JTA meetings on the future of the Skyway

[Ken_FSU]

The single largest problem in the northbank right now is the lack of pedestrian foot traffic on the streets. Lack of feet on the streets negatively impacts safety perception, makes retail and restaurant unsustainable, and hinders our ability to retain or attract office tenants.

If the City of Jacksonville & JTA decide to spend $100 million to physically remove and separate people from the streets by way of an elevated trail, I'm done.

[thelakelander]

We'll have an editorial on this next week.

[MakeDTjaxGre@tAgain]

We'll have an editorial on this next week.

Looking forward to it! Wonder if you can also add cost implications of each proposition? What ifs?

I'd be interested to know what if they kept it as is and focus on commuter rail at this point.

Or what would take to pivoted and covert to more of a traditional system - that can use the elevated guideway. For a complete buildout, how would this transform downtown by extending to nearby neighborhoods or even beyond (what it was originally intended to do).

Extending the current people mover system to the burbs doesn't seem feasible with the limited things to do downtown, time it would take to transport residence, and the capacity of each cart. A higher capacity rail system seems can transport more people, it's faster, but heavier so won't be able to use the existing stricter per se.

What would it take get a reliable public transport to take ~15 - 40k people to and from a Jags game and other high occupancy events for example? If we were to host a draft - fans traveling into town or much for further in the future another Super Bowl. I personally hate sitting in traffic at the jags games and concerts in that area, tailgating is fun but getting in and out sucks. Would love to read your thoughts.

[thelakelander]

Thoughts on costs will most certainly be included. I had the opportunity to attend the March 5th workshop. Costs and constructability) will make some of these options unfeasible. Its a bit premature, in my opinion, to show options like an elevated trail, to the general public. When someone realizes you're basically demolishing the Skyway, then rebuilding a larger elevated structure for a sidewalk for +$100-200 million and will need millions more to maintain annually, general opinion of transportation engineering/planning novices like Mark W's, will change.

[Charles Hunter]

Somewhere up-thread it was noted that the Las Vegas elevated people-mover uses Bombardier-Alweg cars and track. Seems conversion to that system would be the most economically viable. Even assuming the guide-beam would have to be replaced.

[marcuscnelson]

^Bombardier (now Alstom) themselves appeared to recommend against that nine years ago, proposing instead to remove the guidebeam entirely and utilize a modernized version of the original VAL technology used on the Skyway, which is also used in Chicago and Taiwan. I'm not sure there's anything about the Skyway that would incline them to think otherwise now.

[jaxlongtimer]

There really are no good vehicle options for the Skyway.  Every one of them bleeds money down a rat hole.  There are no prospects that any option will generate real demand, especially in proportion for the investment required.  This is why I say just put it out of its misery and, at least for now, abandon it at a minimum, tear it down as a maximum.  The trail option provides a middle ground without the huge money sucking operating costs of a vehicle option.  It even leaves open the future possibility to implement a vehicle option if one could ever truly be justified.

I have said it here before, and Mark Woods just echoed my past comments, there is next to no chance the City has to pay the Feds back.  Politically, it could be cancelled out if properly addressed, regardless of the party in power. JTA is using that to put a knife to the City's throat to keep JTA's wishes alive.  When you have a war that costs an estimated $2 billion every day, I don't think the Feds will lose sleep over $100 million, if that is even a real number (still waiting to see support for that).

If the City of Jacksonville & JTA decide to spend $100 million to physically remove and separate people from the streets by way of an elevated trail, I'm done.

Ken, what do you think the Skyway is attempting to do if vehicles run on it?  Remove people from street level! All isolated from their surroundings in an air conditioned bubble.  And for multiple times a $100 million.  At least a pedestrian trail would have a much better chance of engaging users with Downtown, would likely attract more people to Downtown due to its uniqueness and would cost a fraction to operate per user vs. a vehicle solution. 

