St. Augustine commission supports commuter rail to Jacksonville

[thelakelander]

BTW, I tend to view the Health Line project more as a complete or context sensitive streets project than BRT. The complete Euclid Avenue corridor was rebuilt to include dedicated bus lanes, bike lanes, wide sidewalks, landscaping and fiber optics. A road diet was done to accommodate this but the costs were something like $25M per mile. That's like building a modern streetcar line.

[Ocklawaha]

Guess old habits die hard... Guess I'll always see it as the 'Silver Line' which fits nicely with their Red, Blue and Green Lines.

RTA owns and operates the RTA Rapid Transit rail system (better known as "The Rapid"), which consists of one heavy rail line (the Red Line) and two interurban light rail lines (the Blue, Green and light-rail Waterfront extension line). The bulk of RTA's service consists of buses, including regular routes, express or flyer buses, loop and paratransit buses. In

Naming rights for the line were purchased by the Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals for twenty-five years. The BRT route, originally named the "Silver Line", which serves the two major health industry employers in Cleveland, is named the HealthLine.

"JUST LIKE RAIL ONLY CHEAPER?"




Wonder how our own 'BRT' will stack up? Check out the score, note that sidewalks and bike's are very much a part of a high score BRT system.






HERE ARE A COUPLE OF SHOTS OF LAST WEEKENDS MCI J-4500, Thanks to friend Carter and Kelly Tours for the invite.

[Ocklawaha]

Just went over the BRT score card with JTA's new MAX service and came up with a score of 51 (at best) meaning it falls in the 'BASIC BRT' level, below gold, silver and bronze. The Achilles Heel of BRT is going to be the sales pitch that tries to convince the public that they are getting 'light rail' at an amazingly low cost. The reality check that follows will leave a bitter taste when it fails to 'be light rail.'

[thelakelander]

^Yeah, that's a sales pitch that sets you up for failure.  We're getting what was implemented in Kansas City and Las Vegas, not Cleveland or Pittsburgh. 

A reliable and easy to understand bus corridor.  Nothing wrong with the concept.  We've just had years of a bad sales pitch and questionable route planning.

[tufsu1]

Tampa's MetroRapid BRT (similar to what is planned here) starts service next week

[Ocklawaha]

^Yeah, that's a sales pitch that sets you up for failure.  We're getting what was implemented in Kansas City and Las Vegas, not Cleveland or Pittsburgh. 

A reliable and easy to understand bus corridor.  Nothing wrong with the concept.  We've just had years of a bad sales pitch and questionable route planning.

Absolutely true Lake.

If I was planning this thing, the northern route would use Pearl to Gateway, I like the rest of that route. The bus route should terminate at JIA and by using that 'back door' to the airport it would touch the free trade zone which should open more jobs to the carless.

Its the southern route that I take issue with. Philips is somewhat industrial but there is far more employment along streets like Baymeadows Way. My best scenario for the southern route would be to scrap it and head east on Arlington Expressway all the way to the beaches.

Actually as I've stated before I'd actually add more BRT then JTA has planned. A 'Freeway Flyer' (a good name JTA once used)  over the Acosta then south on I-95 to JTB or Baymeadows, and hence east to job/retail/dining/apartment clusters, ultimately terminating at the Beach. Making broad use of the Freeways as a tool to jump ahead from downtown to the target burbs. There is also merit in a route straight down the curb lane of San Jose, all the way to Julington Creek Plantation.

If funding could be obtained I could see JTA servicing Julington Plantation... that route could easily be the BRT. Otherwise I would encourage what I call 'Lollipop Routes,' where Sunshine Bus would stop at the Avenues interchange then head downtown NON STOP to the transit center. Likewise a JTA route would stop at the Avenues then head non-stop into central St. Augustine, in both cases there is a long stem, then a short turnaround at the end points.

[JFman00]

Call me elitist but I've only ever paid to ride a bus to get to/from fixed route transit, or to move within the same neighborhood when the weather is bad. Or when I'm in Europe.

[thelakelander]

Guess old habits die hard... Guess I'll always see it as the 'Silver Line' which fits nicely with their Red, Blue and Green Lines.

