Commuter Rail's Return?

[jaxoNOLE]

Not sure if this has been shared on the board here, though based on some of the ideas already flagged, it looks like some members may already be aware of it:

https://ventureoutjax.com/

The City of Jacksonville Transportation Planning Division, which focuses on transportation policy, long-range planning, and project development, is undertaking an outreach effort to identify transportation infrastructure and safety issues throughout Jacksonville. These can range from fixing sidewalks and addressing flooding issues, to potentially identifying new roadways.

This website will allow you to provide feedback to the Transportation Planning Division that will help to identify problems and issues and guide resources to address these issues that residents of the City of Jacksonville are facing in their day-to-day travel. Please visit the interactive map and leave us your thoughts. 

There's an ability to map ideas and, once they are vetted and approved (which in my experience has taken several days), other contributors can like and comment on those ideas. The topic of this thread and others could be a great addition to the feedback they are collecting.

[marcuscnelson]

Agree on River to Sea. Think COJ/NFTPO can launch the effort and loop them in as things move forward. But someone has to fire that starting gun.

Thanks for sharing! This basically answers why most commuter rail related technical and/or timeline questions can't be answered. Outside of having updated graphics, I'm not sure what this really accomplishes. Since there's no real plan or timeline for implementation, no one should expect an adjacent property owner to commit to redeveloping anything illustrated in that particular fashion.

As I said, this is piecemeal wheel-spinning. This isn't what it looks like if you're serious about moving a rail project forward, and JTA knows that because they put serious effort into anything but rail.

In looking at that master plan, which is what they presented at the JRTC - THAT's what cost $2M?  I saw another master plan for an area of town, and I think that one cost either $400K or $600K.  It was actually a little more robust than this one in that it included artist's renderings done for the plan, not done previously by the client and thrown in for inclusion.

We are all in the wrong line of work...

Not to diminish other people's work - there were some graphics in there that I could tell whoever was tasked with doing them, it was a bit tedious.  But this study is basically:

A recent aerial picture of LaVilla and Avenues Walk apartments - $500 or so
A picture gathering trip to Atlanta (or maybe hiring Atl photographer there) - $1,000
Google Earth - free
Renderings/pictures found on the web -  free, maybe some required artistic use purchases, so call it $2,500
Graphic designer + high end graphic design tools - $100K?  I don't know, more?  Less?
Travel + time for interviews of various parties - $10K?
Salary of the people involved in writing the study - $100K x 2?

And this assumes this is the only study/product the graphic designer and two people do in a year, but in reality they are probably doing many for many clients, and they probably borrow plenty of language from other studies if it fits the bill for this one too.

I just don't understand how these things balloon to $2M, and who is pocketing that??  We all need to figure this out for our own good...

I've wondered wistfully a few times looking at JTA's RFPs if I should start a consulting firm. Not today, I guess.

This study is perhaps a little less than $2 million, but probably not less than $1 million. The original FTA grant was about $900k and there's usually a local share required, which is probably why it took so long to actually start the study.

This is a WSP study, so they would be the ones getting paid with this funding. But I'm sure that there is no relevance in the fact that Nat Ford's wife is an executive at WSP.

Not sure if this has been shared on the board here, though based on some of the ideas already flagged, it looks like some members may already be aware of it:

https://ventureoutjax.com/

The City of Jacksonville Transportation Planning Division, which focuses on transportation policy, long-range planning, and project development, is undertaking an outreach effort to identify transportation infrastructure and safety issues throughout Jacksonville. These can range from fixing sidewalks and addressing flooding issues, to potentially identifying new roadways.

This website will allow you to provide feedback to the Transportation Planning Division that will help to identify problems and issues and guide resources to address these issues that residents of the City of Jacksonville are facing in their day-to-day travel. Please visit the interactive map and leave us your thoughts. 

There's an ability to map ideas and, once they are vetted and approved (which in my experience has taken several days), other contributors can like and comment on those ideas. The topic of this thread and others could be a great addition to the feedback they are collecting.

