Commuter Rail's Return?

[Charles Hunter]

thelakelander can answer more fully, but no, UF owning the old terminal building does not preclude bringing commuter (or any other) rail downtown. The "train station" with the boarding/alighting platforms would be adjacent to the tracks (plus appropriate sidings) that cross the St. Johns River on the FECRR bridge. As I recall from seeing conceptual plans years ago, there would be an elevated and enclosed pedestrian bridge or concourse connecting the platforms with the historic Union Terminal building.

[fieldafm]

thelakelander can answer more fully, but no, UF owning the old terminal building does not preclude bringing commuter (or any other) rail downtown. The "train station" with the boarding/alighting platforms would be adjacent to the tracks (plus appropriate sidings) that cross the St. Johns River on the FECRR bridge. As I recall from seeing conceptual plans years ago, there would be an elevated and enclosed pedestrian bridge or concourse connecting the platforms with the historic Union Terminal building.

That can be found here:
https://www.thejaxsonmag.com/article/amtraks-plans-for-downtown20-years-ago/

The best use for the current main terminal building would be that of a mixed used/hotel/food and beverage concept that would serve UF, an adjacent train station and the LaVilla neighborhood at large.

Like many of these:
https://www.thejaxsonmag.com/article/rehabilitated-urban-passenger-rail-stations/

Here we might go again.

Just opened a virtual live stream of today's JTA board workshop and meeting (still ongoing) and caught the end of what appears to be an 11-slide presentation on a Jacobs-Deloitte study of "First Coast Regional Rail Service". I was late so couldn't catch what exactly they discussed, but I did hear Nat Ford remarking that this would be perhaps a decade away, presumably preferring the discussion that followed about Phase III U2C expansion studies.

I would certainly like to see what exactly was proposed. I suspect this probably focused on Downtown to St. Augustine as we've seen before, but interesting to have a newer study of it.

We've been talkin for 20 years. We're no closer to anything now than we were in 2005 related to commuter rail....other than pissing the S-Line ROW away with a shared use path.

And yes, talk of commuter rail is completely pointless. JTA has unfettered access to burn through taxpayer money and redistribute that wealth to a series of privately-owned subcontractors (including Nat Ford's own wife) via the U2C boondoggle that will eventually blow up in irrelevance once Waymo, Tesla and the like figure out their own autonomous technology (which is light years ahead of Beep- JTA's tit sucking pickpocket).

Jax's biggest opportunity is bringing intercity rail back Downtown by 1) relocating Amtrak in the short term and 2) working with Brightline in the longer term

[thelakelander]

Jax's biggest opportunity is bringing intercity rail back Downtown by 1) relocating Amtrak in the short term and 2) working with Brightline in the longer term

^This. I have below zero on the Fahrenheit scale level of confidence that Jax will ever see commuter rail implemented by JTA in my lifetime. Even if you remove JTA from the discussion, I'd question the demand and feasibility of a traditional commuter rail system carrying people from low density sprawl (with half of the people staying in spots like Northern St. Johns being too scared to come into the city) to a CBD that's hemorrhaging its daytime office employment population. More in more, its seeming like some form of intercity rail with the frequency of traditional commuter rail makes more sense. 

[Tacachale]

As far as this goes, the administration's focus is on returning Amtrak to the Downtown station. It's moving along, and will open the door for other options in the future. I'd like to see the commuter rail stuff included in the long range planning, as it can help guide land use planning we're doing on the route. The tracks are mostly in place and have been for 120+ years, and the studies have been done — might as well use them.

[Jankelope]

What has been the tangible progress on this administration's goal of getting Amtrak downtown again? Is that something we could reasonably see occur before the end of a 2nd Deegan term? I hope that is true, but this is first I am hearing of it being a priority for the administration.

[simms3]

Is the City of Jacksonville transferring ownership and control of the old Union Terminal building to University of Florida?  I worry about the possibilities with an outside university owning and controlling one of the most important buildings in our city.

[jcjohnpaint]

Great point.

[Tacachale]

What has been the tangible progress on this administration's goal of getting Amtrak downtown again? Is that something we could reasonably see occur before the end of a 2nd Deegan term? I hope that is true, but this is first I am hearing of it being a priority for the administration.

