Notice: While it is true that I am in the middle of a move, this new data arrived and I thought y'all might like some numbers to chew on... I'll catch up with you somewhere out by Hodges and JTB... HOME AT LAST! Ocklawaha
(http://www.broward.org/bct/images/tod.jpg)
Look what Ft. Lauderdale is thinking
Who is going to ride the BRT?
Is rail a better solution?
Could rail be, 1,000 times better?
(http://www.thehudsonco.com/clients/Nampa-Beta/internal/strategy/transit_clip_image003.jpg)
The face of LRT is people + development success
So JTA bus ridership is at about 4.7% of Jacksonville. Toss in the Skyway, and it probably drops in a count of passenger-miles per vehicle-trip-mile. I don't have the hard data on the ridership, if you can do better then this JTA, please update us on your numbers. The pie chart of Jacksonville transit ridership puts us square on the national average of only 4.7% of our population is even using any form of transit. Oh my, what does this say about our BRT system? A BILLION DOLLARS later? Well, according to the US Census bureau, 87.7% of us drive to work with about 77% driving alone. Transit ridership went UP by .1%, yes, read that POINT ONE percent. Worse for our BRT investment about 1/2 of the total Transit ridership in the USA is accounted for by 10 Cities. 16% or more persons use transit in Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington DC. These 10 Cities account for 2.9 million of the whole country's 6.2 million transit riders. Of the honor roll of Transit ridership only Los Angeles and Houston were somewhat behind the curve. Los Angeles counts 10.3% and Houston at 5.1% of their total population using their transit system. There was also a few smaller places with better then average ridership Minneapolis at 12.5%, Oakland at 16.5% and Portland, OR at 13.3% while Seattle's numbers were soaring to 17%.
(http://www.dnr.state.md.us/bay/picturemaryland/p26.jpg)
When Maryland dumped the freeway for the train look what happens
So what does this teach us about the often avoided subject of BRT vs LRT? On a broader scale, what does it say about smaller markets with density? Without density? Without rail? With rail? Houston and Los Angeles HAVE BRT and have invested very heavily in freeways for everyone and every mode. Where are the magic numbers associated with BRT? Why are these two cities not leading the pack? Note that EVERY CITY in the above leading numbers, including Los Angeles with 10.3% and Houston with a paltry 5.1%, have rail. Equally noteworthy is the fact that the two bottom feeders are more invested in BRT and highway then any other mode. Los Angeles known around the World as the car capital, is still attracting twice the number of JTA and doing it with rail loosely connected by a rather thin system of BRT, called METRO-RAPID. Note that the BRT system is designed as a feeder to rail, not as a stand-alone entity, as it is in Houston. Things have become so extreme in Houston, as to call for the building of rail, in spite of the highway lobby's successful move to have the rail funding cut on the federal level. Houston, decided to go it alone and build the rail system anyway. With Houston's rail system in it's infancy, it could not have effected these numbers. However, before Jacksonville jumps off the cliff into BRT, perhaps we should see just what difference rail makes to Houston's, numbers. The message in terms of ridership could be a watershed event for Light Rail Jacksonville.
(http://static.flickr.com/132/415118805_c94eaab57b_m.jpg)
Taken aboard a "quality" BRT like park-n-ride express bus
There is another interesting paper was just published by Cliff Henke, a senior analyst for BRT and LRT in Arcadia, CA. The article involves growth of the urban core and congestion pricing in London, England and coming soon to New York City. Congestion pricing for parking spaces is used in London as a road/transit tax. It is enforced through the use of smart technology such as turnpike sensor units. Only those willing to pay the "extra-fare" may park in the dense City Core, it is much cheaper to use transit, which has been boosted by dedicated funding coming off the Congestion Price - volunteer vehicle tax. Transportation and Urban Planners have been stunned by the fact that intense political resistance melted away after viewing the benefits of the system. Today, it enjoys widespread support across the board.
(http://static.flickr.com/14/15213802_1652b733d9_m.jpg)
New Orleans dumped the Streetcars
(except for One line) then quickly put them back,
Jacksonville, dumped the streetcars and never looked back.
Lastly, how and where should these monies go? We have already seen the numbers from pro-highway and pro-rail cities, defy the national trends so what do the pros say? They feel that the FTA or Federal Transit Administration just doesn't get it. The long, expensive and time consuming federal process for funding was supposed to be streamlined by the Transportation Act. Instead, not even the officially sanctioned "answer" from Pennsylvania Avenue in the form of BRT is getting easy approval. Recent hearings on Capitol Hill had rail and bus proponents complaining that the review process takes too long. This is even more true for rail in a pro-highway and big-oil administration. Rail has been saddled with burdensome and often irrelevant evaluations. Some Transit agency's are asking that the table be leveled and that rail get the same considerations as the supposedly cheaper BRT.
Currently the FTA considers ridership and immediate changes in ridership at the core of their decisions, according to Jeff Boothe, executive director of The Streetcar Coalition. "They MUST consider trips not taken (ridership) as a result of changed settlement patterns." Many cities are looking at a new twist to this old mode of travel, but they are proving their worth. Worth, indeed! The numbers are now on the floor of the Capitol and they are staggering. Investment in Streetcars or LRT nationwide are returning 1,000% in new development dollars for every dollar spent. Even more amazing? Why is Jacksonville wasting our time and resources on BRT? Could it be time to toss our highway builders out of the Transit business?
