Emails reveal FDOT concerns over U2C

[CityLife]

In light of the huge win that the Emerald Trail just got awarded, is it possible that the JTA and Jax leaders have assurances of major federal funding coming soon to help fund the U2C project? There are times when agencies and politicians cannot announce publicly what they know and this could be one of them. It's the only logical explanation I can think of to explain why there is any support for the U2C project. 

[thelakelander]

I don't know about that. I think people are willing to let the $66 million Bay Street corridor thing play out. It appears that construction on the O&M warehouse in LaVilla is imminent.

However, the U2C has a larger obstacle than money. The technology doesn't work and isn't ready for what JTA wants to ultimately do. That issue won't be resolved by tax money or local politics and will. If they are successful in having human driven vehicles run on Bay Street (this is quite possible to do since there are already human driven vehicles on the street), the low ridership certainly won't help.

[Jax_Developer]

We're about to pay double the Skyway for a bus full of daily riders and can only use these vans when it doesn't rain.

Is this true Lake? Wild if so.

--

The biggest issue with the U2C is that it is more tech-dependent than transit-dependent. Putting transit experts on it really doesn't make sense if they aren't complimented with imaging & sensing engineers. The transit industry typically relies on known variables when creating new systems & the processes involved with developing something new are so vastly different.

Nearly every major transit improvement was not done solely by a transit expert or agency, but by engineers.

Examples:

- Planes
- Trains
- High Speed Rail
- Buses

Considering that most transit uses one of these options, the notion that Nat Ford & JTA are going to invent a new form of groundbreaking technology should already be a big "haha". I've mentioned before, but the integrity of the entire system should be called into question. When you look at Waymo, who has struggles, they outclass the AV talent of the entire first coast. That's right, Waymo, a single company with less than 3000 employees, has more AV talent than our entire MSA & they still have struggles in sedans.

They need to kill this program or bring in someone with the right credentials to actually given informed opinions. Everything we have been told now is the equivalent of giving a college kid or highschooler some liberty on a "cool" science project. I have to imagine that the entire state's transit department isn't that dumb, and the likelihood this actually gets built (I think) is super low. We might see some form of Phase 1, but there's no way this goes the distance imo. If it does, that should be a good sign that the DT situation will never really be where many of us want it to be. The limitation of any meaningful transit in our DT will hinder development for decades to come & will prevent code from changing meaningfully.

[thelakelander]

We're about to pay double the Skyway for a bus full of daily riders and can only use these vans when it doesn't rain.

Is this true Lake? Wild if so.

The Skyway cost a little under $200 million and the majority of it was paid for by federal and state dollars. Even with DT being a fraction of the size and vibrancy it was during the Skyway's planning phase, it still moves thousands daily.....when its working....

On the other hand, the U2C will easily cost more than $500 million with the lions share coming from local taxpayer pockets if JTA has their way. JTA's own emails with FDOT indicate the first $66 million phase down Bay Street will only attract 250 riders a day. Since they can't use AVs, they'll be driving vans made by Ford on Bay Street. What a freaking waste.  There's not much else I can say to polish this turd of an investment that will serve so little.

[fieldafm]

We're about to pay double the Skyway for a bus full of daily riders and can only use these vans when it doesn't rain.

Is this true Lake? Wild if so.

We've been putting articles on this site for six years now bringing honesty into JTA's fluff.  The capacity is limited. The technology kinda works-ish as long as the conditions are absolutely perfect, the surrounding vehicular traffic is minimal and its not mixed in with heavy pedestrian or bike traffic. The challenges are numerous.  The expenses have been wildly underestimated.

I've been on several PBS Jax radio interviews where I've flat out mentioned that the technology doesn't work in the rain, doesn't work at night... and if you are a person of color walking in dim conditions- watch out as the technology doesn't think you are a person and is likely to run you over (because this is what has happened on test tracks and in real life conditions).  It can't distinguish 'road closed' signs nor traffic officers giving it hand signals (like would happen along Bay Street on event days) and if you place a safety cone in front of it- it will just flat out stop.

At the end of the day, these are minivans being manned with drivers (in hopes of saving others from the shortcomings of the technology) that will be driving up and down Bay Street at less than 20mph- and only if conditions are perfect. This is what JTA is investing your taxpayer money in, and building new facilities in prime locations (and not paying property taxes on) just to house.

Now they want to completely modify the existing Skyway elevated pathways (after telling us back in 2016 they were just going to remove the guideways), which is an insane amount of money... and they still haven't figured out a way to get the vehicles off the guideways and on to the street level (at one point they were considering elevators, lol).