Whoops, just added a lot of things to that map. Hopefully they don't reject them. Surely if the main website says that one can propose entire new roads then one can also suggest transit elements. If the city's paying via various taxes then they have the right to also say what transit they want.

[jaxoNOLE]

Whoops, just added a lot of things to that map. Hopefully they don't reject them. Surely if the main website says that one can propose entire new roads then one can also suggest transit elements. If the city's paying via various taxes then they have the right to also say what transit they want.

I think it's more a review to ensure they aren't getting trolled or allowing anything inappropriate. As long you refrained from the most explicit version of how bleeping wasteful the U2C is, I think your comments will make it through!

[simms3]

In looking at that master plan, which is what they presented at the JRTC - THAT's what cost $2M?  I saw another master plan for an area of town, and I think that one cost either $400K or $600K.  It was actually a little more robust than this one in that it included artist's renderings done for the plan, not done previously by the client and thrown in for inclusion.

We are all in the wrong line of work...

Not to diminish other people's work - there were some graphics in there that I could tell whoever was tasked with doing them, it was a bit tedious.  But this study is basically:

A recent aerial picture of LaVilla and Avenues Walk apartments - $500 or so
A picture gathering trip to Atlanta (or maybe hiring Atl photographer there) - $1,000
Google Earth - free
Renderings/pictures found on the web -  free, maybe some required artistic use purchases, so call it $2,500
Graphic designer + high end graphic design tools - $100K?  I don't know, more?  Less?
Travel + time for interviews of various parties - $10K?
Salary of the people involved in writing the study - $100K x 2?

And this assumes this is the only study/product the graphic designer and two people do in a year, but in reality they are probably doing many for many clients, and they probably borrow plenty of language from other studies if it fits the bill for this one too.

I just don't understand how these things balloon to $2M, and who is pocketing that??  We all need to figure this out for our own good...

I've wondered wistfully a few times looking at JTA's RFPs if I should start a consulting firm. Not today, I guess.

This study is perhaps a little less than $2 million, but probably not less than $1 million. The original FTA grant was about $900k and there's usually a local share required, which is probably why it took so long to actually start the study.

This is a WSP study, so they would be the ones getting paid with this funding. But I'm sure that there is no relevance in the fact that Nat Ford's wife is an executive at WSP.

YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!  UGH UGH UGH we are a Republican run New Orleans or Chicago.  Same corruption, same hiding under the local favored political party.  Absolutely out of control...

[marcuscnelson]

Anyway, it looks like they uploaded both the Duval and St. Johns presentations to the study website. Did anyone here attend the St. Johns session?

My first impression is definitely that this gives very little thought to the already-extant plants for most of these areas. Other than basically completely giving up on stuff like the Broudy site in St. Augustine (because it's basically out of the authority's hands, of course), it feels almost haphazard.

Taking a deeper dive...

To speak generally, the fact that they had to highlight that this plan isn't actually about planning a railroad comes off as admitting that they're wasting everyone's time, especially by then showing a timeline that demonstrates they've been spinning wheels for over three decades now.

The JRTC plan just seems like a rehash of what was already done for the U2C TOD study, and before that the LaVilla master plan. We already know what needs to happen there.

Baymeadows has the chance to be interesting, I'm curious whether they'd actually suggest redirecting buses (including the Flyer) to this location. It makes sense to acknowledge that the existing retail centers are underutilized, though it's weird that this completely ignores everything to the east of the railway between it and Phillips. There's still a remarkable amount of parking in the design. The proposal to redevelop that shopping center is fine, but of course if the actual rail project is so far out it doesn't really inspire actually doing anything.