Not too much to say yet, but I can talk about where we're at a bit. The City brought together all the stakeholders and sought and won a Build America Bureau grant for $1.25 million in 2024 for capacity building, to fund planning and staff. Currently working on plans for the buildings and other nearby property, which is a bit easier as it's partly a matter of just updating existing plans from years ago. The current idea is that UF will own the terminal building itself, with other outbuildings as necessary, but that's all early. UF has been hugely supportive as have the other stakeholders.

[MakeDTjaxGre@tAgain]

Not sure what can be shared yet or what stage the project is currently in, but do you have any sense of when this might be announced publicly and what the overall timeline of the project looks like? This is really exciting news.

As for the scope of the work, I understand the main terminal would be managed by UF, but I'm curious what type of rail this is envisioned to be. Would it function as intercity rail, regional rail, or something more localized and focused on moving Jacksonville residents around?

Personally, I'd much rather hop on a train and use my bike for my daily commute than sit in traffic. I know this might be a stretch, but I'm also hopeful the hours of operation(HOO) would be robust enough—especially on weekends + gamedays—to offer a real alternative to driving and even cut into some of the Uber/Lyft demand for bar patrons getting home after a drink.

[marcuscnelson]

What has been the tangible progress on this administration's goal of getting Amtrak downtown again? Is that something we could reasonably see occur before the end of a 2nd Deegan term? I hope that is true, but this is first I am hearing of it being a priority for the administration.

Not too much to say yet, but I can talk about where we're at a bit. The City brought together all the stakeholders and sought and won a Build America Bureau grant for $1.25 million in 2024 for capacity building, to fund planning and staff. Currently working on plans for the buildings and other nearby property, which is a bit easier as it's partly a matter of just updating existing plans from years ago. The current idea is that UF will own the terminal building itself, with other outbuildings as necessary, but that's all early. UF has been hugely supportive as have the other stakeholders.

It has already been about a year now since City Council approved a matching $250,000 in in-kind work to total $1.5 million on that grant. Given that this is focused around a single site and not any kind of linear corridor, and as you mention this is partly just updating existing plans, how long is the rail-related portion itself meant to take?

I see from here a "Planning and Design" phase that would take about 18 months, which if you started last January would mean a "Amtrak Recommencing Operations at Prime Osborn" report among others by this summer, which would already be the halfway point of the grant. Is that when we can expect something?

And I understand it's not necessarily your direct responsibility Bill, but for the mention of having "brought together all the stakeholders" it seems somewhat concerning that there are still a number of disparate projects with unclear levels of cooperation, collaboration, or commitment, including the JTA JRTC project that the city's own LOGT is also funding, the continually vague state of the commuter rail program they keep throwing study money at (including the city's sales tax that funds JTA), Amtrak's planned $12 million investment into the existing Jacksonville station by FY2028, and the state's role in the Corridor ID program that includes Jacksonville.

That's before you look back at all the other studies that have already repeatedly discussed this area, including JTA's U2C TOD plan that already has a focus on the JRTC and the LaVilla Neighborhood Development Strategy that we now see foresaw an academic campus on this site alongside a train station. I'm just not sure what exactly is making this particular "LaVilla Transit Innovation and Equity Project" a clear shift in delivering tangible progress towards a new station as opposed to yet another of many opaque studies. I would think the goal of capacity building would be putting the city in a position to actually coordinate these moving parts so that there aren't so many different projects all clashing with each other, but that doesn't actually seem to be the objective here, which is confusing.

[thelakelander]

When it comes to anything rail related and JTA, we can wrap fish with the product as that's a more effective use of the print than anything it says since the actual rail companies haven't really been partners. Unfortunately commuter rail is hot air in this town more so than anything actually moving forward.

The LaVilla Neighborhood Development Study wasn't done with much real community engagement and needs to be revisited altogther when it comes to some of the recommendations (i.e. ignored LaVilla's "main street", called for a park at Davis and Union...one of the most high traffic sites in the neighborhood) and inaccurate market assumptions (i.e. claimed no market for retail, yet Riverside Avenue is booming and the Pearl District is proving opposite) made. I assisted the LaVilla community in blowing many of its recommendations up, one being the heritage trail, which somehow the consultant found a way to exclude the heart of the neighborhood and its cultural heritage story, in favor of dreams about having a bike trail run down State Street (i.e. I bet FDOT was never truly engaged because there's no way in hell District 2 would have been on board as conservative as it is amongst the districts statewide). Once we blew up these recommendations, we then worked with the DIA to create a new trail designed with the LaVilla descendant community's lead, which should be installed along a different path this spring.

