Taxis - Better for Jax Than Trains

[simms3]

I wanted to start a controversial topic, and that is to say that Jacksonville does not need fixed rail transit right now.  Here is a shortlist of why it will not work right now and why the city should not spend the money (and why I doubt Washington would spend the money either):

1) Not enough of a central commuting pattern whereby there is one concentrated area with 100,000 workers or more and whereby rush hour to this one area creates true gridlock that would spur a demand for alternative transit.  If you can't fill a train up in rush hour, you won't have a successful system.

2) Density is not high enough.  I can't remember the facts and figures, but in a class taught by an RS&H executive on urban transit we were posed all sorts of charts and graphs that come into play on all sorts of systems, and Jacksonville wasn't even dense enough for 15-minute bus lines.  Its highest density supported 30-minute lines and hourly lines at most.  Now Charlotte is not dense enough either, but it has a hell of a central commuting pattern and a dense Uptown that makes parking and riding in worth it (and still its trains aren't "full").

3) Besides the need, nowadays with Washington requiring major fund matching by the local municipalities involved, there has to be a will.  Jacksonville does not even have an energy or will as a whole that supports downtown, the city or the core.  More people in the city would probably green light a train from the beach to Southpoint before doing anything for the rest of the city.  This is the hardest part because even in NYC there are people opposed to higher fees, higher taxes, contruction interrupting their commuting patterns and waking them up, etc etc, so in Jacksonville it's going to be real tough - a decade long political movement at least.

4) Aside from commuting patterns things are just too spread out.  How is a starter line going to go?  What neighborhoods will it serve?  Those who live close in have a bad commute to the Southside, but no traffic into downtown, so how do you arrange which business district to serve and who to serve?  It's really hard to serve a place like Southpoint/Gate Parkway because you can't walk anywhere when you stop there, but that is where the bulk of the people live, work and play.

Furthermore, how do you connect downtown, the convention center (which may be the train station eventually) and the sports complexes and Shands?  How do you connect the city's #1 destination - SJTC?  Riverside?  San Marco?  Springfield?  All of these places are in different directions and pretty spread out and involve expensive river crossings?  I never even mentioned the beach, which creates real traffic on JTB.  And Arlington is also an area that has a lot of people that require public transportation, but it's so spread out and in a different direction.

Jacksonville is a real tough city to figure out.  The need will be to serve the poor, but the taxpayers won't go for a straight line up to the Northside or over to Arlington.  The rich are then spread thin over the rest of the areas of town (which is one of the reasons it's so hard to convince retailers to come to Jacksonville because they need to see the demographics within a certain radius).  The real commuting patterns are on the Southside, where transit won't work effectively, and there is no will among wealthy business leaders to see a side of town like Charlotte's South End become the new infill area.

5) Where's the money?  The city has no money coming in for this and it has bigger fish to fry (public education for one).  I got my annual vehicular registration tax whereby I pay 45 mil rate on my 2011 vehicle, which ends up being a significant amount of money to swallow, and I called my mom up yesterday to ask if this was also the case in Duval, which it is not.  My parents are waterfront and I think she said they pay only 18 mil on their property, and a small $20 fee or what not on their vehicles.  It seems anything tangible up here is "worthy" of a 45 mil tax or some expensive fee, and I already pay 8% and rising sales tax, not to mention state income tax (6%), much more expensive housing (which means a higher tax base), taxes on my district, higher gas prices (maybe that's from a higher gas tax or maybe that's a function of being in a larger city), and I pay the most expensive water/sewer bills in the country, fees and all attached.  Even with these higher taxes and much higher base, each neighborhood has a community improvement self-taxing authority to pay for paving roads, beautification, and astonishingly police presence because the city doesn't have enough to pay for all of this.

One can tell Jacksonville does not have high taxes or a wealthy/large tax base/taxable value.  When I comment that the city looks like it is in the poorhouse, this is what I mean.  There is little landscaping.  In FL where the roads should hardly need maintenance the roads are in bad condition.  Everything looks cheap and if it's not new it looks like it's slowly falling apart.  I think aesthetics in Jacksonville's case come first before transit, but there aren't even high enough taxes to pay for simple aesthetics.

On top of that, people in Jacksonville can't really afford higher taxes.  There aren't enough high paying jobs whose recipients live in Duval.  Downtown trophy office buildings can't even break $100 psf in a sale (and these big buildings should be the tax base, but when the majority of your office buildings are cheap suburban campus style buildings, you're going to have to rely more on the residents).  Houses top out at $2M in the most wealthy areas now, and the average home price in Duval County is real lowwww.  18 mil tax and that's about it on that tax base is not going to get you anything you want or need.

Atlanta has a real strong taxable base - houses in the nicer areas can still top $5-10M, office buildings in Midtown and Buckhead trade for $200-$400psf and rising once again, etc etc  YET still the city can't afford its failing schools or more transit and will have to raise taxes for each (on top of what it has now).  Is Jacksonville prepared for a drastic tax hike?  Would it ever come to be?  With the exodus over the past few years of some of the most influential people out to the beach, who's going to lead that crusade?

