What A Real Transit Rail System Looks Like: The Station

[finehoe]

Wonder what a Jacksonville station could be made to look like? 

Faux-mediterranean made of cheap stucco with sickly sabel palms at the entrance.

[Garden guy]

For anything great to happen in jacksonville it's going to take a voting outreach. We stand here and allow 15% of our city population to decide what happens to us all....that's ridiculous. This issue should have been dealt with years ago when we all realized we sit at the intersection of two of the worlds longest and largest expressways all while sitting at an ocean port...the only reason this city isn't tops in the nation is due to its leaders. so i say we've all gotta get loud and tell everyone to go vote for ever single thing that can be voted on. I'd love to see 8 or 10 trolleys working riverside,avondale, ortega, downtown, san marco....it worked before...why not again....oh that right...we're in jacksonville...there's a game to pay for.

[finehoe]

I posted this link on MJ a while back, but I think it's appropriate to post it again:

http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/9/view/8346/subway-architecture.html

Here's another:

http://mic-ro.com/metro/metroart.html

[ZacharyMease]

Maybe JTA should rent the underside of the monorail to artists (for painting) ... perhaps advertising. That way you get income for (hopefully) future extensions, or at least reduce that 4 mil. that shouldn't be there in the first place. Not to mention make up for the lack of art within the current stations.


... just a thought.

[lewyn]

I spent most of the past year (2009-10) in Toronto, and I got off at the Museum station (near the University of Toronto where I went)- quite nice!  But one thing the other, more mundane Toronto stations have that I miss is clocks telling you when the next train is coming.  I wish JTA bus stops had something like that!

[thelakelander]

Don't worry.  They want to spend $25 million to give you your clocks on 11 miles of Philips Highway, at the potential expense of commuter rail on the FEC.  If all goes as planned the clocks, telling you how long you"ll have to wait in the grass for the next bus, will be operational in 2014.

[stjr]

Not beautiful, but clearly in the sweet spot with regard to functionality, are most of Manhattan's subway stations.  I think they are masterful at integrating them into the fabric of the city and especially love the large expanse of underground connectivity at many stops to other transit lines and modes (e.g. bus terminal, airports, rail lines, ferries, etc.), buildings, and often several streets or at least multiple street corners of an intersection.  Haven't been to all the stations, but the Times Square one does have some stores in the subway station itself.  Philadelphia has many similar features on a smaller scale.

Want to solve two problems at once?  Jax's transit deficiencies and its identity crisis?  Instead of being "America's Logistics City", how about "America's Transit Oriented Development City"?  Let's build these station types here for commuter rail and build the parking-less stations in the urban core area and show the rest of the country what a "non-major" city can do with mass transit done right.  To pull this off, we need, of course, to completely restart the design of the intermodal center planned at Prime Osborne or it will be hard to salvage the system's full possibilities.

Imagine the publicity and image enhancement the city would achieve not to mention an improvement in our quality of life and some cutting edge economic development projects if we could pull this off. 

Probably a fantasy but no reason it couldn't become reality with new players and pushing aside the current JTA.

[Ocklawaha]

Jacksonville Terminal opened in 1919 and quickly bloomed to 250 trains per day. TRAINS, not streetcars (which they didn't even count) rolled in 11 times an hour, and another 11 rolled out, in other words in the roaring Twenties we had 22 trains per hour.

Dispair? Sorry kids but even through my childhood and teens the grand old station of the South still posted 60 which slowly tumbled to 52 as the Interstate System came into being. By the late sixties and through Spring of 1971 Jacksonville was still one of the few bright spots in the world of passenger trains. Amtrak's bogus rescue literally butchered not only the national system but the importance of The Gateway City. By 1971 the 12 daily Amtrak trains were served out of the Amshack at Clifford Lane which was, "under a highway overpass and between two junk yards..." according to the railroad press.  As the farce continued, we continued to see trains and entire routes vanish without a whimper from our local law makers. Today we are down to 2 arrivals and 2 departures daily which would equal one train every 12 hours except that in their infinite wisdom, Amtrak chooses to run their two generic trains one right behind the other.

At least one thing remains from our first heyday as the railroad capital of the deep south, the trains are still southbound in the AM and northbound in the PM. The odd traffic flow in Jacksonville goes back to our halcyon days and lingers still.


OCKLAWAHA

[AaroniusLives]

At least one thing remains from our first heyday as the railroad capital of the deep south...

Well, to be fair, Jacksonville was and is a major railroad junction, but I think Atlanta claimed and claims the capital moniker.