RTA owns and operates the RTA Rapid Transit rail system (better known as "The Rapid"), which consists of one heavy rail line (the Red Line) and two interurban light rail lines (the Blue, Green and light-rail Waterfront extension line). The bulk of RTA's service consists of buses, including regular routes, express or flyer buses, loop and paratransit buses. In

Naming rights for the line were purchased by the Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals for twenty-five years. The BRT route, originally named the "Silver Line", which serves the two major health industry employers in Cleveland, is named the HealthLine.

"JUST LIKE RAIL ONLY CHEAPER?"

I took a few trips on both the HealthLine BRT and Red Line last week.  I'll have a full story and lots of pictures ready to go on the front page this Thursday.  All I'll say is, you guys may need to flesh out the definition of "rapid".  Heading out of Cleveland, it took us 40 minutes to go six miles between downtown and University Circle.  My poor friend from Baltimore remarked that the bus ride was longer than her scheduled flight time back to the East Coast.  I think if we had to do it again, my group would have pooled together cash and caught a taxi.

Here's an image from our crowded bus.  Although we had signal priority, we had to wait at some intersections like this, where left turn drivers had blocked our movement.



Riding the Red Line....

[thelakelander]

What makes the Seattle SLUT (or whatever they are calling it now) a success and all these other systems failures? It certainly isn't ridership. The Skyway gets double the daily ridership. To me, the greatest thing about the SLUT, and half of these other systems, is their ability to encourage infill growth and development.

Perhaps you're right about SLUT because most of the development in that area is arguably not due to the trolley, though 2,500 riders on 1.3 miles is in a sense comparable to 5,400 riders on 2.5 miles, and SLUT charges $2.50/ride whilst the Skyway is free.

But, I still think Tri-Rail, Capital Metrorail, and Nashville Star among other commuter rail systems are failures.  They are a waste.  If we can dramatically change land use and zoning and gather the political support from the community to incorporate complete streets and limit sprawl growth (all of which Portland did), then I'd sing a different tune.  For now, I just want to see a really good transit line put in so that we can use it as a shining beacon...I do not want to spend money, time or effort on a system that won't be a good public example that allows us to leverage increased political will for more transit and better zoning/planning.

(Long time lurker here)

I completely disagree about Tri-Rail, and you cannot place it in the same camp as the Nashville Star and Capital Metrorail. South Florida is completely sprawled out between Jupiter and Homestead, a completely different environment than Austin and Nashville where people drive to downtown in the morning and to the suburbs in the afternoon. Tri-Rail serves West Palm Beach, Boca Raton, Cypress Creek, Fort Lauderdale, and Miami (via Metrorail) and have a number of people originating or detraining there throughout the day. It's probably one of the most unique metro areas in the United States based on that aspect. Ridership has bounced back after the financial crisis, carrying a record amount of passengers last year. Service this year expanded to hourly weekend service, and there are plans to run additional trains on the Florida East Coast line through downtowns, in addition to the current service along I-95.

Good point about Tri-Rail.  It definitely has more in common with a system like the TRE, between Dallas and Fort Worth, than Capital Metrorail or the Music City Star.

As far as Jacksonville, St. Augustine to Jacksonville makes the most sense at the moment. The Florida East Coast is a well maintained railroad, and is now very interested in passenger rail on there track (Amtrak, AAF, and Tri-Rail). Capital cost would probably be the lowest of all the routes proposed because of the well maintained tracks. Add some sidings, build stations, buy equipment, and voila! It might not even be a bad idea to have the line go all the way down to Bunnell (Palm Coast). Extend the Palm Coast Parkway west to the FEC ROW for your Palm Coast stop. Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of people between St. Augustine and I-295, and St. Augustine and Palm Coast.

I just wonder, what happens to this concept's feasibility if there's BRT on Philips between DT and Avenues Mall and AAF actually expands to Jax with a similar styled service they're proposing between Miami and Orlando?

The southwest line to Green Cove Springs is also very appealing population density wise, but CSX would probably be much more demanding.

The solution here is to pay the party pooper and punch bowl pisser to stay home. If it were up to me, I'd outright attempt to purchase the A-Line from CSX so they would just go away.  With complete control over that line, you could get pretty creative with that corridor.