Let’s Get Back to the Basics at JTA

[jaxlongtimer]

^ it would make a great gas station/brewery combo

I had the same idea.  Let's get two birds with one stone.  Let the City do one of its famous land swaps and put Daily's here.  It is two stories and has vehicle service lanes.  If we are going to have an unsightly gas station, let's put it "hidden" between the Skyway tracks there.

Agree with Katrina Brown, but as I recall, her brother was terminated by JTA a few years ago so she may also see "payback" here     .

It is so wildly depressing that the Skyway got dragged down with NAVI.

Not all of us are depressed  .  Putting it out of the misery it has brought the taxpayers for 40 years.

[Ken_FSU]

Not all of us are depressed  .  Putting it out of the misery it has brought the taxpayers for 40 years.

I get it. But I strongly believe it's less that the Skyway failed Jacksonville or that the system was inherently flawed, and more that Jacksonville failed the Skyway by not setting it up for success with easy wins. Like a Brooklyn extension. Or smart marketing. Or master planning that focused investment along the Skyway.

Exact same thing that happened with the Landing. The city made promises to Toney Sleiman that they would provide the structured parking necessary to lure big-name anchor tenants. They failed to do so, and failed to invest in its modernization, and then blamed the Landing for its own demise.

Same way that everyone is going to blame the Four Seasons and new stadium for underperformance five to ten years from now when the city is hanging the sports complex out to dry by not addressing supporting amenities, let alone basic parking.

It's just getting depressing.

[thelakelander]

Jacksonville is full of predictable self inflicted wounds. Regardless of how I feel about the Skyway (it is an asset, IMO), it or anything else transit related is snake bitten if in control of the JTA we have today.

To get better, we must bottom out by effectively cleaning house over there and replacing those in position of leadership, including the board.

Only then, will we realistically have a chance to improve the city's overall transit system, which could include reopening a better Skyway or moving forward with something that takes advantage of our existing infrastructure.

I don't think we can get there with keeping the same decision-makers in charge who put us in this black hole.

[jaxlongtimer]

JTA and Skyway just made international news! 

..."betting", "paying for it decades later", "fragile...systems", "never quite delivered"... all reasons to move on.

Adding, again, the comment about paying back the Feds.  As I have always said, a big fat cover to hold taxpayers hostage.  All fiction.

Everything about the Skyway is a deck of cards... 100% pork barrel and a ploy by JTA to justify its executive salaries.  A 40 year scandal.

In 1989, Jacksonville opened an automated train above downtown; in 2026, its free 2.5-mile Skyway with 8 stations is set to stop running

Why it matters beyond one city

...This isn't really a story about one little train. It's the story of how cities are betting on new technology, and paying for it decades later. JTA officials say the pause won't require them to repay the approximately $90 million in federal grants that built the Skyway, because they informed the US Department of Transportation earlier this year of the system's remaining useful life, according to Jacksonville Today. City leaders are also considering options that include rebuilding the Skyway, converting its elevated track for driverless shuttles, or tearing it down and turning the guideway into a walking path.

The Skyway's pause is a reminder of how fragile such systems can be. The technology that was once the future of American downtowns, a driverless train gliding silently overhead, never quite delivered the ridership its planners envisioned back in the 1970s. Whether it returns as a rebuilt monorail, a driverless bus corridor, or simply a raised footpath through downtown, its next chapter is still being written.

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/us/in-1989-jacksonville-opened-an-automated-train-above-downtown-in-2026-its-free-2-5-mile-skyway-with-8-stations-is-set-to-stop-running/articleshow/134429503.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst..

[thelakelander]

The article is a very incomplete one. I wished they googled a bit more to write it.

The pause has nothing to do with fragile technology of an APM and everything to do with incompetent management at JTA.

200 people lost their job and several regular local bus routes are also being cut but not a peep or damnation of busses.

[Charles Hunter]

I can't read the article, a "sign in" splash screen with no place to sign in.

The part quoted doesn't prove the Fed payback to be "fiction." It just says the temporary closure won't trigger a payback. The question of whether payback is needed if the Skyway or NAVI never reopen is still open.

[jaxlongtimer]

I can't read the article, a "sign in" splash screen with no place to sign in.

The part quoted doesn't prove the Fed payback to be "fiction." It just says the temporary closure won't trigger a payback. The question of whether payback is needed if the Skyway or NAVI never reopen is still open.

Strange, I got in via Google News click with no issues.

That JTA laid off its Skyway team tells me there is no way the Skyway will be operating under any circumstances anytime soon, if ever.  Some of these are likely highly trained and uniquely experienced persons who may not be replaceable (after all, who wants to learn to operate or fix outdated and one-of-a-kind vehicles that are no longer supported?) and, if laid off, you would expect there is no prospect in the foreseeable future for their services or they would have been "retained."