My understanding is Amtrak plans to keep its existing Jacksonville station. The downtown station would be a second one added. South Florida, Lakeland-Winter Haven and the Orlando area are Florida MSAs with more than one Amtrak station, so the precedence is there and the more stations we have in the region, the more of a chance for intercity rail to provide some of the same benefits of commuter rail without having to wait decades for JTA to figure it out. The State is probably the biggest barrier to expanding Amtrak's offerings, but that's something that can quickly change, depending on who replaces DeSantis when his term is up.

I'm just not sure what exactly is making this particular "LaVilla Transit Innovation and Equity Project" a clear shift in delivering tangible progress towards a new station as opposed to yet another of many opaque studies. I would think the goal of capacity building would be putting the city in a position to actually coordinate these moving parts so that there aren't so many different projects all clashing with each other, but that doesn't actually seem to be the objective here, which is confusing.

I had the opportunity to sit in the room during the discussions that ultimately resulted in Jax going after and successfully getting the Build America Grant grant.

With JTA, DIA, FRA, FTA, Amtrak, etc. at the table, the feds came to the conclusion that we didn't have a real plan for returning rail back to downtown and they suggested we go after this grant if we wanted to lay the foundation for getting federal support in bringing rail back to downtown.

I see this actual first step as breaking down the silos and ending up with a single vision and plan that also addresses the logistics, design, cost estimates, etc. of the train station, rail support operations and associated infrastructure.

Much of the properties surrounding the station already have development plans underway, so incorporating the context/market as it exists now, which would also include Brooklyn, a part of the Rail Yard District and the Emerald Trail's McCoys Creek project.

Most important, doing this plan allows us to actually go after rail funding and not JTA spoon-feeding people more commuter rail bs with FEC not really being at the table.

[jaxlongtimer]

Here's a thought... If UF finally gets up to 20,000+ on their Jax campus, what about a starter line from Jax to Gainesville?  Is that feasible?  It might make up for the lack of a straight line interstate connection.  UF, Shands, the sports events, etc. might create a good bit of traffic and Jax airport, beaches and metro area might appeal to Alachua area residents for vacations, day trips/getaways and long distance connections.

[marcuscnelson]

When it comes to anything rail related and JTA, we can wrap fish with the product as that's a more effective use of the print than anything it says since the actual rail companies haven't really been partners. Unfortunately commuter rail is hot air in this town more so than anything actually moving forward.

I certainly agree, it just strikes me as odd that we are then still paying them millions of our tax dollars to continue doing that while also separately doing this other effort. Are we going to complete this $1.5 million LaVilla Transit Innovation and Equity Project and then also spend $3.4 million on... something else? Is there a reason that the City, with its commitment to building its own capacity for this project cannot say that it would like to instead spend its funding raised through its taxes on something that furthers that built capacity? That seems like a pertinent question for having all the stakeholders together.

The LaVilla Neighborhood Development Study wasn't done with much real community engagement and needs to be revisited altogther when it comes to some of the recommendations (i.e. ignored LaVilla's "main street", called for a park at Davis and Union...one of the most high traffic sites in the neighborhood) and inaccurate market assumptions (i.e. claimed no market for retail, yet Riverside Avenue is booming and the Pearl District is proving opposite) made. I assisted the LaVilla community in blowing many of its recommendations up, one being the heritage trail, which somehow the consultant found a way to exclude the heart of the neighborhood and its cultural heritage story, in favor of dreams about having a bike trail run down State Street (i.e. I bet FDOT was never truly engaged because there's no way in hell District 2 would have been on board as conservative as it is amongst the districts statewide). Once we blew up these recommendations, we then worked with the DIA to create a new trail designed with the LaVilla descendant community's lead, which should be installed along a different path this spring.

Now this is good to hear. It's unfortunate then that we spent that effort going in the wrong direction and now have to redo that work, so I hope then that the point of building the capacity is that capacity being able to do these things correctly so that we're not having to revisit them just a few years later.

My understanding is Amtrak plans to keep its existing Jacksonville station. The downtown station would be a second one added. South Florida, Lakeland-Winter Haven and the Orlando area are Florida MSAs with more than one Amtrak station, so the precedence is there and the more stations we have in the region, the more of a chance for intercity rail to provide some of the same benefits of commuter rail without having to wait decades for JTA to figure it out. The State is probably the biggest barrier to expanding Amtrak's offerings, but that's something that can quickly change, depending on who replaces DeSantis when his term is up.

