JTA approves HNTB contract for Skyway conversion

[marcuscnelson]

In the Times-Union this morning:

https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/local/2024/02/05/jta-awards-contract-to-hntb-for-redesign-of-skyway-in-jacksonville/72429323007/

Drawing from local gas tax money, the JTA board approved a contract with HNTB to do the design that will flesh out an updated cost for converting the elevated Skyway so rubber-tired automated vehicles can use it and also travel on city streets.

The $6.5 million for HNTB will come from the $247 million set aside by the city and JTA for the Ultimate Urban Circulator system in a long list of transportation projects funded by raising the local gas tax in 2021.

I mean... good lord.

"We are really excited about this because right now we have rough estimates — very rough estimates — in terms of that conversion," JTA CEO Nat Ford said after the board unanimously approved the contract on Thursday.

The current plan is to cut away the top portion of the 2.5 mile elevated structure and leave behind the concrete piers that hold it up. Then a new top part would be built on those piersin a way that rubber-tired automated vehicles can go along it.

"We did that kind of basic groundwork analysis, but this is going to be much deeper in terms of the design," Ford said.

This would confirm what was suspected in an earlier discussion here, that JTA has in fact given up on the plan to simply remove the concrete guidebeam and pave a "smooth running surface" and is instead moving forward with a far more involved plan to entirely replace the Skyway superstructure with one designed to fit small autonomous vehicles.

[Lunican]

omfg

*edited to add an f

[Jax_Developer]

Jacksonville is doomed. Horrible leadership. Inability for people to speak up because xyz. Have seen one council member publicly oppose the U2C recently. You have to be dense to be silent with this program. Amazing that these programs continue to go without opposition. There goes hundreds of millions for literally nothing and people wonder why we lack basic city services.

At least our council members are fighting a good fight on topics like the Confederate Monument. The time & effort devoted there has much more impact on their citizens. /s

[thelakelander]

Wow. Always knew it would be crazy to try to fit those little pods on that structure. So now the plan is to build a new elevated line altogether? Can't help but believe that if this was said years ago, most (even myself) would say demolish and stop there. At that point, you could cut your loses and do just about anything else because once we start demolishing, we've lost most of the benefits in reusing what's already in place. Can't wait to see what the new costs will be. Also sad to see taxpayers and local political leaders continuously being lied to about the boondoggle.

[jaxlongtimer]

I have along advocated for demolishing the Skyway as it is a blight on every street it runs down and does nothing for transit.  The only exception would be to convert in to our version of the Highline in NYC which should now be reconsidered in light of this news.  Tie it into the Emerald Trail and move on.

If JTA goes through with this, the sanity of its board should be questioned, along with the City Council for not reallocating the gas tax dollars to septic tanks and/or completion of the Emerald Trail.

[thelakelander]

^I'm confused....It's blight if it's elevated transit but it's not if it's an elevated trail? Visually, there would still be an elevated structure....or am I not understanding your definition of visual blight? What about if it were a part of a revamped monorail, streetcar or LRT system and not a trail?

[Captain Zissou]

I have along advocated for demolishing the Skyway as it is a blight on every street it runs down and does nothing for transit.  The only exception would be to convert in to our version of the Highline in NYC which should now be reconsidered in light of this news.  Tie it into the Emerald Trail and move on.

The high line isn't remarkable because it's a linear park.  It's remarkable because it's a linear park in one of the densest cities on earth and it provides an uninterrupted path for tens of thousands of pedestrians.

Jacksonville has an overabundance of park space downtown and miles of uninterrupted linear parks..... We don't need more. We need businesses and people to activate the existing spaces.

[Ken_FSU]

As if this project couldn't get any more absurd, now we're going to spend tens of millions of dollars removing the superstructure from the existing Skyway and rebuilding a brand new elevated bridge deck for the robovans?

The one question that I've never heard JTA directly answer:

What existing transit problem will the U2C solve? Has anyone at JTA walked the streets? Where are these thousands of people standing on street corners hailing Ubers throughout the day, desperate for a more efficient way to get from LaVilla to Intuition? There's no shortage of parking. Downtown traffic isn't gridlocked. Bus routes are already in place. Scooter-share exists for micro mobility. Our downtown isn't exactly sprawling.

Who exactly is the end user for this thing?

And if anyone suggests that this thing is somehow a solution for shuttling people to and from the sports complex, let's remember that capacity at Everbank Stadium, the Arena, and the Baseball grounds is 60k, 15k, and 11k, respectively.

Looking at the fleet size (12 vehicles), loop length (3 miles), and estimated speed and capacity of the three different vehicles being considered, this entire system will only be able to move around 128 people concurrently and 354 people per hour. If even 10% of attendees to a typical Jags game wanted to use the U2C, it would take nearly 20 hours to transport everyone.



So, without platitudes, who is JTA expecting to use the U2C day in and day out?

And if there aren't thousands of potential end users each day, how and why is this $250,000,0000 loop the best use of our transportation dollars?

