Skyway on the Move: An exclusive thread on EXPANSION and IMPROVEMENT!

[Ocklawaha]

Idea #1:  Option 1 and Stadium District.  No need for BoA station. Central Station is 1-1/2 blocks away at Bell South Tower.  Do the hotel, APR and the field.  Stations don't have to be bigger, nor the trains, unless ridership warrants it.  They run constantly.

Already have a Riverside Trolley. Don't need to expand above ground tracks at big $$.  If you want to serve Riverside by rail instead, run light rail up Park Street from the Convention Center Station or the Jefferson Station.  Already have San Marco Station. Run light rail on the ground from there.

Idea #2:  Since streetcars and any type of rail is fixed, how about something more flexible?  How about much smaller shuttle buses running at 30 minute intervals on more convenient routes.  When I was young, on the Southside, there were three buses than ran within walking distance of my house.  San Souci on University, 35 Spring Park came up Beney Road, and the Phillips Highway bus went down Barnes Road by Englewood High...at 30 minute intervals.  Now, huge empty buses go by my house every morning.  The downtown buses leave Rosa Parks about 4:55, when most people get off at 5:00.  There are no more buses until 5:55.  Real convenient.

General Motors destroyed the streetcar industry with the line "more flexible buses" but I have never seen a bus that could do this AND run in the street...pssst maybe they lied to us!

Debbie, the reason for the BOA Tower is because it is/or has the potential to have one of the largest floods of commuters morning and night in the city. The Central Station handles ATT well but there is NOTHING connected to it. I'd connect the stations with the buildings, using a simple 3rd floor if needed. Further, the Skyway is a collector/distributor system for those building to building rides, it was NEVER intended to go beyond the CBD.  I would include BOA in an expanded system, and a streetcar,bus,Skyway interchange at Newnan/Hyatt. As lakelander is fond of saying the system can (and does in other cities) run THROUGH buildings. No reason every BOA train would need to stop at Central Station, as some have pointed out we could have express services available 'cha ching $$$' for a price to major companies wanting additional parking outside the area.

Riverside Streetcar will not be elevated, and will be IN THE STREET or private right of way. You can't use Light Rail of any type in San Marco because the railroad constantly blocks the crossings, that becomes SKYWAY TERRITORY by default.

Streetcars are preferred over buses for exactly the reasons you stated, buses are flexible. For that reason they DO NOT attract TOD type development or economic change we so desperately need. I'm a veteran of the old 70-NAVAL AIR, and the ARLINGTON EXPRESS myself, commuted for years on those buses.  It was an amazing experience, a society within a society type of thing. As I ran Trailways on 12 hour overnights, my JTA driver would wake me up at my Arlington stop!

Look, there is no point expanding the Skyway anywhere else downtown, until it is first expanded to somewhere people actually live! E.g., Riverside, San Marco, Springfield, etc. The thing already goes to within just a short walk of most places downtown, continuing to add new stops in that area is a waste, and will NOT do anything to increase ridership. To increase ridership, and make the system self-sustaining, you need to connect places people need to go to and from, e.g. business with residential. Otherwise, nobody rides. You can't tell me a new $10mm station at the BOA tower is going to increase ridership, when the existing station in Hemming Plaza is literally two blocks away. The reason it's a failure is that it doesn't connect things that need connecting, e.g. business areas with residential areas with shopping areas. That's the basic formula for intra-city passenger transport folks. We need to do that, first.

Central Station is only 1/2 block from the BOA tower.

A BOA station should be built on the basis of making a example of large corporate box - meets good rail service, hell I'd run it through the building, but it would be so plain Jane nobody familiar with the current debacles that pass as stations would recognize them. Think park and ride to BOA, ATT, SHANDS, ETC...

But as you already know, I agree 100% that we need to get it into some residential area's FIRST, and your idea for the Eastside is quite cool, I'm working on a little graphic.

agreed Chris...fact is you could add more cars, but the station platforms are only so long...and you still need to keep a distance between trains...basically you reach max. capacity pretty quick, which is the problem DC metro now has in their downtown tunnel.

Cascadia Monorail Plan

We own the plans and rights to build the middle cars... but never have. There are either 16g or 20 cars in the fleet already, all cab cars IE: they all have manual controls on board under the locked dash panel. 16 more cars would give us 8, 4 car trains, each with a capacity of about 120 passengers. A 6 car train bumps it to around 180 passengers each. The 6-8 car trains are the reason why I'd like to see an eventual change over to walk through-vestibule type monorail cars. Thus if only 3 cars fit the station, people in the ends can simply walk toward the open door cars. The senior planner over at JTA told be the system has a theoretical capacity of 30,000 PPHPD.