Not beautiful, but clearly in the sweet spot with regard to functionality, are most of Manhattan's subway stations.  I think they are masterful at integrating them into the fabric of the city and especially love the large expanse of underground connectivity at many stops to other transit lines and modes (e.g. bus terminal, airports, rail lines, ferries, etc.), buildings, and often several streets or at least multiple street corners of an intersection.  Haven't been to all the stations, but the Times Square one does have some stores in the subway station itself.  Philadelphia has many similar features on a smaller scale.

What's interesting about New York City's subway stations is that they are supremely functional, in that they go everywhere and don't boast snazzy style. Of course, when US modern subway systems were built, they purposely looked at NYC's subway as a negative...as something they didn't want to be. It's interesting to see how time alters perceptions. In DC, for example, I'm sure we'd all trade "clean, conformist, safety" for "more stations and service." But in the 1960s and 1970s? Not so much. The Big Apple was a pit, and the subway was its diseased worm.

Instead of being "America's Logistics City", how about "America's Transit Oriented Development City"?  Let's build these station types here for commuter rail and build the parking-less stations in the urban core area and show the rest of the country what a "non-major" city can do with mass transit done right.

I love the idea of Jacksonville taking the stand as TOD-city, and I applaud you for offering up Jacksonville as a model for "non-major" cities. Because, after all, there are many more Jacksonvilles and Clevelands in the US than there are SanFrans and DCs. There's some danger in identifying "real rail" or "real mass transit" as existing only in the capital of Sweden, or dense as hell Japan, or another "major" city or population center. Like, we know how Washington is going to handle it: by expanding its already used and loved Metro system; by building streetcars, by encouraging density as the "city" spreads outward. By taxing its overpaid workforce and using the Feds to pay for all of it...

...but that doesn't offer a solution for Jacksonville. Or Toledo. Or Sioux City. What is the solution for a city that's not small but not huge? That's not the "capital of [INSERT NAME HERE]?" (...The New South. The Americas. The Entertainment Industry. The Global Economy. The Well-Educated Hippie Liberal Elite. The Big Oil Companies. The United States...)

Sadly, I don't think that commuter rail is particularly effective. We've spent so much time over the last 60+ years altering traditional patterns of commuting that it's not as simple as "run rail from houses, where people live, to downtown, where people work." I'm not sure of the study, but most of the country (like 90+ percent,) lives in a suburb and commutes to work in another suburb, driving through other suburbs, also filled with work and people commuting to them from other suburbs. (Again, this is another way in which DC's Metro can't really be the model: the government is located in the "center," and thus guarantees/teed that Washington didn't vacate it's commercial core.

I'm ducking the eggs right now, but this is where I'd see a BRT advocate finding ground and support. Not for the mega-insane JTA BRT plan. But as a way to demonstrate an affordable mass transit alternative for a metro area of about a million people.   

[thelakelander]

I'm ducking the eggs right now, but this is where I'd see a BRT advocate finding ground and support. Not for the mega-insane JTA BRT plan. But as a way to demonstrate an affordable mass transit alternative for a metro area of about a million people.

I actually agree with the idea of better bus service as an affordable mass transit option (this should be done regardless), although I believe the BRT stuff JTA is doing is financial overkill and a bastardization of the concept.  However, the transit discussion for cities of Jacksonville's size and landscape is much more complex than moving people from point A to B.  The most important aspect of this is community building.  No bus based mode is going to stimulate walkable oriented development like rail based modes have a history of doing.  There's no need to invest millions on demonstrating a result we already know.  If Jax wants to turn away from sprawl, that process will have to include an investment in fixed transit.  With this in mind, the BRT vs. rail discussion dies a quick death.

[Erik W]

Intellectual property issues aside, your argument is generally pointless.  To say that building suburban Park & Ride stations on American transit systems is "WHAT NOT TO DO" is at best useless, and at worst detrimental to our cause (I, too, am an avid transit advocate).  In an area like Vienna, would you rather have a transit station with gobs of parking which is all full because people use the system, or a station with no parking that sits massively underutilized, while the Virginia DOT scrambles to add more and more capacity to I-66?  Comparing Vienna, VA and Westport, CT to any station within 75 miles of Tokyo is asinine.  There are virtually no demographic characteristics of these communities that lend themselves to any kind of comparison.

Certainly many people would have preferred an alignment of Metro's Orange line different from the one that produced the abominations that are Vienna/Fairfax, Dunn Loring and WFC, but transit advocates also need to be keenly aware of political reality.  That line would not have been built at all if the last several stations were not aligned to I-66.  The trade-off was putting Courthouse, Clarendon, Virginia Square and Ballston underground in denser, mixed-use neighborhoods of Arlington.  That trade-of has led to huge success around these stations which is now beginning to permeate the thinking of those responsible for land-use planning around the more distant stations.