The Avenues Walk concept is pretty much based on just getting rid of the existing retail. Not saying that's a bad idea, but I don't see where the pull would be on JTA or WSP's part to make that happen. Curious that they went so far as coming up with phasing. The proposal here suggests nearly 600,000 square feet of office space, which... for who? And in a practical sense, all the development is pretty far from the actual rail station. While that's not necessarily disqualifying it demands some high-quality connectivity to be meaningful. Also there's a ton of parking, including a straight-up 500-space garage, which seems to defeat the point of being built around a regional rail station.

The 210 idea seems to answer the question of what they'd do now that Racetrack is out of the running (because they're obviously not going to redevelop a brand-new shopping center). But of course the problem there is that the area there is largely spoken for already. I wonder how they expect to "leverage the school board owned parcel" when that's been planned for a bus depot for some time now. I recall the closest parcel being proposed for workforce housing, although that will be at the end of a stub road once St. Johns County eliminates the road crossing. In a sense it feels like these studies just work too slow to actually make a meaningful impact unless you're downtown Jacksonville where just nothing happens.

Palencia has been proposed for a while, but at this point a lot of the development has already happened to the east, and to the west it's either preserve or industrial land. I don't know how they think the River Water Management District is going to let them use that northern parcel. I'm not opposed to the southern stuff but it seems like a lot to have to likely remediate that land in order to redevelop.

It seems like they knew there wasn't much to say about King St because it's already done what a study like this would be supposed to precipitate by rezoning and having a developer prepared to redevelop the site. Honestly their renderings are nicer than what it looks like the final proposal will be, but that's almost certainly St. Augustine's fault for demanding a massive garage and adding a bunch of zoning limitations.

I like that the idea of extending further down the FEC is in here with the SR 312 station. Expanding Dobbs Rd sounds like a good idea, though potentially costly from an infrastructure standpoint. Most of that land isn't very utilized so there's some opportunity, but I'd bet the low density housing to the southwest is going to be a real pain about actually building anything.

But of course, this plan makes no progress on actually constructing a rail line on any useful timeframe, so why does any of this matter?

[thelakelander]

In looking at that master plan, which is what they presented at the JRTC - THAT's what cost $2M?  I saw another master plan for an area of town, and I think that one cost either $400K or $600K.  It was actually a little more robust than this one in that it included artist's renderings done for the plan, not done previously by the client and thrown in for inclusion.

We are all in the wrong line of work...

Not to diminish other people's work - there were some graphics in there that I could tell whoever was tasked with doing them, it was a bit tedious.  But this study is basically:

A recent aerial picture of LaVilla and Avenues Walk apartments - $500 or so
A picture gathering trip to Atlanta (or maybe hiring Atl photographer there) - $1,000
Google Earth - free
Renderings/pictures found on the web -  free, maybe some required artistic use purchases, so call it $2,500
Graphic designer + high end graphic design tools - $100K?  I don't know, more?  Less?
Travel + time for interviews of various parties - $10K?
Salary of the people involved in writing the study - $100K x 2?

And this assumes this is the only study/product the graphic designer and two people do in a year, but in reality they are probably doing many for many clients, and they probably borrow plenty of language from other studies if it fits the bill for this one too.

I just don't understand how these things balloon to $2M, and who is pocketing that??  We all need to figure this out for our own good...

I've wondered wistfully a few times looking at JTA's RFPs if I should start a consulting firm. Not today, I guess.

This study is perhaps a little less than $2 million, but probably not less than $1 million. The original FTA grant was about $900k and there's usually a local share required, which is probably why it took so long to actually start the study.

This is a WSP study, so they would be the ones getting paid with this funding. But I'm sure that there is no relevance in the fact that Nat Ford's wife is an executive at WSP.

YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!  UGH UGH UGH we are a Republican run New Orleans or Chicago.  Same corruption, same hiding under the local favored political party.  Absolutely out of control...

LOL....what?!

For real though, I'm failing to see why this would be more than a $150k to $200k study. Doing this study in general is very questionable because nothing tangible is going to come of it. However, anything close to $1 million is reprehensible.

