Is U2C serious? Help me make it make sense....

[thelakelander]

Unfortunately, this one won't age well for anyone plastering themselves publicly front and center as a supporter.

That aside, why are we reporting that this will be on the streets in 2027? No one locally, the mayor, JTA or Holon has the power to make that happen. When this doesn't play out, where is the $100 million investment and hundreds of local jobs created?

The Cenntro electric van thing was more realistic and we see how that one turned out.

[Charles Hunter]

Has JTA figured out how to get the vehicles between the Skyway guideway and the ground?
The most straightforward is a ramp between the guideway and the street. A quick internet search reveals that the maximum grade for transit vehicles with standing passengers is 10%.

The most obvious place for a ramp is the stub where the guideway turns from Bay to Hogan. The stub was built for the eventual (elevated) extension to the Sports Complex. Can the ramp be built between the driveways to the VyStar Garage and Laura Street - about 200 feet - and maintain a reasonable slope? Other considerations include the loss of two lanes of Bay Street between Hogan and Laura, and the visual impact on the VyStar building's Bay Street frontage.

Ramps at the other three endpoints - Hogan between State and Union, at the JTC opposite the future UF campus, and Kings Avenue - are less problematic, as JTA owns the property where the ramps would be.

Of course, all of that can be avoided by "pulling the plug" now.

[Charles Hunter]

Is it too much to hope that the JTA purchase agreements with Holon have an escape clause in case JTA loses anticipated funding?

[jaxlongtimer]

I am a big fan of Deegan but her interview yesterday on First Coast Connect in which she not only defended the U2C, but also "lost it" by strongly expressing frustration and dissing and dismissing anyone who would question the wisdom of it, was most surprising (given she usually keeps her cool under similar circumstances) and disappointing to listen to. She concluded that opposition to U2C was an "irritation" to her (stand up posters on this thread!  ).

I just don't understand her unqualified support for this project...  Being cutting edge (which it isn't), supporting Downtown development (which it won't), adding a form of public transit not otherwise done better (which it doesn't do), or bringing a superior return by attracting Holon here (the numbers don't justify this) are all failing excuses for U2C to continue.  She thinks it just needs more time and patience to appreciate its value... not mentioned, is $400+ million.  She stated that U2C won't detract from implementing light rail so I guess she has a bead on another few hundred million for that underway.  The unquestioning love of JTA and lack of deep and clear thinking on this issue by someone who typically does so is a mystery to me.

I hope she reverses course before it wounds her severely, politically.  Her rigidity in her position on this issue will not stand the test of time.  Would be a shame if it eventually overshadowed all her other accomplishments.

Here is the link to hear for yourself:  https://news.wjct.org/show/first-coast-connect  See "Ask the Mayor" on 11/12/2025.  I recall it is about 20 to 30 minutes in.

[Jax_Developer]

It's good to know the city has entered the early 2000's token racism era. "We have people from Japan looking at it..." is one of the worst white lies I could fathom to defend this.

[marcuscnelson]

Here's the specific timestamp from First Coast Connect of Mayor Deegan tripling down on the U2C:

https://youtu.be/ux_Bwi5Qb1o?si=EjwHiKk2g8eaI1mq&t=794

Transcribed the segment [minor edits for clarity]:

First Coast Connect Host Anne Schindler: We've got an email from Jennifer, um, and it'll move us on to another topic, she says, "this project of JTA and City Council supporting the NAVI is a project that needs to be eliminated. Why are you all not considering a light rail system throughout the greater Jacksonville city and connecting to the suburbs?" Um, obviously that is a big topic of conversation right now.

Mayor Deegan: It is. It is.

First Coast Connect Host Anne Schindler: We know that there have been questions asked of JTA executive Nat Ford by the Council recently, but, you know this is a $400 million project in the end, and right now there's, you know, concerns. Is it... worth the investment that the city's going to make, the state and the federal government as well?