The prospect for reuse of the Skyway track are not great and, even if pursued, due to the decision making process, politics and finding adequate funding, are likely years out, at best.

As such, JTA either knows, suspects or has carefully calculated that any consequences from the Feds will be minimal or not at all.  And, I can't imagine the Feds pressing their case against a financially stressed JTA.  It all adds up to the Fed payback likely being much ado about little or nothing.

[thelakelander]

The elevated structure can be anything from the existing APM to a different APM, streetcar, etc. You wouldn't pay to demolish a river crossing and 2 miles of track just because you laid off people. Anyone who would do that without true evaluation of the system, would be just as bad in a leadership role as those that put JTA in its financial hardship.

The same goes for NAVI. Its not exactly dead because they laid off staff. You can pay expertise in house or hire outside consultant help.

[jaxoNOLE]

While the Skyway has not been a success, celebrating its demise is not progress. To Lake's point, no substitute form of transit will accomplish either grade separation or a river crossing outside of existing infrastructure at a price point we are willing to bear in at least a generation.

Classic example of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Edit: For perspective, NAVI's best MONTH was about 2k riders, whereas the Skyway serves about 1k riders daily. Equating the two in terms of KPIs is analytical malpractice. Stipulating that both are underperformers, it remains an order of magnitude difference in actual results. Any argument that implies equivalence is fundamentally flawed, given the extraordinary investment into NAVI relative to the ongoing maintenance of the Skyway.

[jaxlongtimer]

Automated people mover in Los Angeles at LAX doesn't seem to be faring any better than our Skyway. It's also suppose to be about 2.25 miles. At $3.3 billion, it appears to be another example of an extravagant/costly way to move people.

I anticipate Skway fans will extract that to say the Skyway track here is now worth $3.3 billion.  It's not the just the cost of construction, it's more so the cost of operating and maintaining it.

Interestingly, from the rendering, the cars appear bigger and the trains longer than the Skyway.  This  adds to my point about how inefficient our Skyway is at moving larger numbers of people.

No doubt, it will have a captive audience at LAX so passenger counts should be decent whenever the thing gets finished.  It will be interesting to see if it's any more reliable there than here or what other issues may arise there.  We should keep an eye on it.

Here, the cost per passenger is way off track (pun intended and, unlike LAX, I don't see passenger counts ever getting to a point that would substantially bring that number down vs. other modes of transit.  That's my beef.

LOS ANGELES (KABC) --
Delays of LAX People Mover takes center stage in LA mayor's race

There's more bad news for the People Mover at LAX, which has been promised to address the horrific traffic at the airport.

It was supposed to open in 2023 but has been delayed multiple times and the current opening date was next month. Now it's delayed again, an issue that's taken center stage in the Los Angeles mayor's race.

The People Mover, called SkyLink, is way over budget.

Los Angeles mayoral candidate Nithya Raman has blamed Mayor Karen Bass' leadership.

Construction on the project began back in 2019, long before Bass was mayor. But many of the delays have happened on her watch, including the People Mover's failure to be ready for when Los Angeles hosted World Cup games.

"I look forward to this being done so we can safely and efficiently move Angelenos and visitors to our world-class airport in the new year," Bass said in a statement. "The contractors need to get this across the finish line."

In a campaign video, Raman said that, if elected mayor, she would seek investigations by the city attorney and state attorney general into the contractor's handling of the project.

"I'm going to make sure contractors like these never get a single dollar from the city ever again," Raman said in the video.

The over 2-mile People Mover will connect the terminals to the new rental car lot, parking and L.A. Metro.

LAX has blamed the contractor for the delays, but said rigorous testing is required.

"... We will not compromise on these stringent safety protocols, as delivering a system that safely, dependably, and durably serves Los Angeles and our upcoming global events is our primary focus," LAX's statement read in part.

https://abc7.com/post/delays-lax-people-mover-takes-center-stage-la-mayors-race/19873147/

https://media.nbclosangeles.com/2024/07/02-Center-CTA-Aerial-1.jpg?quality=85&strip=all&fit=1450%2C906

[thelakelander]

Not sure what an over budget random airport APM project in LA has to do with anything in Jax.

MTS in San Diego is forecasting a $150 million budget deficit and possibly cutting 1/3rd of its bus routes and reducing its streetcar and LRT. Should this mean Jax should abandon looking at investing in local bus system as well as never considering streetcars and LRT?

https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/mts-proposes-bus-route-cuts-amid-budget-deficits/4076002/?amp=1

We have to get serious about planning in this town, which means performing real analysis without trying to force ourselves into preconceived paths. As of now, for JTA, they need to get their financial house back in order.