[marcuscnelson]

For real though, I'm failing to see why this would be more than a $150k to $200k study. Doing this study in general is very questionable because nothing tangible is going to come of it. However, anything close to $1 million is reprehensible.

Somehow San Francisco only needed $350k from that same federal funding pool to plan TOD at nine existing BART stations, and Madison only needed $290k for TOD planning along a BRT line. At the same time other places have requested more over the years too. I have no idea why the three TOD studies JTA has done so far (U2C, Flyer Green Line, and this) have all required about a million in federal funding each. I certainly don't get the impression that they really did anything to make the Artea project happen (aside from already owning the land), as they claim, and the KIPP project on Golfair has pretty far pre-dated the Green Line study. Despite the obvious opportunity at Gateway Mall and the work they already did planning MobilityWorks, little has actually come of any of that. I mean the Green Line study isn't even technically done yet, and the BRT line has been in operation for nearly 8 years now.

[marcuscnelson]

Had a random thought today, maybe someone else has had it before. Looking at OpenRailwayMap, it occurred to me that the line CSX currently uses to access Yulee, the one that passes through Brentwood Golf Course, is... well, a thing.

I wonder if perhaps instead, any future northern regional rail line should use that line so that the S-Line can be used for light rail instead. LRT would have the benefit of allowing limited street-running to make connections and a much less substantial infrastructure compared to mainline regional rail trains, especially along the S-Line. It also means not having to figure out a way through the JTA Myrtle Avenue campus in order to reach the JRTC, although it appears that may be set for some form of reconstruction in the future anyway.

Although the CSX line reaches less direct urbanized areas, it'd still pass by Gateway Mall, where you could potentially extend the light rail to for a connection. Looking at the 2009 study that line isn't even mentioned aside from appearing on maps, and I'm not sure why.

[HeartofFlorida]

Anyway, it looks like they uploaded both the Duval and St. Johns presentations to the study website. Did anyone here attend the St. Johns session?

Thanks for sharing! This basically answers why most commuter rail related technical and/or timeline questions can't be answered. Outside of having updated graphics, I'm not sure what this really accomplishes. Since there's no real plan or timeline for implementation, no one should expect an adjacent property owner to commit to redeveloping anything illustrated in that particular fashion.

In looking at that master plan, which is what they presented at the JRTC - THAT's what cost $2M?  I saw another master plan for an area of town, and I think that one cost either $400K or $600K.  It was actually a little more robust than this one in that it included artist's renderings done for the plan, not done previously by the client and thrown in for inclusion.

We are all in the wrong line of work...

Not to diminish other people's work - there were some graphics in there that I could tell whoever was tasked with doing them, it was a bit tedious.  But this study is basically:

A recent aerial picture of LaVilla and Avenues Walk apartments - $500 or so
A picture gathering trip to Atlanta (or maybe hiring Atl photographer there) - $1,000
Google Earth - free
Renderings/pictures found on the web -  free, maybe some required artistic use purchases, so call it $2,500
Graphic designer + high end graphic design tools - $100K?  I don't know, more?  Less?
Travel + time for interviews of various parties - $10K?
Salary of the people involved in writing the study - $100K x 2?

And this assumes this is the only study/product the graphic designer and two people do in a year, but in reality they are probably doing many for many clients, and they probably borrow plenty of language from other studies if it fits the bill for this one too.

I just don't understand how these things balloon to $2M, and who is pocketing that??  We all need to figure this out for our own good...

Can we say Racket!!


Seriously, I'm an architect at heart but in Information Technology by profession.  I do photography as a hobby. I graduated from Florida A&M University with a degree in Computer Science and minor in Mathematical Science.  Needless to say, I'd be willing to get Jax all the info needed for $50K 

[iMarvin]

Well there's an update... kind of.

