Is a gas tax increase a solution to Jax's funding woes?

[marcuscnelson]

Lake, Re: buses, Ford said this earlier in the night*:

...think about the community similar to this community [for reference, this was in Mandarin], where a 40 foot bus doesn't work. It doesn't work, it's too big, it's an overkill, it's very costly to provide the services in smaller communities. These types of vehicles give us the opportunity to have more tailor, door to door at on your schedule type of delivery of services and as we grow older, at some point, I guess, just like my father up in New York I'm having that difficulty getting that driver license out of his 80, plus year old hands that I do want to have that mobility, and to be able to use my phone or a laptop or something and call a vehicle like that and have it come to my front door and take me wherever I want to go fishing or whatever at that point in my in my life. I think that's a benefit that we don't see today, but we need to dream about and think about in the future, it's not ready to go yet, but it's coming. And we have opportunity here in Jacksonville to really be at the very cutting edge and be on the front of it, and not necessarily just the folks that ride public transit benefit, the folks that don't ride public transit, will be able to benefit from this type of technology.

I did point out before Ford's response that Google had spent $3.5 billion (so far) on a system that can't properly recognize traffic cones. I also brought up Cumber's editorial, to which Hazouri interrupted and said:

...just to make a little note for Miss Cumber, and I welcome her input, her husband, Hussein is also was one that 15 member committees I was because I was a liaison at the time for the council, but he voted for not taking it down and doing whatever. Mr. Ford and the board wanted to do the authority want to do in the future. So make no mistake, both and he's an expert in transportation as well.

Let me also grab a quote from Ford about a resident's statement that the AVs appeared too small (it's a bit long, sorry)*:

Yes, thank you and thank you for the question and I think what's happening is we're looking at these vehicles through the lens of what we're used to, which is a 40 foot bus that can handle 50 people and quite often I think you and I get the other complaints sometimes which is why are there only two or three people on that 40 foot bus. And so one of the costs, the major cost of an actual vehicle is actually the operator costs, the actual salary and wages and benefits of that operator costs. So, when we move towards a platform that is autonomous and doesn't have a operator or an attendant and we're not going to do that overnight. It's going to take us a couple of years to get to that point. But when you move to that point, it's a function of capacity and frequency, so we can run dozens and hundreds of those smaller vehicles and be more tailored in terms of where we actually see ridership actually occurring versus having a bus that's on a fixed route with a fixed number of stops when we run it and you have to adapt to our schedule because we're trying to be more efficient in terms of that operation.

Now we can provide a great deal more service those vehicles are able to actually virtually couple. So we can for the bulk for special events and things of that nature, we can couple vehicles and create what's a longer train 10 of those vehicles actually coupled together virtually, and then as they are actually traversing they can break apart on their own and go in different directions, based on where that customer wants to go. So some of this technology, you know, it gives us benefits that we have not had for over 100 years in terms of public transportation, which is the costliness of the actual driver, and we will be working to try and transfer our drivers into other types of skills, think of them as drone operators, going into the future where you have one operator for two vehicles, one operator for three vehicles and eventually, they're all out of the seat and they're actually operating in a control center environment with dozens of vehicles under their control. So, that's kind of the big visioning that we're going to slowly get towards over the next few years, the phase one of the Bay Street Innovation Corridor that project connecting to those sports complex that's within the next two to three years, that's fully funded.

The bigger lift is the aerial structure, and then our plan is in the future to look at extensions in the Brooklyn Riverside, Springfield and San Marco, but we've made a major pivot and I think it's important pivot the JTA is supporting the Emerald Trail and so part of the funding that we originally was seeking will be going to the Emerald Trail to support that project but yeah, only 10 to 12 passengers but I can operate dozens of those for at the cost of one 40-foot bus. Oh, well you know and you didn't make a point, they are operating in other cities around the world. We're not the beta, and in fact we're far from the beta there's actually a number of actual autonomous transportation systems around the world. here in the US, we're late to the party. And because from a road management standpoint, a NITSA standpoint, legal standpoint, liability standpoint with insurance companies, there's a lot of legal activity and activity that needs to occur to to catch up with the rest of the world just 10 years 20 years so two to three years on Bay Street, two to three years on Bay Street, the overall UTC project that's probably another six to seven. Okay, attendance first, and then eventually fully autonomous.