[simms3]

Finally, I just want to point out a few obvious things.

1) On this very board I really have never heard anyone talk about streetcars or light rail or commuter rail in terms of actual commuting.  I have only heard comments like "would be convenient to take a streetcar in from Riverside to avoid drinking and driving."  Perhaps a lunch hour deal sort of thing (but really nobody takes a train anywhere during lunch hour as realistically you just don't have the time).

This is indicative of a lack of demand for the real services of fixed rail transit.  As some have stated, the buses get you where you need to go.  I took the bus home from Episcopal High School to Ortega probably 10 times when I went there years ago for curiosity's sake (and I actually saw someone I knew on the bus at the transfer downtown).

The current bus stops are not sufficient.  The buses themselves are about the best I have ever seen, however.  I think the routing can be improved and the bus stops need to be built.  Fix what you have before you scream for what you don't really need.

Also, TAXIS.  You want to avoid drinking and driving?  Taxis do the trick.  The problem is the nightlife is not concentrated enough for there to be taxis in Jacksonville, so how the hell do you think you're going to get streetcars or light rail??  Nashville is one of the few small towns with a decent taxi population and it is possible to hail a cab there.  The only other three cities in the south where it is possible to hail a cab are Miami, Atlanta and New Orleans.  Note that these cities also can support transit.  Nashville has just concentrated everything downtown and along a corridor.  There are more bars in a 5 block area of downtown Nashville than there are bars in metro Jax.  The new MCCC is right there, as is the arena, hotels, the tourist district, and offices and condos.  The West End is fairly compact, too.

Nashville functions more like a real city, yet only has 1.6 million people.  It has that commuter rail, which is ok, but it really can't yet support full on transit.  I think Jacksonville should get its cues from Nashville because it is on the right track for everything.

[simms3]

2) Seattle and Minneapolis are among the densest of cities in America, and yet each just got their first light rail line.  How have they survived without for so long and served 3-4 million people?

I feel like Seattle is right up there with San Francisco in terms of urbanity and density, and yet it has individualized neighborhoods, tough traffic, pedestrian traffic and bike traffic that can compete with NYC and Chicago, and it has one of the most successful downtown areas in the world.  It is considered a true gateway market, ahead of LA in many cases, and occasionally is more desirable as a place for investment than San Francisco.

It survived decades without trains (in fact Atlanta is the city that beat out Seattle to win the MARTA grants in the first place, and Atlanta is country compared to Seattle).

Jacksonville simply doesn't need trains yet, or streetcars.  Kansas City and Indianapolis are much denser and more concentrated, have the heavy centralized commuting patters and more people, and yet they're doing just great without trains.

It's that simple.  Fix what you have first.  Get a political will.  Get people to want to be downtown first, grow downtown second, and then maybe examine streetcars/trains.

[thelakelander]

Is this an April Fool's joke? I'm out and about but I'll respond in detail later.

[JeffreyS]

For me it boils down to designing the city for what you want it to become instead of just hoping the sprawl will just magically fix itself.

[Dashing Dan]

I wanted to start a controversial topic, and that is to say that Jacksonville does not need fixed rail transit right now. 

I can't remember the facts and figures, but in  a class taught by an RS&H executive on urban transit ...

OK I'll bite:

What class and what "RS&H executive"?

[wsansewjs]

I call for April's Fools.

-Josh

[JFman00]

Just as building roads/adding lanes increases demand (does not reduce congestion), adding fixed ROW transit generally increases development around it. Phoenix and Las Vegas "survive" without mass transit, but if that's the quality of life you want, by all means build more roads. The change takes time, and a system will likely operate at a fiscal loss (possibly forever), but there are unpriced externalities that very arguably outweigh the costs. It's a more tenuous argument, but in terms of nightlife, I think bars and clubs are so spread out precisely because there are few fixed hubs to center around (instead there are dozens of mini-hubs spread out everywhere).

On the argument of taxes, http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jobs-and-economy/2012/03/simple-math-can-save-cities-bankruptcy/1629/. You don't really have density if you have to/choose to surround what might be called density with a sea of parking lots or monster parking garages.

[cline]

I'm with Lake, this thread must be a joke. 

On this very board I really have never heard anyone talk about streetcars or light rail or commuter rail in terms of actual commuting. 

You should really check out the search feature on this site.  It can be your friend.  There has been a lot of discussion regarding the various proposed commuter rail lines as they relate to commuting (paid for by a mobility fee by the way).  And please don't confuse streetcars and light rail with commuter rail (which it appears that you have).

And like Dan said, please let us know the name of the RS&H exec. who taught you in in this urban transit class.  I mean, it must have been really informative since you are know able to impart all of this new found transit knowledge on all of us amateurs. 

[simms3]

A) Who cares the name of the person who taught the class?  Instead of trying to take down an argument by either deriding a person I will choose to keep anonymous or calling bullshit, why not pick apart the arguments?