I would also bet NYC would tell you that the High Line has added countless new visitors to Manhattan, surely adding to its economy.  It also serves as a great way for pedestrians to move about without saying a prayer before crossing an intersection, waiting for traffic lights or breathing street level exhaust fumes, all while adding a memorable vibe to an otherwise ordinary walk.  I note that there are numerous on/off points so many people are not walking the entire length.  If developed in a TOD manner, small businesses could crop up at such entry/exit points for users to enjoy and patronize. Ideally, tying it in to the Emerald Trail would feed a steady stream of traffic over it. All of this would be better than any vehicle solution that will literally amount to "pie in the sky."

[thelakelander]

There really are no good vehicle options for the Skyway.  Every one of them bleeds money down a rat hole.  There are no prospects that any option will generate real demand, especially in proportion for the investment required.  This is why I say just put it out of its misery and, at least for now, abandon it at a minimum, tear it down as a maximum.

There are some options and there is some demand. Just depends on what your baseline number for success is. Whatever it is, any form of fixed transit in Jax will likely blow your baseline if this is your position on mass transit in general.

The trail option provides a middle ground without the huge money sucking operating costs of a vehicle option.  It even leaves open the future possibility to implement a vehicle option if one could ever truly be justified.

Again, this isn't a cheap option and serves the least amount of people. Its actually significantly higher than retrofitting and repairing the existing rolling stock option that Alex mentioned a few weeks back.

I have said it here before, and Mark Woods just echoed my past comments, there is next to no chance the City has to pay the Feds back.  Politically, it could be cancelled out if properly addressed, regardless of the party in power. JTA is using that to put a knife to the City's throat to keep JTA's wishes alive.  When you have a war that costs an estimated $2 billion every day, I don't think the Feds will lose sleep over $100 million, if that is even a real number (still waiting to see support for that).

From my understanding, Jax will actually have to payback money but I also agree that JTA has used this to put a knife to the City's throat to keep their wishes alive. However, my opinion of the situation and how to move forward is significantly different. We shouldn't be tearing it down, so that's not a real threat to me. It basically needs to stay a peoplemover and JTA and Jax need to actually figure out what our regional mass transit future is, figure out how much it will cost to implement, secure funding and actually begin implementing something before moving on abandoning anything. If we take out that river crossing prematurely, the river will become a significant obstacle to cross and likely add another billion to whatever high frequency fixed-transit project we "think" is a good replacement.

Ken, what do you think the Skyway is attempting to do if vehicles run on it?  Remove people from street level! All isolated from their surroundings in an air conditioned bubble.  And for multiple times a $100 million.  At least a pedestrian trail would have a much better chance of engaging users with Downtown, would likely attract more people to Downtown due to its uniqueness and would cost a fraction to operate per user vs. a vehicle solution.

I spend a lot of time in LaVilla. We have a very nice pedestrian trail there called the Emerald Trail. I may walk it again today. As a user, I don't see a bunch of people using it, like they do with similar trails in cities with higher densities (i.e. Atlanta BeltLine). It gets less daily users than the broken down Skyway does now. It would be crazy for Jax to spend +$10 million to redo Hogan Street now for the Emerald Trail, then turn around and rip it up again for a parallel elevated footpath that would cost more than leaving a peoplemover serving a larger population in place.

I would also bet NYC would tell you that the High Line has added countless new visitors to Manhattan, surely adding to its economy.

Lol we have to acknowledge some real life parameters. The High Line was a freight railroad and Manhattan has a population density of 75,000 residents per square mile. Apples and oranges. This continued comparison with the Skyway would be equivalent of a mass transit advocate claiming we should build a subway because that works in NYC, London and Paris.








This is a toothpick in comparison with its ability to structurally support the dead load of people, trees and landscape. Unlike the High Line, this would not be adaptive reuse locally. Jax would have to demolish the Skyway and build a new High Line from scratch.

Ideally, tying it in to the Emerald Trail would feed a steady stream of traffic over it. All of this would be better than any vehicle solution that will literally amount to "pie in the sky."