*Just want to note for the record, these transcripts are taken from Otter.ai, which live-transcribes the Zoom call as it occurs, so the exact words may not be 100% accurate.

[thelakelander]

I'll have to read the rest later, but there's a lot out there between a 40 foot bus and a minivan that seats 8 people, running 15mph. Plus, we don't have to touch the skyway or spend hundreds of millions putting AVs on roads. But we already know that here.

[jaxoNOLE]

What about duck boats? They're flexible, require no fixed guideway, hold more people,  operate in mixed traffic, eliminate the need for a new bridge over the river, tap into our local military connections, and because they're so dangerous, we could probably buy them off a bunch of defunct tour operators for a steal. Seems to check a lot of JTA's requirements at a fraction of the price, and you could always retrofit some LIDAR to help with the massive blind spots if you want to innovate. Then they only need to get to level 3 automation,  max.

[marcuscnelson]

Nate gives another great column before going on break for the rest of the month. Read it, it's worth it.

https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/columns/nate-monroe/2021/05/19/jacksonville-gas-tax-vote-represents-turning-point-city/5160597001/

[jaxjags]

^That line basically dismissing fixed transit had me shaking my head.

I'm sure he's a nice guy, but Nate Ford needs to go.

What an awful hill to die on, speculative AV mini-shuttles as your city's long-term mass transportation solution.

Deeply troubling as well that across numerous town halls, op-eds, and public presentations, nobody at JTA even seems capable of clearly articulating the benefit of U2C to the community. I honestly don't even think they know themselves.

Pure sunk cost fallacy.

Pure chasing the shiny new thing at the expense of the proven commodity.

Name me one other city where this level of incompetence exists.

Yes Nate Ford needs to go. His statement that the SkyWay today would costs over $500,000,000(a whooping $200,000,000/mile-More than the original 95/10 interchange costs) shows that a lot of this talk is just talk. He presents no real facts to support his statements. He throws out numbers to justify JTA's position. On top of that we plan to spend $247,000,000 ($100,000,000/mile) just to convert the existing system to clown cars. As Lake said prove to me this is the cheaper option. Spend $50,000,000 +/- to upgrade SkyWay and add 4-5 miles of street car systems.

As Ken says the situation has become troubling to me also. Is it really worth $250,000,000 to essentially keep what we have and serve no more people than we do today? I believe they are continuing down this path for their own egos and future personnel business opportunities. Unless they are told to stop they wont. The only way to keep the septic tanks funds offset, Emerald Trail work and improved roads in underserved areas is to divorce the U2C from the LOGT bill.

(I used all the 000's to remind everyone how large these numbers really are)

[thelakelander]

From a professional perspective, I see no solid reason of why it would make fiscal sense to spend $240 million on 2.5 miles of existing elevated Skyway infrastructure to do anything. AV, streetcar, bus, walking path or whatever. If you have that much money locally to improve your transit network, there are tons of other projects that would be more worthwhile for the community. A few are currently in the long range transportation plan. Here are four right off the top of my head:

- BRT / Premium bus service on Kings Road
- BRT / Premium bus service on Edgewood Avenue
- More funding for commuter rail to St. Johns or Clay Counties
- Bringing passenger rail (intercity/commuter) back to the Prime Osborn/JRTC

It would even make sense to consider things that aren't on the LRTP. For example, you could do a state of the art streetcar, LRT, BRT, etc. starter line extending from DT into surrounding neighborhoods for that cost by leaving the Skyway as is (certainly this includes maintaining it to last until its service life has ended) and just tying your new system into the JRTC to allow for seamless transfers.