Mayor Deegan: Well, respectfully, I would disagree with the caller. I think that autonomous vehicles are going to be the way of the future, in addition to light rail, this is not an either or situation. We have a large city, there will be other areas in which certainly light rail makes a whole lot of sense. I said this to you before and I truly believe this, we are a city that has been so car-centric for so long. We get in our cars, we drive to where we want to go, and we park there. Given the rate of growth in our city and the rate of growth in our downtown too at this point, we need other methods to get people around. And I think as we continue to get people moving downtown and more businesses and more activities, this will make a lot more sense. For anybody to judge the NAVI based on the fact that it's been open for a fraction of a second and say "oh well we don't have the ridership we need so we should just eliminate the whole thing," it's reminiscent of me of what we did with the Skyway. You can't go five minutes down the road on something, decide- strike out on a path, and let's see where it goes. I mean, I think that, this is something that was investigated for quite a while through the JTA, but let's go on beyond that: you know, HOLON, who was attracted through this whole thing, we're gonna be having a press conference today about HOLON, I will tell you-

First Coast Connect Host Anne Schindler: They manufacture the vehicles, or, will manufacture the vehicles.

Mayor Deegan: They will, and do, manufacture- er, yes, they will manufacture these vehicles, for a global audience, not just Jacksonville, they will be manufacturing our vehicles, but a global audience. $300 million dollars, just off the bat, is gonna be into our economy from HOLON, not to mention all the jobs and the manufacturing that will happen right here, which we desperately need. Um, so you're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars, I'm telling you right now, we're gonna see a return on that investment just through HOLON. So that is a tremendous opportunity for us. And I would encourage folks, you know, to check out the whole system, HOLON will have one of their vehicles there this afternoon. But, I think from 1 to 6 at City Hall, we're gonna have an event there at 3 o'clock where we're actually, you know, speaking about all this stuff. I have to admit to you, at this point, for me, it is a huge frustration, hearing from people, um, dunk on this whole thing, when it literally has been, we've investigated it, we've got people from Japan, people from Atlanta, people from all over the world that are looking at our system as a blueprint for how they might do their own, and we are so focused on one thing, which is not exclusionary, we can do light rail at the same time we're doing these vehicles. But this is something that I truly believe is the wave of the future, and I think we are leading on this, and I feel like as a person who's been here, my family for five generations, this is what Jacksonville always does. It's like, if we start it it can't be good. And I just- I just don't agree with the take on that.

First Coast Connect Host Anne Schindler: At the same time, is it problematic, do you have a conversation with somebody like Nat Ford when there's reports that they're essentially asking employees to go ride the NAVI and, you know, possibly juicing the numbers on their ridership by doing so?

Mayor Deegan: Anne, it's- okay. Um, to me, this is just a straw man. I mean, it really is. You're asking your employees to go and try it out, to model, um, you know, to see what it's like, to spread the word about it. It's all part of changing a system of folks who are just used to getting in their cars to try to say, hey, try this. There's- I don't understand what the big deal is about this aside from it's- it just seems like a gotcha to me. And I just- I'm frustrated with this issue because there's so much upside, so much incredible upside to what is happening with autonomous vehicles in our city, and the money that that will bring into our city, that I just- I wish that the folks who automatically have to jump to, you know, "this stinks, this isn't gonna work," give it some time, and let's see if we can change behavior over time and see how, see how all this stuff works. We've committed to it and we should follow through with it.

First Coast Connect Host Anne Schindler: We've got a call from Daryl in St. Augustine. Good morning, Daryl. Go ahead.

First Coast Connect Caller: Hey, good morning. Um, thank you Anne and thank you, Mayor. Um, the public transportation thing. Um, thank you for standing up for that. It is the solution. I attended the World's Fair in 1986 in Vancouver and the monorail and the transportation system they have there for the public, like this, like the autonomous vehicle. Of course, it wasn't like that, but it is still there today. You can ride from the airport to 70 miles inland and never get in a car and get on the road. I can land in Vancouver and go 70 miles to my brother's house without ever getting in a car. This is, yeah I'm driving down the interstate into Jacksonville right now, every car around me has one person in it.

First Coast Connect Host Anne Schindler: Thanks Daryl. Appreciate it.