Unfortunately for High Line type backers, the Skyway serving that role is exactly the definition of pie in the sky. I hate that JTA is taking people down this road for an option that will ultimately never happen. Like the U2C, we'll spend another decade blowing millions on studies, only to end up looking for a way out, when it becomes apparent it won't work as shown on those renderings.

[marcuscnelson]

I'd be interested to know what if they kept it as is and focus on commuter rail at this point.

There's not really a reasonable option to simply "keep it as is," ten years ago with the original Skyway Modernization Program it was clear we needed a real solution going forward and that's still the case. You still need to at least either figure out overhauling the original trains and replacing the operating system or replacing both. Perhaps to more your point, that doesn't have to mean expanding the system (though we really ought to).

I think it's important right now for everyone to understand that as of now, this administration does not appear to be supporting any new major transit investment that was not already included in the federal pipeline (like the commuter rail projects in South Florida) before 2025. Anything we do before 2029 then either needs to be just planning for future federal funding to be built in the 2030s or done slightly sooner without it.

That's then to say, in terms of commuter rail, that the productive "focus" right now would probably be figuring out what the governance of any system we would build then needs to be in order to actually build anything. JTA as-is seems completely incapable of that, as thelakelander has discussed before, so either it needs to be reformed at the state level to actually have multi-county powers that would make it able to build a rail system, or a new commuter rail agency with those powers needs to be established.

Or what would take to pivoted and covert to more of a traditional system - that can use the elevated guideway. For a complete buildout, how would this transform downtown by extending to nearby neighborhoods or even beyond (what it was originally intended to do).

Extending the current people mover system to the burbs doesn't seem feasible with the limited things to do downtown, time it would take to transport residence, and the capacity of each cart. A higher capacity rail system seems can transport more people, it's faster, but heavier so won't be able to use the existing stricter per se.

What would it take get a reliable public transport to take ~15 - 40k people to and from a Jags game and other high occupancy events for example? If we were to host a draft - fans traveling into town or much for further in the future another Super Bowl. I personally hate sitting in traffic at the jags games and concerts in that area, tailgating is fun but getting in and out sucks. Would love to read your thoughts.

I've been of the opinion for a while now that the Skyway needs modernization as an APM with modest expansions to Brooklyn, the Sports Complex, and San Marco, at which point it should be supplemented by a larger rail transit system meant for those faster trips between Downtown, St. Johns Town Center, the Beaches, and the Westside. For a technical solution, I'd look to something akin to the rail systems that exist and are being built in Vancouver, Montreal, Honolulu, and all over Europe and Asia: automated light metro. Something that's faster than the Skyway, not so large like the rail systems in New York or Washington that they're too expensive to build, but because of the automation are relatively cheap to operate at high frequency and thereby with high capacity.

So for example, during a Jaguars game you might have a rail line (like Montreal's REM for reference) that carries about 800 people per train, and then run that every 3 minutes or less, to the point that in an hour you can move 16,000 people from there to the Beaches or Town Center without adding more traffic to the roads; and then a modernized Skyway (like the O'Hare ATS for reference) that carries about 100 people per train every 3 minutes and moves another 2,000 people to Brooklyn or the Southbank in that hour, again without putting all those people in dozens of 9-passenger vans or hundreds of cars that are then sitting on Bay Street or the bridges. In theory, modern automated rail systems like in Europe and Asia can run as frequently as every 90 seconds, which would then double that throughput number.

And then on top of that you might also have a regional rail system to Clay, Nassau, and St. Johns that people are transferring to, as well as buses and BRT and the Emerald Trail. You would definitely want the overall transit network to be capable of stadium traffic, especially if you are building them to the stadiums, but the real value would be in the ability to have regional connectivity that can move thousands of people without thousands of their cars, at really any time of day or night. That kind of flexibility is where people start getting the freedom to change their habits and not be reliant on driving for every trip, every time like most are now, especially after things like sports games or concerts or parties where they might be inebriated. Obviously that's a big investment, but the status quo is also an enormous investment, and one that as we see now is leaving us vulnerable to things like increased gas prices.

