Amtrak station getting more business

[Ocklawaha]

It could be worse. Much, much, worse... Columbus, OH. and Trinidad, CO.

Yeah I bet ridership would more than double if moved downtown.  Easy

any empirical eveidence on that?  Are you saying that just because of the location in a bad neighborhood or the fact that the station looks like a trailer?

I mean, would the airport double in passengers if moved closer to downtown?

I would think it's pretty obvious that a new 'Wal-Mart Supercenter' located at 1St and Main in downtown Lulu, Florida is not going to attract the business of a similar center located at some mythical location around Bay and Lee Street in downtown Jacksonville. Likewise a transportation center, high speed rail station or opium den will, as a rule, do better in a metropolitan center then at some airport in B.F.E..

As for looks? That's rather subjective, but frankly we came out quite well considering the era 1972-74, that the AMSHACK was built. Granted the city should have acted on a proposal to get its transportation eggs into a single basket when it would have been an easy conversion, but the prevailing wisdom of the day said that by 2011 we'd have long since seen the last rusty railroad rail lifted from the face of the earth, probably in some out of the way location like The Congo, Morocco or Brasil.

A national railroad magazine pegged Jacksonville's new station dead on when it said, "The new Jacksonville station seems closer to South Georgia then to Jacksonville, it is located at the end of an alley, under a freeway overpass and between two junk yards."

Nobody but a few crazies (right hand goes up and waves) would ever have predicted that by 2011 The Congo, Morocco and Brasil would all be building high speed rail systems while the USA in general, and Jacksonville in particular stands by the wayside wondering what just happened?

But really a trailer? Hardly. Houston's station looks like a trailer, and many, many stations ARE TRAILERS. No our little AMSHACK looks fine, even somewhat attractive considering every conceivable point is stacked against it. Location, safety, convenience, size, layout, connectivity, walkability...etc...

OCKLAWAHA