Speaking of South Florida given this news, do we know yet then that Amtrak would actually agree to occupy a completed station, given that it would likely add operational complexity for them (trains continuing down the A-Line will have to back into the station like in Tampa since that area connects to the FEC)? Amtrak notably chose to abandon plans to use the station built at Miami's airport for similar operational reasons, while citing they would be open to running state-supported routes there.

I'm just not sure what exactly is making this particular "LaVilla Transit Innovation and Equity Project" a clear shift in delivering tangible progress towards a new station as opposed to yet another of many opaque studies. I would think the goal of capacity building would be putting the city in a position to actually coordinate these moving parts so that there aren't so many different projects all clashing with each other, but that doesn't actually seem to be the objective here, which is confusing.

I had the opportunity to sit in the room during the discussions that ultimately resulted in Jax going after and successfully getting the Build America Grant grant.

With JTA, DIA, FRA, FTA, Amtrak, etc. at the table, the feds came to the conclusion that we didn't have a real plan for returning rail back to downtown and they suggested we go after this grant if we wanted to lay the foundation for getting federal support in bringing rail back to downtown.

I see this actual first step as breaking down the silos and ending up with a single vision and plan that also addresses the logistics, design, cost estimates, etc. of the train station, rail support operations and associated infrastructure.

Much of the properties surrounding the station already have development plans underway, so incorporating the context/market as it exists now, which would also include Brooklyn, a part of the Rail Yard District and the Emerald Trail's McCoys Creek project.

Most important, doing this plan allows us to actually go after rail funding and not JTA spoon-feeding people more commuter rail bs with FEC not really being at the table.

I can easily believe that the parties involved did not have a plan for rail. I have no problem believing that, or that this grant could potentially change that. What worries me is the opaqueness in whether this grant actually represents the city turning over a new leaf on completing such a plan.

As far as I can tell from out here right now, the silos still seem to exist, this one merely joining them. This grant is already a third of the way through its lifespan, and it's not immediately clear what that means. I see from the council legislation that there is supposed to be a full-time Program Manager, part-time Planner/Engineer, and an engaged consultant on this project. Have those people been hired? What are they doing, in terms of "working on plans for the buildings and other nearby property"? Are all the deliverables mentioned in the Work Plan underway? Will they be complete in the next six months if this is to remain on-schedule? And then is this all still a totally separate effort from what JTA and FDOT are seemingly also doing involving the prospect of rail in Jacksonville?

This all remains very confusing and unfortunate when places like Cocoa and Stuart, which are not the nation's tenth largest cities and currently have no passenger rail stations at all, are somehow both perfectly capable of finding enough capacity to throw their hats into the ring for the five billion dollar pot of passenger rail money available until next week. The IIJA has just about run its course after five years and all we seem to have to show for it are this grant and whatever its output is, the U2C Neighborhood Extensions planning grant, the second First Coast Flyer Green Line TOD planning grant, $100,000 to have deputies stand at railroad crossings, and whatever road projects it might have funded. There was time to make four JTA Board appointments but seemingly no time to make sure those people would secure the agency's cooperation with the city on these matters, which is why we're even having to separately build capacity in the first place. That all concerns me about the status of this project and what that will actually mean for building a train station Downtown.

[thelakelander]

I doubt it. There's no rail line between Jax and Gainesville and no density either. The cost of the Skyway would be peanuts in comparison but the Skyway would likely still generate more ridership. With that said, UF won't have anywhere near 20k in LaVilla for decades.

[marcuscnelson]

Here's a thought... If UF finally gets up to 20,000+ on their Jax campus, what about a starter line from Jax to Gainesville?  Is that feasible?  It might make up for the lack of a straight line interstate connection.  UF, Shands, the sports events, etc. might create a good bit of traffic and Jax airport, beaches and metro area might appeal to Alachua area residents for vacations, day trips/getaways and long distance connections.

That wouldn't be a starter line. The S-Line is CSX's main freight corridor through the state since the A-Line was partly sold to accommodate SunRail. Even if you could add enough capacity there to also accommodate passenger rail without impacting freight service (an expensive prospect already), you'd then need to restore, but really greenfield construct, thirteen miles of rail line from Waldo along SR-24 (including right past a runway, which might no longer be considered acceptable by FAA clearance rules) to actually reach University Avenue in Gainesville, at which point you're still a mile and a half across town from the university itself. That's not to say it shouldn't happen, just that it'd be a very expensive project to do.