1) JTA is planning on talking to the "railroad folks." Mentions wanting to run to the airport and Amtrak and the airport so I assume there will be talks with CSX as well as FEC.
2) Wants to provide an alternative to I-95 given all the planned construction.
3) Peluso doesn't want it to just be a shuttle for St Johns County residents and wants it to benefit Jacksonville as well, which maybe is where the light rail mention is coming from?
4) 100 feet ROW along the FEC, enough for four tracks.
5) More studies need to be completed (even though this corridor was already studied a decade ago??).

JTA looking at light rail possibilities that go beyond intercity travel

Hard to really take any of this seriously when they haven't even talked to FEC/CSX yet but... at least it's something?

I find it ironic the I-95 expansion is used a reason for looking into rail... why not just put all that money towards a rail system instead? One more lane doesn't work. With 100 feet of ROW, you have enough to build dedicated tracks for just passenger use. I would hope JTA would pursue something with decent frequencies (30 minutes at worst, preferably 15) 7 days a week to provide a true alternative to taking I-95.

It honestly sounds like you could have some type of service between Jacksonville and St Augustine in 5 years if JTA/Jacksonville made this a priority. I know it won't happen but kinda crazy to see how more feasible projects are getting ignored for the U2C.

[marcuscnelson]

Feels like we're getting led on some more. Maybe JTA needs a distraction from growing unrest over the U2C. News outlets are always mixing up what exactly "light rail" is, it sounds like they've done that here.

I think FDOT was pretty clear that they weren't really interested in trying to do commuter rail as I-95 mitigation the way they did with Tri-Rail. Perhaps they don't expect traffic to be bad enough to justify doing so (although that calls into question the necessity of the widening in the first place). But it's JTA themselves telling St. Augustine that commuter rail would be a decade away anyway, by which a lot of the I-95 work would already be done.

Dedicated passenger tracks would be interesting, but it'd also substantially increase the cost which it doesn't seem anyone has a real interest in paying locally anyway. FrontRunner in Utah is a good comparison for what that could be, but Utah is a lot more willing to spend on mass transit than Florida is.

Also worth noting that the "project under MobilityWorks 2.0" that Greer Johnson Gillis mentions has about $3.4 million in funding from the gas tax. Obviously that is not enough to do anything of use. And this comes after the millions that have been trickled into rail development for about three decades now. If anything, it sounds like they're basically starting over with how vague this all sounds. That or they haven't actually really done any of this work until now.

In a nutshell, as lakelander has said, this project continues to lack both guidance and urgency that would actually deliver a rail service on any useful timeframe. And why wouldn't it? JTA doesn't want to build rail systems. They want, as they've demonstrated with what they've asked for substantial funding for, to build self-driving car networks.

[thelakelander]

All a bunch of hot air. We're no closer to commuter rail or any other form of rail-based transit than we were in the early 2000s. Unfortunately, anything done back then is now out of date and will have to be done over again, whenever we really do get serious about putting the money where our mouths are at.

[marcuscnelson]

This ended up under the radar, but I thought I'd note that WSP did complete their final report on the Commuter Rail TOD study back in December (but didn't upload it to their site until March):

https://jtafcrtod.com/pdfs/24.3.1_JTA_FCCR_TOD_Report_&_Appendix.pdf

[thelakelander]

Just got done flipping through the TOD document. In general, there's a lot of visioning on private property that's not available for TOD redevelopment to serve a commuter rail system that doesn't exist and that also doesn't have a real committed timeline for implementation. This doesn't appear to be getting us anywhere closer than we were in 2008. All I see is millions spent on studies but we're still at ground zero and attempting to blow hundreds of millions in something that was never included in any of the previous visioning efforts. Here are a few archived gems from back then:

2007 - 2025 Rapid Transit System



2008 - Jacksonville Streetcar Study



2008 - JTA Commuter Rail Study



2009 - JTA Transit Initiatives



2010 - 2030 Urban Core Vision Plan

[Jax_Developer]

The Bold City or the The City of Studies. I've said this before to you Lake but your hard drive is probably somewhat sad to look when you piece it all together lol.