Transportation Transition Team - ANSWER THE POLL

[Jason]

My vote was "complete streets" only because it can be implemented with relatively no up front costs and will create a huge long term benefit.   Simultaneously, enhance the water to rail links at Jaxport and open it directly up to more rail companies.

2nd - Get a simplified combination of a consolodated JRTC and Amtrak bact at the Prime.  Also working with Amtrak to move forward with the FEC line proposal and working in potential commuter stops.

3rd - Build the streetcar line from Riverside to Shands via downtown.

4th - Expand the skyway down to the sports complex with a one way loop around the stadium

5th - Commuter rail line from (as described in the poll above)

6th - Connect the Airport to the northern portion of the commuter line via monorail system (as indicated in the model at the airport).

[Captain Zissou]

2nd - Get a simplified combination of a consolodated JRTC and Amtrak bact at the Prime.  Also working with Amtrak to move forward with the FEC line proposal and working in potential commuter stops.

3rd - Build the streetcar line from Riverside to Shands via downtown.

4th - Expand the skyway down to the sports complex with a one way loop around the stadium

I like all three of these, and in that order.

My choice was mile point.  We need to get the port completed so that we can bring in more business and maintain the foothold we currently have in the shipping industry on the east coast.  Mile point will prevent us from getting federal funding for deepening the port, because until Mile Point is fixed, our port projects aren't really shovel ready.

The port can be the economic driver for many of these other projects.  Also, I believe many of the rail projects can be completed with a public private partnership once we have a fully functional Post Panamax deepwater port.  CSX and FEC will have large incentives to work with the city to optimize our rail network for both freight and passengers.  With a coordinated effort between departments, we can use this time for reformatting and developing the JRTC as well as commuter rail.

[Kay]

My vote was "complete streets" only because it can be implemented with relatively no up front costs and will create a huge long term benefit.   Simultaneously, enhance the water to rail links at Jaxport and open it directly up to more rail companies.

2nd - Get a simplified combination of a consolodated JRTC and Amtrak bact at the Prime.  Also working with Amtrak to move forward with the FEC line proposal and working in potential commuter stops.

3rd - Build the streetcar line from Riverside to Shands via downtown.

4th - Expand the skyway down to the sports complex with a one way loop around the stadium

5th - Commuter rail line from (as described in the poll above)

6th - Connect the Airport to the northern portion of the commuter line via monorail system (as indicated in the model at the airport).

My vote was for complete streets as well.  No more pedestrian deaths!

[fieldafm]

1.  Port
2.  Complete streets
3. transportation plan that seamlessly re-connects urban neighborhoods to the core... it's time to reunite the neighborhoods cut off from each other by massive expressways.

[iMarvin]

1.  Port
2.  Complete streets
3. transportation plan that seamlessly re-connects urban neighborhoods to the core... it's time to reunite the neighborhoods cut off from each other by massive expressways.

How could number 3 be done? 95 and 10 can't be closed or anything so how would that work?

[ricker]

voted. Bike network.
this is /should be an element of complete streets, yes?

had a difficult time deciding...

Another few QUESTION_s
I read -but have no knowledge of an "approved" first leg of streetcar from King St at StVincents hospital, to Shands on 8th.
When will we see this?
Also,
I wonder which path the tracks may take as they head southwest out of town through Riverside and Avondale?
Is the brick building at  the corner of US17 and StJohnsAve an old JaxTrax power station?

[FayeforCure]

Yay, the streetcar is winning!!!!

The Great American Streetcar Scandal

Dear EarthTalk: Did the car companies really conspire to kill the trolleys and streetcars of bygone days to force us to become dependent on automobiles instead? -- Taylor Howe, San Francisco, CA

How General Motors Derailed Public Transportation to Sell More Cars
Indeed, in the 1920s automaker General Motors (GM) began a covert campaign to undermine the popular rail-based public transit systems that were ubiquitous in and around the country’s bustling urban areas. At the time, only one in 10 Americans owned cars and most people traveled by trolley and streetcar.

Within three decades, GM, with help from Standard Oil, Firestone Tire, Mack Truck and Phillips Petroleum, succeeded in decimating the nation’s trolley systems, while seeing to the creation of the federal highway system and the ensuing dominance of the automobile as America’s preferred mode of transport.