Mayor Deegan: He's right. I mean look, it is something that people have to get used to. But as downtown grows in population and people are looking for ways to get from point A to point B, and there's not a lot of places to park your car if you want to drive your car right up to the front of a building, these vehicles are going to become more popular. And we cannot judge it after it's only just begun. The people who are the biggest naysayers of this are the ones who never wanted to consider autonomous vehicles in the first place and wanted light rail to the exclusion of everything else. We are an enormous city, there's room for both.

First Coast Connect Host Anne Schindler: You're going to hate my next subject. Um, so the-

Mayor Deegan: I'm- I'm really glad, I'm really grateful to be able to talk about this one. I mean, honestly, it is such a point of irritation for me at this point because it just feels like so much what we do to ourselves in this city. We sabotage ourselves before we get started, and I just don't want to do it anymore.

They move on to discussing downtown parks after this, I'll add some thoughts to another post.

[thelakelander]

^Thanks! NAVI is already up on Bay Street. Was there any talk about expirementing with that predictable $66 million failure there?

Feel free to prove everyone wrong with it before burning another half billion (and rising) in local public money. That's basically my two cents with this one at this point.

Also, not sure where LRT fits into this convo? COJ/JTA isn't planning this and we have no money for it.

[jaxoNOLE]

I had been wondering if Deegan's strategy re: U2C was to let it collapse under it's own weight, thus avoiding spending political capital on efforts to actively kill it. Unfortunately, she appears to have drunk the Kool-aid. This interview is the Republican ticket to victory in the next mayoral election if they use it right. How extremely disappointing to see from Deegan.

[marcuscnelson]

^Thanks! NAVI is already up on Bay Street. Was there any talk about expirementing with that predictable $66 million failure there?

Feel free to prove everyone wrong with it before burning another half billion (and rising) in local public money. That's basically my two cents with this one at this point.

Also, not sure where LRT fits into this convo? COJ/JTA isn't planning this and we have no money for it.

Updated with the full conversation above, which talked rather broadly about the entire half-billion dollar U2C idea instead of specifically Bay Street. The original caller/emailer had brought up light rail, and City Councilman Jimmy Peluso has also mentioned it before. Now, notably, Nat Ford has been telling Peluso and others that the city is simply not dense enough for light rail and seemingly refusing to consider it any further, so it's strange for Deegan to suggest that it's an option while not really looking like she'd do anything about pursuing it either.

Overall, this is incredibly disappointing to hear from the Mayor. It's frankly insulting to be lectured about the city's car-centric history and then have this nonsense waved around as a solution to that. If you want to fool around playing tech startup with everyone's money that's whatever, but don't pretend after all that like you're doing people a favor and helping them get places. It's ridiculous to sit there and claim that the ridership will come around eventually, meanwhile JTA themselves are putting on paper that after billions of dollars of development in the area surrounding the NAVI/BSIC, they can only expect ridership to go from maybe 80-something to maybe 280-something per day (whatever portion of that being their own employees).

The ridiculous thread underlying this whole program has been the idea that anyone who does not work for JTA or their consultants is going to stake their lives around an "autonomous" shuttle that runs from 7am to 7pm on weekdays and now can't be autonomous because the company that makes its software has just given up on it. Developers aren't going to finance buildings around that, workers aren't going to trust that for their commute, tourists are not going to care about making that part of their visit, if it's even running when they visit.

It's insulting to watch everyone retread this "wave of the future" crap instead of actually trying to address mass transit needs in a way that actually works. I'm not going to say that if we start it, it can't be good, but so far the things we've started haven't been good, and this is clearly joining that pack.

[urban_]

Has anyone talked about getting some sort of community action going? Putting up signs or picketing for a day outside of city hall perhaps? Something visual, proof that at least part of the Jacksonville community is vocally against this project. Hopefully, it'd get news coverage and prompt the city to discuss it. I imagine that this is not a partisan issue, something to discuss at the dinner or Thanksgiving table!
Perhaps something like this has happened before and I'm unaware of it.
I'm not sure what the other options are, other than just waiting for someone in power to do something. I feel like we've been waiting on that for a long, long time. Emperor wearing no clothes- how long will we wait for them to be convinced?