I don't see why so many people want a streetcar here so bad. The skyway NEEDS to be finished before we introduce any new type of rail transit(except for commuter rail). If streetcars are built, the skyway will be DONE. Look at the streetcar map on JTA's website. It's gonna do the job that the skyway should be doing. I understand connecting at logical points and all, but if streetcars are going to the stadium on BAY STREET, or going down RIVERSIDE AVENUE, no one will ride the skyway.

Streetcars bring economic investment and change like no other mode in history has, the current return on a streetcar investment according to CINCINNATI STREETCAR is $14 dollars for every $1 dollar spent. Most any major city in the world has many complimenting systems and Jacksonville needs to wake up and realize it's not just a cowford anymore. In Medellin we had, heavy rail, streetcar, bus, rope cable way, and 10,000 cheap taxis.
The streetcars should not go to the stadium on Bay Street because they will completely miss the opportunity to link with the old rail line that ran from Maxwell House north to Gateway Mall and already belongs to the city.

CHECK THIS OUT:

Streetcars create new development
Ian McNulty


New Orleans streetcars are transit options that also contribute to the city’s ambiance. But as the New Orleans Regional Transit Authority (RTA) prepares to begin a new expansion of its streetcar system, it’s becoming clear that they can serve as a powerful economic development tool as well.

One year ago, the federal government awarded the RTA a grant totaling $45 million that the local agency will use on a new streetcar line stretching along Loyola Avenue in the Central Business District. The route is planned to connect the bus and train hub at the Union Passenger Terminal to the existing Canal streetcar line. Construction is expected to begin this spring with completion projected for mid-2012. Already, however, a string of major construction and revitalization projects have been announced in the area along the route. Combined with other nearby projects now taking shape, it’s generating new momentum in a corner of the city that has not gotten much attention in recent years.

In December, the local development firm the Domain Cos. announced plans for its South Market District project. The project would transform four blocks now covered by parking lots along Loyola Avenue into a cluster of new buildings holding some 450 apartments and 125,000 square feet of retail space. The same company has been building mixed-use developments along Tulane Avenue and in Mid-City at the site of the former Baumer Foods plant. South Market District is intended to provide upscale housing for people expected to work and live downtown as the city’s adjacent biomedical district develops.

“What we felt made this site ideal was the streetcar expansion,” says Matt Schwartz, a principal with the Domain Cos. “The most exciting development opportunities are really converging on this area.”

Nearby, the newly dubbed Benson Tower is returning to commerce with 26 floors of office space adjacent to the Superdome, where a new sports and entertainment district is also being crafted. Meanwhile, the Saratoga office building at 212 Loyola Ave. is being converted into the Saratoga Lofts with 155 new apartments, and in the fall the Hyatt Regency hotel is scheduled to reopen for the first time since Hurricane Katrina. After a $243 million renovation, the hotel will have nearly 1,200 rooms and 200,000 square feet of meeting space. Its entrance and ballrooms will overlook Loyola Avenue, where soon streetcars will soon be part of the view.

source: http://www.myneworleans.com/New-Orleans-Magazine/February-2011/Streetcars-create-new-development/

[Sonic101]

Remember those conceptual drawings that some students of Savannah College of Art and Design did for the shipyards?    http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2010-nov-a-vision-for-the-shipyards
A few of them would like to see the elevated Commodore Expressway removed, if they do that and expand the skyway all the way down to the stadium, maybe they could just remove the road deck of the expressway along the Bay St portion and use or modify the existing supports for the skyway to save some money?

[Dashing Dan]

agreed Chris...fact is you could add more cars, but the station platforms are only so long...and you still need to keep a distance between trains...basically you reach max. capacity pretty quick, which is the problem DC metro now has in their downtown tunnel.

The existing platforms are already long enough for longer skyway trains.  

[tufsu1]

true, they can be longer,,,but there's no way they can be long enough to handle the crush of folks leaving a Jags game...simply put, the Skyway isn't designed for that

[Ocklawaha]

true, they can be longer,,,but there's no way they can be long enough to handle the crush of folks leaving a Jags game...simply put, the Skyway isn't designed for that

Natural attrition . crowds, cars, buses, would work that out, setting fares high enough to balance capacity-demand, designing the entire service not to handle 65,000, or 30,000, but a substantial number that were previously parking. If the Skyway pulled away with just 16,000 per game the system ridership would have the entire nation buzzing about it. Assuming the train carries 3,000 per day today, during football season if it carried 16,000 per game that's an increase of 533.3333% unprecedented. If weekday ridership were 1,200 daily, then the increase on game day would be 1333.3333%, the same will hold true for streetcars. In only 8 game days the annual ridership would jump by 128,000. That kind of numbers ought to even get the republicans talking about it.  Not.  I don't expect that the Skyway would remove many more then the shuttles do today, but it would be fun to watch those numbers.