GM Bought and Dismantled Streetcar Lines Nationwide
GM began by funding a company called National City Lines (NCL), which by 1946 controlled streetcar operations in 80 American cities.

“Despite public opinion polls that showed 88 percent of the public favoring expansion of the rail lines after World War II, NCL systematically closed its streetcars down until, by 1955, only a few remained,” writes author Jim Motavalli in his 2001 book, Forward Drive.

Buses Were First Step to Ending Streetcar System
GM first replaced trolleys with free-roaming buses, eliminating the need for tracks embedded in the street and clearing the way for cars. As dramatized in a 1996 PBS docudrama, Taken for a Ride, Alfred P. Sloan, GM’s president at the time, said, “We’ve got 90 percent of the market out there that we can…turn into automobile users. If we can eliminate the rail alternatives, we will create a new market for our cars.” And they did just that, with the help of GM subsidiaries Yellow Coach and Greyhound Bus. Sloan predicted that the jolting rides of buses would soon lead people to not want them and to buy GM’s cars instead.

Automaker Used Political Clout to Build Roads for Cars
GM was later instrumental in the creation of the National Highway Users Conference, which became the most powerful lobby in Washington. Highway lobbyists worked directly with lawmakers to craft highway-friendly legislation, and GM’s promotional films were showcasing America’s burgeoning interstate highway system as the realization of the so-called “American dream of freedom on wheels.”

When GM President Charles Wilson became Secretary of Defense in 1953, he worked with Congress to craft the $25 billion Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. Referred to at the time as the “greatest public works project in the history of the world,” the federally funded race to build roads from coast-to-coast was on.

Public Transportation is Regaining Poplarity
Today, many eco-advocates and urban planners alike yearn for a rebirth of public transit. In the face of nightmarish traffic tie-ups nationwide, widespread urban sprawl, loss of open space, and the global warming we owe largely to automobiles, will we ever see a return to mass transit as the dominant mode for moving people? According to the Public Transportation Partnership for Tomorrow (PT2), mass transit ridership has grown 21 percent since 1995â€"faster than both vehicle and airline passenger miles logged over the same period.

“Public transportation is a…means of helping our environment and conserving energy,” says the PT2 website. “If one in 10 Americans used public transportation regularly, U.S. reliance on foreign oil could be cut by more than 40 percent--the amount we import from Saudi Arabia each year.”

GOT AN ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTION? Send it to: EarthTalk, c/o E/The Environmental Magazine, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; submit it at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/thisweek/, or e-mail: earthtalk@emagazine.com.

EarthTalk is a regular feature of E/The Environmental Magazine. Selected EarthTalk columns are reprinted on About Environmental Issues by permission of the editors of E.

http://environment.about.com/od/fossilfuels/a/streetcars.htm

[fieldafm]

How could number 3 be done? 95 and 10 can't be closed or anything so how would that work?

A variety of ways... all of them revolve around transit making a seamless connection to the core.  Right now, there is a water-less 'moat' surrounding downtown.  We need to build a few bridges over that moat, so to speak.

[thelakelander]

Speaking of transportation, the skyway is doing well today.  Lots of people are using it as access to/from Alvin Brown's inauguration.  We were packed like sardines on my ride back to Hemming Plaza.

[wsansewjs]

Seriously, ITS SIMPLE. KILL GM.

They are a pain in the arse for the American people especially the taxpayers and public transportation.

-Josh

[jcjohnpaint]

Speaking of transportation, the skyway is doing well today.  Lots of people are using it as access to/from Alvin Brown's inauguration.  We were packed like sardines on my ride back to Hemming Plaza.

From all that I hear- the skyway does not do too bad for being the train to nowhere.  Imagine if it went somewhere. 

[fsujax]

Just goes to show when there is something happening Downtown. People will use it!

[iMarvin]

There definitely was a lot of people using the skyway today. When I was leaving the Prime Osborn, I saw a lot of people walking up the stairs to get on it.

[Jaxson]

I agree that we need to move Amtrak downtown ASAP - even if it is to a temporary facility.  As long as we keep the Amshack on Clifford Lane, Amtrak will stay on the back burner for another decade...

[Dashing Dan]

voted. Bike network.
this is /should be an element of complete streets, yes?

had a difficult time deciding...

As a policy Complete Streets is not really instead of any of the other choices on this list.  On the contrary, a Complete Streets policy would help to advance most of these listed projects.