DIA Chairman Donald Harris: Extend Skyway to Everbank Field?

[Ocklawaha]

Exactly Doug, and Lake.  That San Marco extension to Atlantic would be a beehive of activity.  No bus or streetcar can reliably serve that corridor because of delays caused by random crossing blockages by the Florida East Coast Railway. Thus a line from west of the tracks at Atlantic in San Marco with cross platform transfers would put the Skyway in a powerful position. There are some 9,000 employees at Baptist, Wolfson and Aetna. ANY of those employees living in south Duval or St. Johns, or people traveling up the FECI or Amtrak could, in the future, step off of that train, walk 15 feet, and enter the Skyway car. That Skyway car then takes them to a pretty serious density of offices, medical, hotel and apartment complexes. This the line SHOULD BE extended to San Marco.

Riverside should be served at Lelia and Riverside Avenue via a temporary track and station. Eventually the line could be extended to the corner of Riverside and Forest avenue where the Skyway could meet inbound streetcars, BRT and city buses.

Our track structure is enormous and famously overbuilt, future Skyway extensions should be BASIC.

Almost every quality transit system in the world functions with a system of transfers, Jacksonville should be no different.

Once again, I do believe the Skyway going down Bay to Randolph would add nearly a million riders to the annual reports. Toss in a transit dependent East Jacksonville community and you've got as good a base as San Marco.

Lastly the Skyway extension should be done in traditional monorail style and JTA should lose the massive, overbuilt tub they've put the tracks in for future extensions. The top photo is a monorail in Thailand, note it is running near ground level and the track is very simple compared to what JTA/FDOT built. The second photo shows how light the construction could be with Disney's state of the art application. (Before you go all gangsta on a Mickey Mouse Monorail, you'd do well to understand it is the western hemisphere NUMBER one system).

Currently the entire transit system turns it's back on East Bay Street, the stadiums, arena, and East Jacksonville. Sending the Skyway east with basic track structure would be cost effective adding a million annual riders to the system at a minimum. 

[simms3]

Riverside should be served at Lelia and Riverside Avenue via a temporary track and station. Eventually the line could be extended to the corner of Riverside and Forest avenue where the Skyway could meet inbound streetcars, BRT and city buses.

Almost every quality transit system in the world functions with a system of transfers, Jacksonville should be no different.

Currently the entire transit system turns it's back on East Bay Street, the stadiums, arena, and East Jacksonville. Sending the Skyway east with basic track structure would be cost effective adding a million annual riders to the system at a minimum. 

Would love to be proven wrong, and I realize I am just the simpleton guy who really doesn't know anything about transit aside from what I was told in one class and what I've experienced in 14 difference cities (HRT, LRT, streetcar, bus and commuter rail), but I just don't see a transfer system working with most in Jacksonville yet, aside from those who work low-paying jobs downtown or do bus transfers downtown who are stuck with whatever system we build because they simply don't have a car.

Knowing how little traffic there is in Jax, how abundant and cheap/free parking is, and how easily and conveniently I can get around via car, I would not take a streetcar or LRT "into the city" that forced me to get off before my destination to transfer to the Skyway (to me it defeats the whole purpose).

And let's not compare Jacksonville transit to "any quality transit system in the world".  First Jacksonville needs to build a basic transit system to test it out and set the foundation stone.  I don't think Jacksonville's first try at it should involve transfers or anything "fancy" and complicated.  Cities similar in size to Jax at the time they added transit, such as Charlotte and SLC, and even Portland for that matter, didn't try anything fancy...just one LRT line going from one area of the city straight into downtown.

Finally, adding a million riders would be relatively significant for the Skyway, but I wouldn't say it comes close to justifying the extension you refer to.  1,000,000 more riders is only 2,750 more people per day, which would essentially double ridership and probably bring ridership to ~1,800-2,000 per mile, but knowing how expensive the Skyway is, no matter how much we simplify the track, that is not worth it (that wouldn't even come close to qualifying a new streetcar line).