Once there, to keep it in order, it will mean engaging in unbiased public outreach and planning, accepting a community vision and seeing how they can support that vision as opposed to force feeding half-baked internal executive leadership dreams like NAVI.

[jaxlongtimer]

Here is the latest NON-update update on Holon.  Looks like JTA wants a $2 million Holon allocation back but then says they are committed to using their vehicles for U2C.  Looks like U2C is not yet dead at JTA.  Go figure.

HOLON autonomous vehicle factory still planned for Jacksonville despite Skyway uncertainty

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A Jacksonville city council member is calling into question the future of autonomous vehicles in Jacksonville.

Council Member Jimmy Peluso asked about the plan to order autonomous vehicles from HOLON at a meeting with Jacksonville Transportation Authority Thursday in light of the agency announcing the Skyway and NAVI will suspend operation in the next few months.

Last November, city leaders filled James Weldon Johnson Park to give folks a look at HOLON - an autonomous shuttled plan to replace the NAVI with the ability to ramp up to the Skyway.

With both the NAVI and Skyway taking a hiatus as part of JTA budget constraints, it had Jacksonville City Council Member Jimmy Peluso wondering if it's too late to ask for a refund at a meeting Thursday.

"The Holon contract, has that been, are those dollars already spent with HOLON, or can we pull those dollars back," said Peluso.

First Coast News took Peluso's question to a JTA spokesperson, who said JTA had a reservation for 14 HOLON vehicles to be delivered two years after the company broke ground on its plant on the Northside.

That spokesperson said JTA is working to reallocate the $2 million for now to pay for part of the current operations cost of the NAVI program.

The spokesperson added the pause of the Skyway and NAVI has not impacted plans for the HOLON shuttles as part of the Ultimate Urban Connector, saying "This was always part of the next phase of the U2C and we are still finishing the PD&E study for that phase."

"Maybe the HOLON vehicles can go to Nevada, Texas, other places, but I don't see it being on the streets of Jacksonville any time soon, at least," said Peluso. "I don't want us to put more money into that, when I'd rather have the buses we do have operating well."

While he doesn't want to see them on Jacksonville streets, Peluso isn't opposed to still seeing the Holon vehicles built here.

"If they open up that factory and they're able to do some high-tech devices and vehicles, sounds great," said Peluso. "You know, I hear there's a new guy in the Dallas transit authority. Maybe he wants to pay for our Holon vehicles."

A city spokesperson told First Coast News HOLON received a one year extension on its development agreement for a factory construction at Eastport Exchange Industrial Park.

Now, the city of Jacksonville is requiring Holon to invest $80 million in this factory site by the end of next year and create 100 jobs by the end of 2028.

https://www.firstcoastnews.com/article/news/community/transportation/holon-factory-still-planned-for-jacksonville/77-6b5f88ac-62fd-47cd-8a38-a40bd9309de9

[marcuscnelson]

As such, JTA either knows, suspects or has carefully calculated that any consequences from the Feds will be minimal or not at all.  And, I can't imagine the Feds pressing their case against a financially stressed JTA.  It all adds up to the Fed payback likely being much ado about little or nothing.

As I already mentioned that we'd learned from St. Louis, the FTA will demand a resumption of operations or their money back even if (probably especially if) the operator is crying poverty to justify a shutdown. To do otherwise would defeat the entire point, which is that the FTA expects projects accepting their money to operate for their useful life. Otherwise what's to keep anyone from accepting federal tax dollars for transit projects they never really expect to run as promised and then pocketing the money for them?

There's a reason why JTA has very intentionally chosen the language "paused" to describe what is happening to the Skyway and NAVI. How exactly such a pause unfolds is certainly going to be a question for a lot of people, and one I would anticipate the FTA keeps an eye on just as they have done elsewhere. I don't really understand why you seem to keep willfully and repeatedly ignoring these kinds of details in order to hamfist your claim of red herrings.

Automated people mover in Los Angeles at LAX doesn't seem to be faring any better than our Skyway. It's also suppose to be about 2.25 miles. At $3.3 billion, it appears to be another example of an extravagant/costly way to move people.

I anticipate Skway fans will extract that to say the Skyway track here is now worth $3.3 billion.  It's not the just the cost of construction, it's more so the cost of operating and maintaining it.

Interestingly, from the rendering, the cars appear bigger and the trains longer than the Skyway.  This  adds to my point about how inefficient our Skyway is at moving larger numbers of people.

No doubt, it will have a captive audience at LAX so passenger counts should be decent whenever the thing gets finished.  It will be interesting to see if it's any more reliable there than here or what other issues may arise there.  We should keep an eye on it.