[thelakelander]

^Thanks! NAVI is already up on Bay Street. Was there any talk about expirementing with that predictable $66 million failure there?

Feel free to prove everyone wrong with it before burning another half billion (and rising) in local public money. That's basically my two cents with this one at this point.

Also, not sure where LRT fits into this convo? COJ/JTA isn't planning this and we have no money for it.

Updated with the full conversation above, which talked rather broadly about the entire half-billion dollar U2C idea instead of specifically Bay Street. The original caller/emailer had brought up light rail, and City Councilman Jimmy Peluso has also mentioned it before. Now, notably, Nat Ford has been telling Peluso and others that the city is simply not dense enough for light rail and seemingly refusing to consider it any further, so it's strange for Deegan to suggest that it's an option while not really looking like she'd do anything about pursuing it either.

Overall, this is incredibly disappointing to hear from the Mayor. It's frankly insulting to be lectured about the city's car-centric history and then have this nonsense waved around as a solution to that. If you want to fool around playing tech startup with everyone's money that's whatever, but don't pretend after all that like you're doing people a favor and helping them get places. It's ridiculous to sit there and claim that the ridership will come around eventually, meanwhile JTA themselves are putting on paper that after billions of dollars of development in the area surrounding the NAVI/BSIC, they can only expect ridership to go from maybe 80-something to maybe 280-something per day (whatever portion of that being their own employees).

The ridiculous thread underlying this whole program has been the idea that anyone who does not work for JTA or their consultants is going to stake their lives around an "autonomous" shuttle that runs from 7am to 7pm on weekdays and now can't be autonomous because the company that makes its software has just given up on it. Developers aren't going to finance buildings around that, workers aren't going to trust that for their commute, tourists are not going to care about making that part of their visit, if it's even running when they visit.

It's insulting to watch everyone retread this "wave of the future" crap instead of actually trying to address mass transit needs in a way that actually works. I'm not going to say that if we start it, it can't be good, but so far the things we've started haven't been good, and this is clearly joining that pack.

He's all over the place. I think they'll tell you whatever you want to hear to be able to justify spending more money on the U2C:

"Ford also talked about training local talent, teaming up with colleges to prepare technicians for this new technology. Looking ahead, he sees a mix of buses, streetcars, light rail, and autonomous shuttles making it easier to get around as Jacksonville grows.

https://www.news4jax.com/news/local/2025/11/14/jta-ceo-says-multi-million-dollar-autonomous-vehicle-venture-is-a-smart-investment-in-jacksonville/

[Charles Hunter]

You can hear more from Ford and get the full scoop on Jacksonville's transportation future. Catch the full interview on This Week in Jacksonville, Sunday at 9 a.m. on News4JAX.

Maybe in the full interview, he will explain how we will get "streetcars, light rail" if JTA isn't doing any planning for it. There's not a penny for these modes in the TPO's long-range transportation plan.

[thelakelander]

https://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/news/2025/11/13/holon-lacked-ceo-for-months-during-jax-project.html

[Charles Hunter]

JTA's Facebook page putting a positive spin on "staff being paid to ride NAVI"
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1BWRXYCbG6/

At the JTA, we're always looking for ways to enhance the rider experience and that starts with seeing our services through the eyes of our customers.

[fsu813]

Has anyone talked about getting some sort of community action going? Putting up signs or picketing for a day outside of city hall perhaps? Something visual, proof that at least part of the Jacksonville community is vocally against this project. Hopefully, it'd get news coverage and prompt the city to discuss it. I imagine that this is not a partisan issue, something to discuss at the dinner or Thanksgiving table!
Perhaps something like this has happened before and I'm unaware of it.
I'm not sure what the other options are, other than just waiting for someone in power to do something. I feel like we've been waiting on that for a long, long time. Emperor wearing no clothes- how long will we wait for them to be convinced?

It's election season (yes, even now) and it would be politicized x 100.

A politician once famously said that my 80% friend is not my 20% enemy.

Meaning, strategically pick your battles. Greater good. Etc.