Let’s Get Back to the Basics at JTA

[jaxlongtimer]

^ I think that the City's head of public works and planning departments should play some role in the JTA Board process whether voting or ex-officio.  The lack of collaboration between JTA and City departments/needs is well known.  If we are ever going to have a legitimate planning process and infrastructure efficiencies, these connections needs to be made stronger.

[marcuscnelson]

The fundamental idea behind my suggestion was getting local experts on the board that are knowledgeable about transportation, planning, and local/regional policy. Adding the ED of the TPO and Regional Council are the best ways to do so, imo. This would put Jeff Sheffield (Masters in Planning with 30 years of experience) and Beth Payne (Masters in Planning with 25 years of experience) on the Board. Some boards have requirements to appoint people with certain skills (i.e 1 engineer, 1 transportation planner, 1 architect, etc). However, due to professional conflicts of interest it would be difficult to find anyone who can serve.

I agree that the mayoral appointments have been disappointing though. Another option worth considering is requiring one of the appointees to be a City Council member that is nominated by City Council (not the mayor). That way you may end up getting a Council person with an alternative viewpoint of the Mayor.

I've met Mr. Sheffield, and I've spoken with him about the U2C Program and JTA before. I hesitate to say that it would be ideal for him to become additionally responsible for overseeing JTA on top of all his existing responsibilities at the TPO. I don't think transit is his forte and that this is something he would have an interest in as an added part of his job. Coordination with the TPO and NEFRC and the City ought to improve for sure, but I'm not sure adding to their staff workloads with new, unpaid oversight responsibilities addresses that.

In theory the Council option would be good too, except given the last three Council Liaisons (Rory Diamond, Rahman Johnson, Ju'Coby Pittman) to the JTA Board, it's unclear that they would actually do a better job of picking board members either. Ultimately Council are the ones who allowed the LOGT to hand a quarter billion dollars to the questionable U2C program (even granting the shift in funds to the Emerald Trail).

This brings me back to what I was saying earlier, in that I'm having a hard time figuring out what option gives us board members who actually care about transit working well, who will take their roles seriously and do the due diligence to avoid getting one over on them by whatever nonsense staff might bring them, without just being hatchet people for more driving everywhere. This seems to be a problem for transit agencies across the country, so I'm not immediately sure how especially in Jacksonville one might avoid it.

[jaxlongtimer]

^To add, my observation of the TPO is they are mostly all about road building/expansion/improvements, especially the interstates/beltways/state roads.  They throw a few bones to bike and pedestrian safety.  I don't see much interest in mass transit there.  I would think they would be yelling from the rooftops if they did care, leading the charge for regional and intra-city fixed rail solutions that would be much further along than the near-nothing we have now.

I just looked at the TPO's October board minutes and other than a feeble JTA report, I didn't see any talk of mass transit.  I also looked at the last several years of their "planning" studies and saw no mass transit ones.  If they are doing mass transit, I don't see it on their web pages.  Clearly, not front and center, if they are doing anything at all.

[marcuscnelson]

^ Right, there are TPOs/MPOs elsewhere that do take great interest in transit and are strong advocates to push for better planning that accounts for it as an alternative to roadway expansion, but the NFTPO isn't really one of them. That's not necessarily Mr. Sheffield's fault, but it's a matter of the priorities the TPO has been given by those who oversee it, and likely also the attitude JTA has held in monopolizing public discourse on transit while not really believing in transit.

We certainly ought to be at a point in which the counties and cities in this region realize the math in that we cannot keep expecting everyone to just drive everywhere all the time forever, but obviously there's also a great deal of interest ideologically and financially in ignoring that math or grasping for whatever excuse to not change tact. The ditch JTA has driven itself into the last decade has certainly not helped matters.