Beyond this, they want to take out on-street parking along Bay Street... and had to modify the Four Seasons and Jaguars office building to include turnaround lanes for these stupid minivans.   Its a complete waste of time, money and more importantly- real estate.

Its a way to move money from taxpayers hands, to other private party's hands (including Nat Ford's wife... who is a paid consultant on this fiasco)... and not actually move people from where they are to where they want to go.

[iMarvin]

In light of the huge win that the Emerald Trail just got awarded, is it possible that the JTA and Jax leaders have assurances of major federal funding coming soon to help fund the U2C project? There are times when agencies and politicians cannot announce publicly what they know and this could be one of them. It's the only logical explanation I can think of to explain why there is any support for the U2C project.

I doubt it. They announced funding for 14 transit projects and Jacksonville didn't make the list. Another Florida city (Miami) did, however...

Just for comparison, the Miami project costs $500 million with a projected ridership of 9,400. Jacksonville plans on spending the same amount  for 250 riders. Why would any support this project?

[Jax_Developer]

We're about to pay double the Skyway for a bus full of daily riders and can only use these vans when it doesn't rain.

Is this true Lake? Wild if so.

We've been putting articles on this site for six years now bringing honesty into JTA's fluff.  The capacity is limited. The technology kinda works-ish as long as the conditions are absolutely perfect, the surrounding vehicular traffic is minimal and its not mixed in with heavy pedestrian or bike traffic. The challenges are numerous.  The expenses have been wildly underestimated.

I've been on several PBS Jax radio interviews where I've flat out mentioned that the technology doesn't work in the rain, doesn't work at night... and if you are a person of color walking in dim conditions- watch out as the technology doesn't think you are a person and is likely to run you over (because this is what has happened on test tracks and in real life conditions).  It can't distinguish 'road closed' signs nor traffic officers giving it hand signals (like would happen along Bay Street on event days) and if you place a safety cone in front of it- it will just flat out stop.

At the end of the day, these are minivans being manned with drivers (in hopes of saving others from the shortcomings of the technology) that will be driving up and down Bay Street at less than 20mph- and only if conditions are perfect. This is what JTA is investing your taxpayer money in, and building new facilities in prime locations (and not paying property taxes on) just to house.

LIDAR & the other sensing technology being used in self driving can be built to mitigate effects that weather and lighting do to them but to your point there are still heavy limitations on the technology for the identifying aspects you mentioned. White cars are another issue with LIDAR for example.

It sounds like JTA hasn't considered or the systems that they are intending to use will not be designed with these tolerances in mind. Makes sense as the different methods & testing used to make that happen would probably balloon the U2C figure even more. I guess I had not seen the reports, or didn't look into it enough, to see that these won't work in the rain. Truthfully, thought that that was a given, considering where we are lol. Makes this even more crazy.

[marcuscnelson]

The FTA seems aware that this is a horrible investment, which is why they're only out about $15 million on the half-billion-dollar project, and JTA has only managed to secure grants through discretionary programs. The U2C would have a snowball's chance in hell of surviving the ratings process required to access the capital grant program Miami is using for the Northeast Corridor because projects in that program have to prove that they're actually good investments with sound backing.

City Council decides tonight whether to reappoint Aundra Wallace to the JTA Board of Directors, and it's unclear if they've given any serious thought to how they could ask whether this is a good idea. Instead it seems everyone is willing to just let disaster unfold and see if they actually have to do anything once the money has been squandered.

LIDAR & the other sensing technology being used in self driving can be built to mitigate effects that weather and lighting do to them but to your point there are still heavy limitations on the technology for the identifying aspects you mentioned. White cars are another issue with LIDAR for example.

It sounds like JTA hasn't considered or the systems that they are intending to use will not be designed with these tolerances in mind. Makes sense as the different methods & testing used to make that happen would probably balloon the U2C figure even more. I guess I had not seen the reports, or didn't look into it enough, to see that these won't work in the rain. Truthfully, thought that that was a given, considering where we are lol. Makes this even more crazy.

They've tried. Lord knows they've tried. But even after nearly a decade of work the technology just isn't good enough to reliably deliver on that. General Motors invested $9 billion into an autonomous vehicle company using the best tech in the business and ultimately gave up after being implicated in serious accidents. Who knows how much Google has invested into Waymo, and their system remains very experimental. Tesla's system might have just killed the former Secretary of Transportation's sister. This is the level of quality that Nat Ford is hellbent on dragging this city into. This is what Debbie Buckland thinks she's going to be famous for one day. This is what Aundra Wallace, after telling City Council that he's going to hold people accountable, has allowed to proceed for two years now.

