JTA making progress on transportation center

[Kiva]

I don't think it should be up by the airport. I say put that theme park discussed in another thread by the airport!  


(I've worked a conference at a brand new location where there was nothing to do around it yet. Attendees were pissed. )

I agree. The river is our best asset. A convention center near downtown (either walking distance or skyway distance) might work if there were hotels etc right next to it. People do not want to travel more than walking distance from the conference center if possible.

[Ocklawaha]

I agree. There convention center looks amazing and there are plentyof adjacent hotels, but thats about it. Aside from a variety of fast food resturants and a hand full of tourist attractions. I-drive was a terriable place for the convention center to start with. ENTIRELY to congested.

With one of the largest Convention Centers in the World, Orlando 'get's away with it' because NOBODY goes to Orlando to see Orlando. Most all of the visitors have a travel agenda that includes one or more tourist attractions which is a modern day way of engaging each of them in a game of 3-card Monte. Few of the millions of visitors could care less about transit, hotels or fast food nearby, over 90% rent automobiles/or otherwise have automobile access.

We have no real outside attractions that are more then 3-4 miles from downtown, maybe with the single exception of the beach communities including Fernandina and St. Augustine. One could rightly say we are a city desperate for attractions, while Orlando is one huge attraction looking for a city.

We're not Orlando, though if we'd of played our cards close to the chest, we 'might have been'.

OCKLAWAHA

[iMarvin]

JTA board approves agreement bringing Greyhound to Prime Osborn Convention Center

An agreement to build a new Greyhound bus station next to the Prime Osborn Convention Center drew the unanimous support of the Jacksonville Transportation Authority board Thursday.

The agreement commits JTA and Greyhound to work together to build a station between Houston and Adams streets. They will jointly apply for $5 million in federal funding to do it.

"We've been talking about doing this for 20 years," said JTA Executive Director Michael Blaylock. "And getting Greyhound in should be a catalyst for other things."

A transportation hub

JTA wants to build a $180 million regional transportation facility at and around the Prime Osborn. It plans to bring bus service, Amtrak, commuter and high speed rail, retail stores, offices of the Florida Department of Transportation and a Jacksonville Sheriff's Office substation to the area.

"Greyhound is the first step toward getting Jacksonville something like Union Station in Washington," said JTA Chairman Michael Cavendish, "or Penn Station in New York."
Greyhound wants to leave its present location on North Pearl Street because it wants to be in a facility with multiple transportation modes.

JTA's next step is getting 14 parcels of land transferred from the city to JTA.

Outgoing Mayor John Peyton made a surprise appearance at Thursday's JTA meeting and said he was going to try to get the land transferred before he leaves office July 1.

The transfer requires City Council approval.


Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2011-05-27/story/jta-board-approves-agreement-bringing-greyhound-prime-osborn-convention#ixzz1NYbbPeHt

[Ocklawaha]

Some time back I got these photos off line of what appears to be a newbie effort at modeling. The model is of the Jacksonville Terminal and whoever it was that posted these, he got several details dead on. Thus I'm posting a couple of marked up shots for those of you that don't understand what it was like. If both photos were real and taken today the photographer was standing in track 17, track 16 is in the immediate foreground, beyond these tracks the numbers counted down to track 1. 1-15 were all 'stub' tracks (dead end) that ended at the big white blocks with giant numbers on them, a couple of which are in the lobby of the Prime Osbourne.
More then that, your looking straight north-northwest from just south of the depot, today you'd be standing in the small employee gated parking area on the south end of the front parking lot. Today the 'lobby' occupies what was once the main concourse of the station. Hope this helps all of our 'sidewalk supervisors' come up with some good ideas.

PHOTO 1

PHOTO 2

OCKLAWAHA

[thelakelander]

City Council Rules Committee rejects JTA land transfer; meeting adjourns due to dispute

http://jacksonville.com/opinion/blog/400669/larry-hannan/2011-06-20/city-council-rules-committee-rejects-jta-land-transfer

[duvaldude08]

Praise God! Let's go back to the drawing board PLEASE

[arb]

Yay! Hopefully Mayor Brown can find a temporary location for the conventions for now, and plan for a new convention center (so when the money is available, we can proceed immediately), so JTA can use the land that the current convention center is on to make a more compact transit center. Hopefully Transform Jax and JTA come together to create a state of the art transit center.

[tufsu1]

there is a relatively simple solution to the Greyhound issue...JTA should just move the proposed terminal 1/2 block south,  bounded by Forsyth on the south and Houston on the north...the parcel is nearly identical to the one they have chosen, so any design work that has been done should require minimal modification.

[John P]

Tomorrow morning on First Coast Connect host Melisa Ross will be discussing this subject with JTA brass. 9am on 89.9 fm.

[Jumpinjack]

Just curious - what other cities have a successful "transportation center" design like that proposed for Jax? How long have they had it? Does it provide interlocking systems? Did new development spring up around it? What problems exist?
Or is this a MJ thread that I missed? 

[iMarvin]

Is there anyway we can stop this from happening?

[finehoe]

For the life of me, I can't figure out what this "Transportation Center" is supposed to accomplish.  OK, so we move all these disparate modes of transportation to one location.  Then what?  Because you can walk from the Greyhound station to the Amtrak station a building boom will be unleashed on downtown?  Because the JTA bus bays are next to the Skyway, everyone will want to live downtown?  Because I-95 runs next to the JRTC, retail will explode in the urban core?  I just am not following the logic of this thing.  Seems to me there are much better uses the money this would cost could be put to.

[Overstreet]

We're not Orlando, though if we'd of played our cards close to the chest, we 'might have been'.

OCKLAWAHA.....

I dislike Orlando.  In a few weeks I go down there for another  trade show. Did I say I dislike Orlando? I'd rather live here.

[duvaldude08]

For the life of me, I can't figure out what this "Transportation Center" is supposed to accomplish.  OK, so we move all these disparate modes of transportation to one location.  Then what?  Because you can walk from the Greyhound station to the Amtrak station a building boom will be unleashed on downtown?  Because the JTA bus bays are next to the Skyway, everyone will want to live downtown?  Because I-95 runs next to the JRTC, retail will explode in the urban core?  I just am not following the logic of this thing.  Seems to me there are much better uses the money this would cost could be put to.

This has nothing to do with making people wanna move downtown or cause a "building boom." Its basically to streamline and finally fix our mass transit mess that we have now. Having good transit helps more than just downtown, its helps the entire city.

[finehoe]

Its basically to streamline and finally fix our mass transit mess that we have now. Having good transit helps more than just downtown, its helps the entire city.

So how does it do that?  I ask this in all seriousness.  I don't see how it "fixes" much of anything.