B) I read the articles on this website and the posts and I frequently use the search feature.  I know what's been discussed from Lake's very informative articles, but I also know what people post.  The two are different, and I have not heard many if any posts that explicitly say that said poster is tired of sitting in traffic hell on his/her commute to downtown and would prefer to take a train in.  There aren't that many posters who have 9-5 jobs IN downtown just as there aren't that many in all of Jax who work downtown, and many posts regarding how people would use streetcars involve bar hopping.  Do your own flippin search.


I haven't claimed any expert arguments.  I pointed out some knowledge imparted me in a class regarding density and standard metrics used generally across the board to determine appropriate transit methods, but 99% of what I posted is simply stating the obvious.  Sounds like you guys just can't handle the obvious.

Prove to me I'm wrong that there is no will in Jax for public transit.

Prove to me that we don't have other transit issues we should work on first (i.e. bus stops and routing - something that has also been discussed heavily on this very site)

Prove to me that commuting patterns are actually centralized rather than scattered all about.

Prove to me that there is a way of paying for this, whether it be streetcars, light rail or commuter rail.  If the city can barely pay for landscaping, how the hell is it going to shell out huge amounts of money for a starter streetcar line or light rail line?  And then with extremely low coffers and a low tax base, without raising taxes how do you think citizens would rather allocate money?  Schools or a starter train line?

On top of that, where does the starter train line go?  That's a question I posed that nobody has answered.  Lake and others have written articles with several different options, but it's a difficult question to answer.  It's especially difficult in Jacksonville.  Nothing is centralized, there is a river, and everything makes it more difficult.

Prove to me that in Jacksonville, if you build mass transit all of a sudden everyone will want to live intown and infill will occur and companies will all of a sudden pack up and move.  Prove to me that you don't have to have some of that first, in the first place, before you can further increase that momentum with transit.  Are people just waiting for trains to be built in Jax before they decide to live downtown?  Are developers just itching to build in Jax pending trains?  Come on!!!  Let's not be that stupid.

Prove to me that Jacksonville cannot survive and thrive without fixed-rail transit when much larger, much more successful cities have indeed done just that.

If you can't squash my points either logically or with examples or with fact, then don't call my arguments ridiculous.  It's that simple.

[simms3]

I'm not saying quell the discussion.  Keep the discussion about fixed-rail transit alive and burning, but light a fire under the city's feet to fix its deeper more underlying problems first.

Get the city to find a way to attract a more educated under 35 population.  This is your choice rider and your future intown resident, and a demographic who can afford to live intown and won't require the best public schools for their family, which is not put together yet.

Get the city to reach out more and to be more appealing to visitors.  Visitors are big.  The airport and Gate Parkway are the only aesthetically pleasing areas of the city.  This should not be.  95 should be a little better (first impressions).  Downtown should be better.  I still contend a convention center is more of a priority than trains at this point.

There's just other stuff that needs to be done before the city can warrant the need for trains.  Building mass transit for basically any city is a major decade long process.  And by decade long, I don't mean discussed on a website for a decade, but discussed city-wide for a decade and then voted on, usually in the form of a tax increase.  This is the reality.

[Dashing Dan]

A) Who cares the name of the person who taught the class?  Instead of trying to take down an argument by either deriding a person I will choose to keep anonymous or calling bullshit, why not pick apart the arguments?

I'm not interested in an ad hominen argument, but I was taught in high school that you are only as good as your sources.  Without sources your argument doesn't carry much weight, even though I might be inclined to agree with you.

[simms3]

Dashing Dan, thanks for being a real tough guy.  So one sentence in my post involved charts handed out in a class showing basic metrics of density required for certain transit options (nevermind that the teacher didn't make the charts and that they came from some other source, maybe RS&H itself), you want the teacher's name before you make any responses.  How about PM me?  A) I don't remember the darn teacher's name - it was a woman if that helps.  B) Who cares?  The meat of my post involves general arguments, obvious statements that don't involve hard fact, but may be proven with hard fact if you so have them.  You're copping out.

People make all sorts of claims on this site, myself included, and maybe not all the time does the person want to call out the source.  Quit being a hypocrite here because you don't like the basis of my arguments, none of which involve that class or that teacher.

[Dashing Dan]

I like your argument.  I'm just curious about the reference to RS&H.  I used to work there.  Anyway, you've told me enough for me to figure out who it was.

So let the fun begin!  I will read the responses with great interest.

[simms3]

Fair enough (ps I think I was being too hard in my response, but seriously I'm just preparing myself to be bashed and putting on a thick skin ahead of time).  I wouldn't be surprised if the thread doesn't go far, but I eagerly await Lakelander's response.  I'm surprised he thinks this is an April Fool's!  This thread is very very real and I only made it after getting too tired of hearing people say "we NEED public transit/streetcars".  Goodness gracious Seattle didn't even NEED light rail for a really freakin long time and it's probably one of the top 7 urban/dense cities in America and is considered a gateway city/24-7 market.

If infill were happening and there was a burgeoning rental market and downtown weren't so depressed, I would be inclined to say "let's pile on the momentum and building a streetcar line" along a route where more infill could occur (i.e. Lavilla, Brooklyn, Riverside).  As it stands now, I don't see any action intown, and that's not because there aren't trains running back and forth.  It's because of much more serious, much deeper issues in the city/metro.