I definitely understand the challenges facing the Skyway, potential federal paybacks, etc. I even understand the reasoning for initially exploring AVs. However, everything should be reevaluated at this point, based on the uncertainly and the U2C costs being significantly more than what was told to the public six years ago. This doesn't mean they can't still play with AVs (remember Bay Street is already funded at $44 million....so just do it and see how it works out), but blowing $240 million on the existing Skyway is simply insane.

[thelakelander]

Yes Nate Ford needs to go. His statement that the SkyWay today would costs over $500,000,000(a whooping $200,000,000/mile-More than the original 95/10 interchange costs) shows that a lot of this talk is just talk. He presents no real facts to support his statements. He throws out numbers to justify JTA's position. On top of that we plan to spend $247,000,000 ($100,000,000/mile) just to convert the existing system to clown cars. As Lake said prove to me this is the cheaper option. Spend $50,000,000 +/- to upgrade SkyWay and add 4-5 miles of street car systems.

I get the need to defend the project, if it's what you truly believe in but there is a need to be truthful and transparent with the discussion. These numbers are totally inaccurate, considering there are active and recently completed fixed guideway systems that cost well below the numbers being requested of the U2C. For example, OKC's new modern streetcar system was 1/3rd the cost per mile of what JTA wants to spend turning the Skyway into a elevated road. Even if you're a big AV pusher, it would make more sense to go 100% at-grade and ignore touching or relating the proposed project to the Skyway at all. After all, we're talking about a minibus. Find a few corridors where dedicated transit lanes can be carved out of the existing street network (ex. Tampa's Marion Street Busway or DT Orlando's LYMMO) and call it a day. You can then experiment with AVs and run regular buses /BRT, etc. on them. You can do that for a fraction of the cost, serve more people and not be snake bitten with being associated with the Skyway.

[jaxlongtimer]

...transfer our drivers into other types of skills, think of them as drone operators, going into the future where you have one operator for two vehicles, one operator for three vehicles and eventually, they're all out of the seat and they're actually operating in a control center environment with dozens of vehicles under their control.

I gotta see this.  One person controlling up to dozens of "semi-autonomous" vehicles at once?  Is JTA going to be able to find a human octopus?  Would anyone in the vehicle or, worse, as a pedestrian or fellow vehicle driver, feel safe in or around a vehicle knowing that if it messes up someone may or may not be responding promptly to it going awry?

I think, you know, obviously, we have to make our point in terms of the investment that we're recommending here, we know that downtown Jacksonville is going to develop. We don't expect it to develop in a way that people are not going to need to move around, they're going to need to get to work, they're going to need to get to grocery store, they're going to need to do a whole host of things.

Another, gotta see this.  We have been waiting decades for downtown to "develop."  This argument exactly mirrors the "logic" used to justify the original Skyway.  We know how that turned out.  FAILURE ALERT!  Let's see Downtown "develop" towards more density before we blow hundreds of millions on a theoretical possibility that is not currently in sight.  And, once we see Downtown "develop" to that level, there might be unforeseen advances in technology that are more reliable and offer other options and at lower costs than what is here today.  Plus, once Downtown finally "develops," our transportation "needs" may dictate an entirely different solution.

This is probably the most inexpensive solution going forward. If we start looking at fixed guideways such as rail streetcars, things of that nature. It's permanent, it's not flexible, and frankly it's going to be there for quite some time similar to what we have now.

No, the most inexpensive solution is to kill U2C and the Skyway.  Alternatively, lets just buy a bunch more buses and run them out of the Skyway stations.  They are flexible, not permanent and can be disposed of quickly when the next best thing shows up.

[marcuscnelson]

Decided to take some time put together a conceptual amendment for any interested Council member.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1syWnDTiLa-fmqYftMyIQ9_6ozLMmKSXE/view?usp=sharing

It would reduce the Skyway Conversion to simply Skyway Rehabilitation, convert the Skyway Fleet purchase line into vehicle overhauls, increase the funding for the JRTC Rail Terminal so that we actually get to build a rail terminal versus just planning to, partly (pretty substantially I think) funds a Phase 1 Commuter Rail project to St. Augustine, and still includes $33 million for transit improvements, which in theory could be enough for an entire new BRT corridor or widespread frequency improvements, whatever they can make work.