To me, based on language used for pitching this project, it reads like Nat Ford and the JTA are more concerned with gaining national recognition and clout from trying something flashy and innovative, and less concerned about doing what's truly best for our local market.

"The U2C program is unique, transformative and well-positioned to be a national leading-edge transformational program. The "Information Age" is driven by technology and big data. The whirlwind speed of change is transforming the way we do business. The rapid development of leading-edge technology presents unique and exciting opportunities to modernize the way we move people and goods.

Because the pace of change threatens to make technology obsolete before a project has been launched, Jacksonville Transportation Authority (JTA) is shifting the paradigm of traditional public transportation project delivery to a model that is nimble and flexible. Our driving principles are scalable, flexible, modular, speed-to-market and proven return on investment. We believe we can demonstrate a national model that utilizes those principles, incorporates technology and innovation into transportation systems and is replicable across the country."

Honest question - have any of you encountered a single human in the wild (outside of the JTA and their special interest group) that actually supports the U2C and finds it to be a smarter use of our public transportation dollars than tried-and-true mass transit? To a person, every single Jaxon that I've discussed this project with believes it to be an insane boondoggle.

[iMarvin]

Between this and the other thread about JTA's operations, I seriously think it's time for a complete overhaul of JTA. Jacksonville will never have reliable public transportation options with the current leadership at JTA. They've shown time and time again that they do not actually care about providing reliable alternatives to driving.

[marcuscnelson]

Jacksonville is doomed. Horrible leadership. Inability for people to speak up because xyz. Have seen one council member publicly oppose the U2C recently. You have to be dense to be silent with this program. Amazing that these programs continue to go without opposition. There goes hundreds of millions for literally nothing and people wonder why we lack basic city services.

At least our council members are fighting a good fight on topics like the Confederate Monument. The time & effort devoted there has much more impact on their citizens. /s

It's just terrible that so many of this city's leaders are completely unwilling to pay any attention at all to something as fundamental as how people get around. Guess it explains why FDOT gets away with so much here compared to elsewhere in the state. That the board is unanimously pushing forward millions of dollars for this really speaks to what Emily Turner calls the collapse of democratic accountability at JTA.

Between this and the other thread about JTA's operations, I seriously think it's time for a complete overhaul of JTA. Jacksonville will never have reliable public transportation options with the current leadership at JTA. They've shown time and time again that they do not actually care about providing reliable alternatives to driving.

I hate to put anyone out of a job but as regretful as it is to say, I don't see how this is fixed without a fundamental reshaping of the authority and its goals. No more "mobility integrators," we need the public transit operator to operate like a public transit operator. There are so, so many low hanging fruits to start the hard work of restoring trust, and JTA needs leaders who will pick them. Especially with this mayor, we can't afford to lose another chance for this city to finally take off because no one bothered to care about how anyone would get anywhere. I'm sure Nat Ford is a very nice guy, but he does not appear to want to run a transit agency, and if that is the case then he needs to find somewhere better suited for him. It's just so disappointing what people are so willing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on where there are cities that would kill for that kind of cash to improve their transit systems.

Honest question - have any of you encountered a single human in the wild (outside of the JTA and their special interest group) that actually supports the U2C and finds it to be a smarter use of our public transportation dollars than tried-and-true mass transit? To a person, every single Jaxon that I've discussed this project with believes it to be an insane boondoggle.

I found one person who seemed incredibly willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that they would either maybe figure it out or ultimately land on producing an okay busway, but everyone else, from people in Jacksonville to employees at other transit agencies to people in other countries has been aghast at the idea that this much money in this big a city would be spent on this little a result.

[jaxoNOLE]

It is difficult to believe that converting the Skyway in a manner that removes both the federally subsidized vehicles and a significant portion of the federally subsidized superstructure somehow doesn't trigger a repayment of the federal dollars. Leaving the concrete pillars in place counts?

So much to say here, but nothing that hasn't been said a million times before. I still hold out hope that irrefutable proof of this concept being a failure comes to light before the Skyway is shut down or, God forbid, before someone gets hurt or killed because the tech isn't ready for primetime. But every time a new and more ridiculous piece of information is dribbled out without consequence, it seems more and more inevitable that this whole cursed thing is going to proceed to a place where it can't be stopped. What irony would it be to see the Skyway decommissioned, the U2C fail to materialize, and after all this end up having to repay the subsidies this whole mess was allegedly designed to preserve? Pardon the pessimism, but that seems more likely at this point than Council coming to its senses and stopping this atrocity.

[acme54321]

This is the dumbest thing ever.  If they are going to demo the system to that extent just demo the whole raised guideway and run the stupid cars are street level. 

[jaxlongtimer]

^I'm confused....It's blight if it's elevated transit but it's not if it's an elevated trail? Visually, there would still be an elevated structure....or am I not understanding your definition of visual blight? What about if it were a part of a revamped monorail, streetcar or LRT system and not a trail?

