Committee was to "plan" for an alternative to what ended up happening.I am not so casual as some in outlook.
How about when four-six lanes merge into one there is bound to be a problem.
All the Jacksonville roads, no matter how many lanes, seem to merge into one. And the bridges are not equipped for accidents.
A million cars coming our of Fleming Island..............all must move into one lane at the end in order to get up on 295. It is the same for Blanding Blvd and every one place in town!
One fender bender can mean one-two hours of being late for work.