It's probably not perfect, but I think it's quite a bit better than blowing $240 million to remove a concrete beam.

[Charles Hunter]

Looks good.

Minor quibble - I think in practice the "council districts" only list those physically touched by the proposed projects. So, although "all districts" could conceivably benefit from Skyway improvements or Commuter Rail to St. Augustine, consistency would require listing only those districts where the Skyway and Commuter Rail are (will be) located.

[marcuscnelson]

I get what you're saying, but the Skyway Conversion was listed on the original project list as All. I suppose changing the commuter rail could make sense though, to everyone along the corridor. On the other hand, it could also mean reconfiguring bus service into surrounding neighborhoods and have an effect beyond just the district the track is in.

[marcuscnelson]

Morning, folks.

Sent the proposal to Morgan, DeFoor, Dennis, and Carrico, with the following:

Dear Council Member _______,

For weeks now, you have discussed with your colleagues the prospect of the Local Option Gas Tax increase to make transportation investments in Jacksonville. However, for much of that time, too much attention has been squandered defending the deeply unpopular Ultimate Urban Circulator (U2C) program by JTA, which has largely relied on unproven hypothetical capability while asking taxpayers to bear the cost of research and development.

Last week, City Council took an important step in the right direction by directing funding intended for U2C expansions (based on unproven technology with uncertain costs) to fund the celebrated Emerald Trail project, which will connect more neighborhoods, make a more visible impact on the lives of citizens, and extend far beyond the reaches of the proposed U2C expansions.

But this is not far enough. As someone born and raised on the First Coast, I feel a responsibility to enrich this dialogue by offering an alternative to the proposed Skyway conversion project along the same lines of the Emerald Trail's benefits: connect more neighborhoods, more visibly improve citizens' lives, and extend further than Downtown Jacksonville. Attached you will find the result:

The Amendment for Regional and Urban Transportation directs funds intended for an unnecessary conversion of existing transportation infrastructure to provide for a more substantial infrastructure program, connecting Downtown Jacksonville to not just St. Augustine and the neighborhoods along the way, but to the rest of Florida and the nation via Amtrak and preparation for future Brightline service. All the while making investments to improve traditional transportation options across Jacksonville.

The Amendment reorganizes the Skyway project, focusing solely on rehabilitating the existing infrastructure to last until the completion of federal obligations, and overhauling Skyway vehicles to provide high-frequency service between downtown neighborhoods like Southbank, Brooklyn, LaVilla, and NorthCore.

With the now-available funding, the Amendment facilitates progress on the new JRTC Rail Terminal, dedicating funding for partnership with Amtrak to return passenger rail to Downtown Jacksonville, enabling improved intercity connections to Orlando, Tampa, and South Florida, as well as north via Amtrak's Silver Service. A Public-Private-Partnership with Brightline also provides the opportunity to make early investments in bringing Brightline to Jacksonville.

Critically, the Amendment provides substantial funding for long-awaited commuter rail service between Downtown Jacksonville and St. Augustine, providing an alternative to congestion and construction on I-95 and enabling a new transit spine for connecting bus services along the corridor. This project has numerous benefits for residents by supporting future development in station areas and, with an opportunity for a Public-Private-Partnership with Brightline, builds the foundation for high speed rail connections to extend to Jacksonville.

Finally, the Amendment provides additional funding for JTA to enhance transportation services throughout the City of Jacksonville by increasing bus frequencies and expanding the First Coast Flyer.

By making simple, inexpensive repairs to the Skyway and investing in transportation across the First Coast, the Amendment for Regional and Urban Transportation makes the Local Option Gas Tax more responsive to citizens and more practical for Jacksonville.