By tearing down the utility of park-and-ride stations without any meaningful discussion of the land use patterns in America which led to their necessity (but also success) is to lob another "look at this looney transit guy who is totally out of touch with reality and wants everything to be like Europe and Japan" softball to the likes of Randall O'Toole and Robert Poole.

[AaroniusLives]

The most important aspect of this is community building.  No bus based mode is going to stimulate walkable oriented development like rail based modes have a history of doing.  There's no need to invest millions on demonstrating a result we already know.  If Jax wants to turn away from sprawl, that process will have to include an investment in fixed transit.  With this in mind, the BRT vs. rail discussion dies a quick death.

A quick death, in Jacksonville, perhaps. Some town, somewhere, is going to look at BRT, at the already existing infrastructure for automotive transit, and at the practical realities on the ground. They're going to partner with a BRT-love group, get the funding and be off and running.

I get the need for fixed rail transit. I get that fixed rail transit builds TOD and vice-versa. (And I totally get why JTA's BRT plan suuuuuuucks.) And I mos def get that MetroJacksonville.com is dead-set against it for Jacksonville (believe me, I've seen it brought up, only to be followed by a near-instant "nip that spit in the bud" rebuttal.) I get it.

I'm just saying that at some point, some mid-sized American metro is going to "get BRT" correct: correct for the infrastructural realities, correct for the way we live now and the way we'll need to live in 25 years, correct for the budget, and correct in design and implementation. We haven't seen this yet. We've seen international variations of "heavy-rail using buses." We've seen international and domestic examples of "Diet light rail." And just here last week, we saw Kansas City's "premium bus" variant of the model. But we haven't seen a city, county or metropolitan statistical area rethink their transit system using BRT, and most importantly, using BRT to take advantage of the existing infrastructure.

I default to Broward here, because I'm a native Miamian (had the Metrofail been BRT, we could have had four lines in lieu of the one, or the one line much cheaper with just as much corruption making the money vanish,) Broward is small and compact, is entirely built for the car, and my parents live there now, so I'm familiar.

Broward is basically encircled by highways: there are basically four quadrants created by the highways. In addition, as is the practice in South Florida, most of the "local roads" are 6, 8, 10, 12 lanes wide. All of this is already there. They've already paved paradise and put up a parking lot.

So, working with what's already there, Broward could use HOV lanes (or dedicate lanes) on the highways, creating a grid of express bus service, probably initially as a loop or line, and with success in taking people off the roads, direct stop-to-stop service. At each of these express stops, you'll find a major "Diet light rail or street car" line, using the existing infrastructure (or, you know, huge assed roads built for the Space Shuttle,) along with infrastructural improvements involving signaling, dedicating lanes and the rest to navigate these quadrants. At certain segments along the way, local lines meet the trunks.

Don't get me wrong: I like trains waaaaay better than buses. But in most of the country, all of this infrastructure for automotive transport is overbuilt and already there. I can totally see the appeal (and the challenge) of using this existing, overbuilt system of "local roads" and highways to try and hang a transit system upon.

Mind you, I don't think this solves the problem. It's just a first step. That ugly-assed, 10-lane "local road" is going to be just as effin' ugly with "Diet light rail" running down the center of it." As is the highway overpass and the massive parking lot in front of Big Lots. (Ah, Big Lots and Kash-N-Karry. I miss Florida.) But...if Broward could just convince 10% of its population to hop on the BRT in lieu of driving, it would be a success. 170,000 cars off the road. And that's before any TOD starts taking place. If this system could make getting around the entirely suburban model that is Broward, that's pretty awesome. And then, with that many cars off the road, they could take over more lanes for BRT, or take over more lanes for BRT as a prelude to rail (so that service wouldn't be stopped.)

This is what I view to be one of BRT's strengths (and one that hasn't been explored remotely yet,) is this flexibility. Somebody is going to get that, and get it right and be the model. That's all I'm sayin'. (Try not to throw the diseased eggs at me.)
 

[AaroniusLives]

By tearing down the utility of park-and-ride stations without any meaningful discussion of the land use patterns in America which led to their necessity (but also success) is to lob another "look at this looney transit guy who is totally out of touch with reality and wants everything to be like Europe and Japan" softball to the likes of Randall O'Toole and Robert Poole.

So much WORD.

[AaroniusLives]

That site is a daily hit for transit freaks in the District.

[Erik W]

I should point out it's not my site, I just write for it occasionally.  The site is run by David Alpert, who is a respected transit and smart growth advocate in the DC Metro region.  The compliments should be directed to him!