OCKLAWAHA

[danem]

Had my first Skyway experience today. Here's what I think:

1. Plenty of room to have some small retail stands at those stations.
2. The areas around those stations could stand to have something useful nearby as well.
3. I counted gate openings for four more cars at one of the stations. (I didn't count at all stops)
4. I read here somewhere that the majority of the money already spent was the infrastructure that supports a much larger system. I looked around and it sure looks like this is true.
5. I love the Hemming Plaza stop.
6. I think it should be expanded somewhere, anywhere useful, because of #4.

[tufsu1]

true, they can be longer,,,but there's no way they can be long enough to handle the crush of folks leaving a Jags game...simply put, the Skyway isn't designed for that

this is the silliest thing I think Ive ever heard.

Are you under the impression that the entire city would immediately abandon their cars in the suburbs and ride the skyway all at once?

nope...just surmising that the system would have trouble handling anything more than maybe a few thousand fans in a 1 hour period...again, having taken transit to sporting events in big cities, you need extra trains and usually longer ones to handle the crowd after the game ends.

Can the Skyway handle the crush?  Because if not, imagine what people will say about the system...and how useless the expansion was if it can't work when people want to use it.

[Dashing Dan]

For a number of reasons the best extension for the skyway would be out to Atlantic Blvd in San Marco.  

Because of the time it takes to switch the guidebeam from one line to the other, an extension of an existing line would work better than the addition of a new line.  

So if you really want the skyway to go out to Riverside, then think about extending it out from the Convention Center station.  

[JC]

Has an RFP gone out for this yet?

[dougskiles]

Had my first Skyway experience today. Here's what I think:

1. Plenty of room to have some small retail stands at those stations.
2. The areas around those stations could stand to have something useful nearby as well.
3. I counted gate openings for four more cars at one of the stations. (I didn't count at all stops)
4. I read here somewhere that the majority of the money already spent was the infrastructure that supports a much larger system. I looked around and it sure looks like this is true.
5. I love the Hemming Plaza stop.
6. I think it should be expanded somewhere, anywhere useful, because of #4.

That is exactly why I was so confused that our self-proclaimed fiscal conservatives were not jumping all over the opportunity to get more out of a previous investment.  They seemed to be more interested in spending 4 times the amount it would cost for an expansion of the skyway on new parking garages and overpasses.

[Ocklawaha]

Yup! Doug, That's us! "As I stood in the line-up, the entire city council was to my right, and to my far right was John Birch," a Jacksonville moment. 

With train expansion and 2.5 minute headways I see no reason why the Skyway can't handle a solid 8,000 per hour from the stadium. Calculate in the folks that typically arrive several hours before game times and you might reach upwards of 12,000. Again it's is largely based on equipment and train length. But even at 8,000 per hour it would blow the socks off of the current traffic counts. Build the sports district station with a 10 car capacity, and buy the higher capacity, center cars. We could also expand Kings Avenue and since we're going to wreck the Jacksonville Terminal station and rebuild it, we could expand it too to handle an 8-10 car train. On game day special trains would run NON-STOP from the terminals at Kings Avenue where we should have another "mother of all garages." Streetcar on the F&J line could easily run entrain and thus the Gateway Mall parking lots might be used as well. With a capacity of nearly 100 per car I see no reason why a streetcar on this private railroad track (no street running) couldn't bring in 400-500 per train.

In short it can be done, it will take some thinking, something missing from our past ventures.

OCKLAWAHA 

[tufsu1]

Has an RFP gone out for this yet?

there are no plans to extend the Skyway...as such, no RFP has ben put out for the planning/environmental studies, much less design or construction

[tufsu1]

With train expansion and 2.5 minute headways I see no reason why the Skyway can't handle a solid 8,000 per hour from the stadium. Calculate in the folks that typically arrive several hours before game times and you might reach upwards of 12,000. OCKLAWAHA 

ok...if we could get 8,000 in an hour than it might work...because it seems to me we'd reasonable want get 10,000 fans to use transit to/from the game.

I wonder how Miami's Metromover functioned with the old Miami arena (the new arena is a few blocks away)?

[thelakelander]

I believe the old Miami arena was adjacent to a Metrorail stop.  The Heat's new arena is about two blocks from the Metromover.  Cars are packed but it seemed to operate just fine when I was on it during a game night a few years back.  They just run more cars to deal with the peak trips.

[ChriswUfGator]

Yeah the old arena had a metromover station right next to it. Actually, it was directly across the street from the main entrance. All you had to do was walk across the street.