[Jax_Developer]

LIDAR & the other sensing technology being used in self driving can be built to mitigate effects that weather and lighting do to them but to your point there are still heavy limitations on the technology for the identifying aspects you mentioned. White cars are another issue with LIDAR for example.

It sounds like JTA hasn't considered or the systems that they are intending to use will not be designed with these tolerances in mind. Makes sense as the different methods & testing used to make that happen would probably balloon the U2C figure even more. I guess I had not seen the reports, or didn't look into it enough, to see that these won't work in the rain. Truthfully, thought that that was a given, considering where we are lol. Makes this even more crazy.

They've tried. Lord knows they've tried. But even after nearly a decade of work the technology just isn't good enough to reliably deliver on that. General Motors invested $9 billion into an autonomous vehicle company using the best tech in the business and ultimately gave up after being implicated in serious accidents. Who knows how much Google has invested into Waymo, and their system remains very experimental.

Much of the complication is over the speed at which the algos can process information for a result. Theoretically, that's some of the reason why JTA wants to do Phase 1 on a fixed system. The less variables for the algo to process, the easier for the system to process information for issues like rain, snow etc. Hence why Waymo and every AV opeartor has a speed ceiling on their vehicles.

[marcuscnelson]

Perhaps, but that begins to beg the question of where you actually save any money. Once you're having to increase capital costs for better tech and more dedicated infrastructure to remove variables, why would you do all that just to run small, slow shuttles? If you have to spend the money on dedicated lanes anyway, you might as well just run normal BRT with drivers and you'd save on the cost of maintaining the tech stack while being able to carry more people, faster. And that's assuming you could even run the shuttles driverless, which you can't because you still need an attendant able to drive the vehicle and ready to take over if the computer gets confused for the foreseeable future.

At some point the only reason to do this, and the only reason JTA has left, is for the value of "being innovative." And that's worth basically nothing when it comes to building good transit that people will use and developers feel confident building around.

[Jax_Developer]

I completely agree with you Marcus.

This is what happened, in very short summary.

- JTA realizes, through fact, that the technology is not capable of seamless street travel with before mentioned variables
- JTA's timeline for this realization becomes thin
- JTA understands that the technology can only "handle" fixed dedicated lanes because it significantly reduces the technology curve to achieve
- JTA goes all in on dedicated lanes for the Bay St Corridor, to literally, keep the project feasible
- New Plan, delay Phase 1 as much as possible and hope that the technology becomes workable in the meantime

This is where we are at now. Lol. Just practically where the technology is at. If its on fixed guideways, and can't operate in the rain... well... yeah don't get me started because then why not parter with an existing provider??

[fieldafm]

City Council decides tonight whether to reappoint Aundra Wallace to the JTA Board of Directors, and it's unclear if they've given any serious thought to how they could ask whether this is a good idea. Instead it seems everyone is willing to just let disaster unfold and see if they actually have to do anything once the money has been squandered.

If you think there is any real attempt at bringing in board members that want anything but to keep the status quo... then you are sadly mistaken.  Frankly, the Mayor's office had the opportunity to spur some real change in the board leadership, but chose not to.

Nat Ford is looking to take a job at another transit agency... so we're going to be stuck with his boondoggle, while he escapes the inevitable failure that is coming.

[marcuscnelson]

He... he's what?

[jaxoNOLE]

Nat Ford is looking to take a job at another transit agency... so we're going to be stuck with his boondoggle, while he escapes the inevitable failure that is coming.

That is what keeps me perennially irked about this project -- while almost ten years, ~$20(?) million in test & learn, and $66 million on BSIC is scandalous, we still don't have to be stuck with the worst of this project: the Skyway conversion. There's a solution to this trolley problem; someone in a position of power just needs to throw the switch to mitigate the damage. Sadly, we don't have enough who are willing.

[WAJAS]

The most insane part is we've managed to figure out the biggest hurdle to transit everywhere. Funding. The U2C has federal, state, and a HUGE local portion dedicated to it.

We're just using it to fund the... this, for some reason.

I can't restate this enough. The hardest part is done. The thing that kills every project in the US has been averted (somewhat). If the project needs more federal grants, the large local portion will help it win.

We just need to fund something better.