[thelakelander]

I've been of the opinion for a while now that the Skyway needs modernization as an APM with modest expansions to Brooklyn, the Sports Complex, and San Marco, at which point it should be supplemented by a larger rail transit system meant for those faster trips between Downtown, St. Johns Town Center, the Beaches, and the Westside.

I share this opinion. Similar to Miami's Metromover, this was actually the original vision for the Skyway. We just quit on it. As far as paying back the feds go, I'd make Jax payback money too. The Southbank expansion of the Skyway isn't close to the end of its shelf life. This is a ton of concrete to throw away because we've failed the transit investment. Still too flimsy and narrow for the elevated bike/ped trail dream though.


Common width of elevated Skyway infrastructure.


Skyway car graveyard at Brooklyn. Panera Bread can be seen across the street. This is an easy expansion that doesn't require extending elevated track.


Skyway cars can be seen at ground level from the doors of Brooklyn's Panera Bread.


Also right across the street from Whole Foods, which opens on May 21.


Publix and an urban retail district building built by Gateway at Rosa Parks Station. After years of going from nowhere to nowhere, there are some viable destinations popping up at the Brooklyn, Rosa Parks and LaVilla legs of the existing route.

[deathstar]

I know this doesn't necessarily fit with the skyway, but there are plenty of times when I'm on Aberdeen Street, looking at the remnants of trail transportation, where I'm like.. "how cool it'd be to take a rail car from here to downtown." If there's one thing I've learned in the last 18 years here, it'd make such a viable form of transportation, even in today's world.

[thelakelander]

^This could be as simple as a hybrid commuter rail line down the CSX A line, where you could ride from a station in Murray Hill's First Block into downtown's Union Station!

[Charles Hunter]

Thoughts

from marcusnelson
So for example, during a Jaguars game ... a modernized Skyway (like the O'Hare ATS for reference) that carries about 100 people per train every 3 minutes

I checked, the O'Hare ATS people movers runs in 3-car trains of 45' long cars. Could a 45-foot long vehicle make the Bay-Hogan curve? The Acosta Bridge appoaches? Other curves? How long were the old DPM cars?

Something interesting I found when looking at this was this

Wikipedia - (Chicago) Airport Transit System - Fleet

The ATS originally used the French-based VAL technology, which features fully automated, rubber-tired people mover cars that previously saw use on the Jacksonville Skyway until 1989. The system is capable of traveling at speeds of up to 50 mph (80 km/h), and now uses 12 3-car Bombardier Innovia APM 256 trains, which replaced the previous 15 Matra VAL 256 vehicles.

and

As of 2023, the previous 15 VAL trains are sitting in a vacant lot on airport property near Irving Park Road and Taft Avenue.

Wonder if we could get a good deal on them?
I don't think they are the old JTA DPM cars. Looking at a Google aerial, they look longer than the cars I remember that used to be here. But, that was 27 years ago.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/IL-19+%26+Taft+Ave,+Chicago,+IL+60131/@41.954605,-87.9133493,44a,35y,39.48t/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x880fb469d99922bd:0xa842bec19a134938!8m2!3d41.9536172!4d-87.9142007!16s%2Fg%2F11gf4c01ck?authuser=0&entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDMxMS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

[thelakelander]

Here's a Google Streetview image of those cars: https://maps.app.goo.gl/dZLrhHeqSB5Q2hjn9



Here's the full length of the existing Skyway vehicles:

[Charles Hunter]

Hmmm - maybe those are the old JTA DPM cars in storage in Chicago. I think they were retired before having to negotiate the Bay-Hogan curve? I think they were retired when the system was expanded beyond the non-curved Starter Line

The current cars are about 20 feet to an articulation point (assuming those are inches).