Here, the cost per passenger is way off track (pun intended and, unlike LAX, I don't see passenger counts ever getting to a point that would substantially bring that number down vs. other modes of transit.  That's my beef.

And to this point, I have friends in LA that have been waiting for the SkyLink for some time now. There's some great local coverage there of what exactly has gone wrong with that particular project:

SkyLink being so expensive is notable because of how unusual that price tag is for the same APM technology used at more than a dozen other airports as well as in Miami and other cities every day. We already know the Skyway's infrastructure is capable of larger trains than the ones there now, it used to have them. The solution to what ridership has been thus far is not to replace it with something less functional.

If there's interest in a serious conversation about how to move people at scale throughout a city the size of Jacksonville, that acknowledges the real constraints involved in implementing plans for that (not nonsense excuses like JTA has made in pursuit of whatever they feel bolsters executives' careers), this city should definitely have it. If I had confidence that FDOT would allow for real priority for at-grade mass transit, that might make it more of an option, but given that even Miami couldn't get that out of them, I don't think it's rational to pretend Jacksonville would, so it probably doesn't make sense to spend a bunch of money poorly trying to implement that.

To Lake's point above, a serious conversation has to lead into a serious effort to plan and build and operate transit that won't look like what JTA has done before, and that will require rethinking things and new leadership to deliver, but that doesn't mean razing everything to the ground to feel better about the idea of starting over.

[jaxlongtimer]

As such, JTA either knows, suspects or has carefully calculated that any consequences from the Feds will be minimal or not at all.  And, I can't imagine the Feds pressing their case against a financially stressed JTA.  It all adds up to the Fed payback likely being much ado about little or nothing.

As I already mentioned that we'd learned from St. Louis, the FTA will demand a resumption of operations or their money back even if (probably especially if) the operator is crying poverty to justify a shutdown. To do otherwise would defeat the entire point, which is that the FTA expects projects accepting their money to operate for their useful life. Otherwise what's to keep anyone from accepting federal tax dollars for transit projects they never really expect to run as promised and then pocketing the money for them?

There's a reason why JTA has very intentionally chosen the language "paused" to describe what is happening to the Skyway and NAVI. How exactly such a pause unfolds is certainly going to be a question for a lot of people, and one I would anticipate the FTA keeps an eye on just as they have done elsewhere. I don't really understand why you seem to keep willfully and repeatedly ignoring these kinds of details in order to hamfist your claim of red herrings.

We shall see in due course how this plays out.  You totally overlooked my point leading up to my conclusion.  When you fire all the people that made the Skyway work, you will be hard-pressed to find replacements given its obsolescence and inconsistent political and financial support.  Sure, JTA is using the word "pause" for now but that could just be politically expedient JTA-speak for what's really going to happen.  I think we can all agree JTA is rarely upfront about what they really are up to or how they make decisions.

I Googled St. Louis transit projects and based on what I found they had both a trolley and light rail.  It looks like both were killed after maybe less than 10 years of actual operations.

For the trolley, it looks like St. Louis cleverly reduced the operating hours to only 32 hours a week, about 6 months a year (I wouldn't call that something the Feds had in mind when they funded it), to match exactly its expenses to its revenue and the Feds accepted that without further demanding a payback. I think most people would find that as a wink-wink arrangement, hardly a hard demand to be paid back.

For the light rail, I saw no mention of a Fed payback but, if St. Louis paid the Feds back, it appears that, even so, it was cheaper than running the funded project vs. switching to an alternative (BRT) that also served more people. 

Both of these outcomes would appear to support the point I have been pushing with the Skyway.  Either the Feds would favorably negotiate out the payback, or not, but, regardless, it's cheaper to go in a different direction and pay them back (we are 35 years in, not 10 or less, so a big time difference).

The Loop Trolley will keep running for another three years.

Bi-State Development Agency's board of directors voted without opposition on Friday to continue a deal to physically operate the trolley for 32 hours a week between April and October. The Loop Trolley Transit Development District covers the costs.

Bi-State President and Chief Executive Officer Taulby Roach praised the head of Metro Transit for reducing the trolley's operating budget to match the revenue generated by the development district.

"I think this is a great success not only for Metro Transit and Bi-State but also for the region," Roach said. "We've been able to take a troubled asset and get it to work."

Bi-State took over the trolley in 2022 in order to help the region avoid having to pay back the millions of federal dollars used to construct the 2.2-mile trolley line. At the time, Roach said he was "gritting [his] teeth" in asking board members to approve the deal.

https://www.stlpr.org/news-briefs/2025-02-28/bi-state-to-operate-loop-trolley-for-another-three-years

[thelakelander]

MetroLink LRT still operates in St. Louis. Also, you can re-hire workers or contract out. Neither the Skyway or NAVI are officially dead.