Please introduce this amendment so that we can ensure the LOGT is a truly worthwhile investment for the City of Jacksonville.

[icarus]

Great work ... I just hope City Council is listening for once.

Morning, folks.

Sent the proposal to Morgan, DeFoor, Dennis, and Carrico, with the following:

Dear Council Member _______,

For weeks now, you have discussed with your colleagues the prospect of the Local Option Gas Tax increase to make transportation investments in Jacksonville. However, for much of that time, too much attention has been squandered defending the deeply unpopular Ultimate Urban Circulator (U2C) program by JTA, which has largely relied on unproven hypothetical capability while asking taxpayers to bear the cost of research and development.

Last week, City Council took an important step in the right direction by directing funding intended for U2C expansions (based on unproven technology with uncertain costs) to fund the celebrated Emerald Trail project, which will connect more neighborhoods, make a more visible impact on the lives of citizens, and extend far beyond the reaches of the proposed U2C expansions.

But this is not far enough. As someone born and raised on the First Coast, I feel a responsibility to enrich this dialogue by offering an alternative to the proposed Skyway conversion project along the same lines of the Emerald Trail's benefits: connect more neighborhoods, more visibly improve citizens' lives, and extend further than Downtown Jacksonville. Attached you will find the result:

The Amendment for Regional and Urban Transportation directs funds intended for an unnecessary conversion of existing transportation infrastructure to provide for a more substantial infrastructure program, connecting Downtown Jacksonville to not just St. Augustine and the neighborhoods along the way, but to the rest of Florida and the nation via Amtrak and preparation for future Brightline service. All the while making investments to improve traditional transportation options across Jacksonville.

The Amendment reorganizes the Skyway project, focusing solely on rehabilitating the existing infrastructure to last until the completion of federal obligations, and overhauling Skyway vehicles to provide high-frequency service between downtown neighborhoods like Southbank, Brooklyn, LaVilla, and NorthCore.

With the now-available funding, the Amendment facilitates progress on the new JRTC Rail Terminal, dedicating funding for partnership with Amtrak to return passenger rail to Downtown Jacksonville, enabling improved intercity connections to Orlando, Tampa, and South Florida, as well as north via Amtrak's Silver Service. A Public-Private-Partnership with Brightline also provides the opportunity to make early investments in bringing Brightline to Jacksonville.

Critically, the Amendment provides substantial funding for long-awaited commuter rail service between Downtown Jacksonville and St. Augustine, providing an alternative to congestion and construction on I-95 and enabling a new transit spine for connecting bus services along the corridor. This project has numerous benefits for residents by supporting future development in station areas and, with an opportunity for a Public-Private-Partnership with Brightline, builds the foundation for high speed rail connections to extend to Jacksonville.

Finally, the Amendment provides additional funding for JTA to enhance transportation services throughout the City of Jacksonville by increasing bus frequencies and expanding the First Coast Flyer.

By making simple, inexpensive repairs to the Skyway and investing in transportation across the First Coast, the Amendment for Regional and Urban Transportation makes the Local Option Gas Tax more responsive to citizens and more practical for Jacksonville.

Please introduce this amendment so that we can ensure the LOGT is a truly worthwhile investment for the City of Jacksonville.

[marcuscnelson]

Just got a text:

You can help Jacksonville grow and prosper! Tell your City Council member that you support Jobs for Jax! JobsForJax.org Txt stop 2 stop

Looking at https://jobsforjax.org (not the same as jobsforjax.net, which is the official project site), it's "sponsored" by JaxBiz, which is JaxChamber's PAC.

[Ken_FSU]

Fantastic day for Jacksonville.

Don't agree with U2C, but big picture, a huge win for the city as we finally begin to make strides to invest in ourselves and fulfill some long overdue promises.

I genuinely do think the Emerald Trail has the opportunity to be transformational, and I actually think the JTA will probably manage the project better than the city would have.

Good for Curry pushing this thing through, and good for City Council making the right decision.