I am not referring to visual blight but economic blight because, when built, most every retail business along its path went out of business and most haven't returned. The developer of the Sears/Omni block actually fought putting a station on the corner of his property.  The streets it runs along haven't been the same since either.  (If it was converted to a Highline, there could be people flow that could offload to support businesses along the path possibly reversing this trend so see my response to Captain below.) 

To expand, I would also consider it transit blight for never delivering on promises made by its proponents, draining hundreds of millions from other worthwhile transit projects and giving Downtown transit, specifically, and Downtown projects, generally, a big black eye.

Could it be something better?  Sure, but, as noted below by Captain Z, this isn't NYC.

I have along advocated for demolishing the Skyway as it is a blight on every street it runs down and does nothing for transit.  The only exception would be to convert in to our version of the Highline in NYC which should now be reconsidered in light of this news.  Tie it into the Emerald Trail and move on.

The high line isn't remarkable because it's a linear park.  It's remarkable because it's a linear park in one of the densest cities on earth and it provides an uninterrupted path for tens of thousands of pedestrians.

Jacksonville has an overabundance of park space downtown and miles of uninterrupted linear parks..... We don't need more. We need businesses and people to activate the existing spaces.

Captain, here are the choices:  (a) Spend tens or hundreds of millions to demolish the track and build something that is a fiasco or (b) for a mere fraction of that, repurpose it into a version of the Highline hooked into the Emerald Trail that people might enjoy and which would be a somewhat unique feature of Downtown that, other than NYC, few cities could match. 

A rare situation where spending less gets you more.  At the margin, dollars are going to be spent so not taking away from other projects - just the opposite, leaving more dollars for other projects from the savings choosing option (b).

Overall, this whole fiasco reminds me of the fable that the king is naked and no one wants to call it out.  I don't understand the cowardice, lack of thought, low energy, ignorance, uncaring and inattention/unawareness that permeates so many elected officials and leaders in this community.

[Jax_Developer]

The entire situation now is just hilarious. The only solution for the Skyway is to leave it.. Any future $$ for anything relating to the skyway should be put towards the Brooklyn station & an expansion towards the Stadium (doesn't even need to be all the way). The skyways needs to be the Skyway because we A). Never invested in obtaining any density around their stations & B). Any alterations or demolition is extremely wasteful & inefficient. The Skyway serves more capacity than the U2C could ever imagine... at half capacity lol.

The conversation around the Flyer Bus system is also just such a joke but extremely relevant to our conversation here. The Park-n-Ride parking lots are almost consistently empty. All surrounded by low intensity uses - no zoning changes or benefits to speak of (just like the Skyway). The figures demonstrated in the other thread also paint a bleak picture on our "express" bus system. Not to mention there are currently no projects in the next 10-20 years that will feed people into DT via any transit. So, JTA is dropping the ball not only on U2C, but in the ability to actually get people to DT to utilize the proposed U2C system.

It literally doesn't matter what we do... Skyway or U2C... the inability to shuttle people towards downtown, while also not being able to build TOD's is our fundamental issue. Leadership & Policy change is 100% needed at this point. They genuinely don't understand the crux they have created themselves.

[marcuscnelson]

^ The option I keep coming back to is getting the VAL technology back onto the guideway (unfortunately waiting so long means that the Chicago O'Hare contract is finished so we can't so easily piggyback on it but alas), building that out to Brooklyn, the Stadium (especially if we're already poised to spend a billion dollars on it), and perhaps into San Marco along the FEC, then call it a day and choose a new rail technology for faster, longer distance urban rail (to the beach, out west, etc). That could probably still be called Skyway and just labeled as different lines or something.

The Flyer... I'm amazed the FTA doesn't come after us for running it so infrequently compared to the promised 10-minute peak. I guess it's good that ultimately we could get the federal funds to put into it but boy have we not made very good use of it. I'd love to see as a basic idea something like 24 hour service (even if hourly overnight) on the Flyer, or turning the Amazon Shuttle off the Green Line into an all-hours AirLink. Providing the kind of dependable service that one can build their life around is critical for justifying building TOD and not TAD as lakelander calls is. The TOD ordinance passed 2 years ago is a complete disaster that I'm unsurprised no developer would ever want to use. It's time to actually start thinking about transit as something fundamental to building a city instead of a side hustle you can run tech grifts with.

Captain, here are the choices:  (a) Spend tens or hundreds of millions to demolish the track and build something that is a fiasco or (b) for a mere fraction of that, repurpose it into a version of the Highline hooked into the Emerald Trail, that people might enjoy and which would be a somewhat unique feature of Downtown that, other than NYC, few cities could match. 

If we're in a situation where (a) is prevented (however that happens) then that means (b) absolutely isn't the only alternative. We're building (or at least proposing to build) plenty of urban parks that would provide far more and more useful amenities than a Skyway Highline, especially when unlike New York we have nowhere near as expansive of a transit network to get people to it in the first place, especially when realistically it would not make or break Downtown on its own.