(http://static.flickr.com/176/370809917_b08f86942e_m.jpg)
So more freeways, more asphalt and concrete, more buses, and we'll still lag behind, at 4.7% of our population, using JTA's "Super Bus". For all the increase in ridership we imagine, they might as well build our BRT on Mars. Then perhaps at least we could imagine passengers using it! "JTA Time to pull your head's out!"
"Where is Princess Ozma when we need her?"
(http://images.epilogue.net/users/camilkuo/zcg67.jpg)
Ocklawaha
I think these images say it all. Any city on the rise has these thingys. I love them. Notice "Free" painted on the side. In my humble opinion, http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=opinion , any city that gives us a free ride is doing just fine.
Better? If you don't like free bus rides, perhaps "free bus" is benieth you, how about free limo service.
Wouldn't you love to take a limo everywhere you go and at a price point that would make your walet smile?
Okay, so I stirred it up a little; but for real, this is what I'm waiting for. I live 2 blocks from the Future Howard Park & Ride. They've already started construction. A taxi to the warehouse district in Austin cost me $35 to $45 dollars with a 30 minute door to door service. The bus I have to take, costs me $7.00 for a taxi to the bus stop, plus the $1.00 fare (which is going up) and takes 2 hours. The mega giga cool super-commuter rail will take less then 45 minutes, I don't know about the cost, but I can walk to the station and it drops me off at the free trolly ;D. The trail is to run 12 or 13 times a day! Go Austin!
http://allsystemsgo.capmetro.org/regional-commuter-rail.shtml
That is exactly what the JTA should be striving for with rail. The tracks are there, the right of way is there, the destinations are all along the rail so why start from sratch with BRT?
It probably has something to do with them having money to burn on BRT and at it's roots JTA is a highway building entity. This is pretty evident with what seems to be an ignorance of how mass transit should be properly coordinated with community development (BRT down Adams St or I-95?). It also doesn't help that they got burned with the Skyway, which was one of the most expensive transit oriented projects and the wrong application for Jax.
how much existing rail currently is in the "S-line"? I definetly am of the opinion that if it isn't broke, don't fix it.
Less than a mile and that particular section is a low traffic rail line owned by Norfolk Southern. However, all of the rail along CSX's A line, which runs parallel to Roosevelt Blvd, is in place. For those don't know, the A line is the same rail corridor that will see a significant amount of freight traffic reduced as a part of the Orlando commuter rail deal. If combined with the city owned S-line ROW, Jax could have a starter 20+ mile rail system up and running for a fraction of the cost and time it will take to construct BRT.
Btw, the important aspect of taking advantage of the S-line is it being nearly 5 miles of city owned rail right-of-way that travels within walking distance of where many potential riders live and work. Since it was there before the expressways, there are already highway overpasses in place, eliminating the need construct new ones. In fact, by simply using the S-Line taxpayers can eliminate nearly $20 million in BRT land acquisition costs alone and also take away the need to spend additional millions constructing a bus expressway from downtown to Gateway Mall.
Combined with the CSX A line (downtown to Orange Park/Palatka, etc.), we would have no need for half of the planned BRT system. Instead the feeder routes JTA is planning could then feed into rail.
JTA's SW BRT corridor parallels the CSX A line, meaning using existing rail instead of building new busways would save taxpayers money, be a superior mode of transit and still serve the same users.
(http://www.metrojacksonville.com/photos/thumbs/lrg-1830-slide20.JPG)
City owned S-Line corridor (green). The rail may not be there, but we own the land and its cheaper to lay track than build an expressway.
(http://www.metrojacksonville.com/photos/thumbs/lrg-1813-slide21.JPG)
Okay, the young'en go back and forth from San Antonio to Austin drunk like Paris in her Bentley on a Monday night so, one of the selling points is that the rail will cut down on drug and alcohol related fatalities. Does anybody have numbers to substantiate this fact?
there have been many topics about the lrt/brt stuff and i'm not sure what the state everything is in.
basically, i'm wondering how close (time-wise) the powers that be are to making a decision and what needs to be done to convince them that lrt is the right choice. it seems like all i'm seeing is a bunch of articles and forum topics (although well done) posted to a bunch of people who mostly agree. i've read on here of things being done in the past, but i'm wondering what else needs to be done.
We have all the time in the world for coming up and implementing a better mass transit system featuring rail, but if we don't want to waste a couple of hundred million on BRT's first phases or destroy the business environment finally springing up on Bay and Adams Streets, then we're running out of time.
Time wise, JTA would like to have the first phase of BRT up and running downtown (most likely Adams Street) within three years. An official route will be selected and publicly announced by the end of the year. They are also under the gun to spend $100 million dollars of BJP money set aside for right-of-way acquisition by 2010 or so. Most of that focus will be centered around buying land paralleling I-95 from downtown to Gateway Mall.
The most important thing needed right now is public education. If enough support can be built up, there's a much stronger chance that local politicians will step up to the plate and derail what will be the biggest boondoggle in Jax's history. Those who read and agree with these articles need to inform others.