Ruins of Jacksonville: The Streetcar System

[Bike Jax]

I posted "Taken For A Ride" an amazing documentary by Jim Kleina and Martha Olson that documents the efforts to derail mass transit in America on Bike Jax a couple of month ago.

Yuu can check it out at http://www.bikejax.org/2009/03/taken-for-ride-murder-of-mass-transit.html

[archiphreak]

Stephen Dare gets mad props for posting one of the greatest bands ever.  Siouxsie and the Banshees - YEAH BABIE!

[hightowerlover]

kinda ironic that gm is getting bailed out plus we're having to spend money to put back mass transit options such as streetcars.  thanks for screwing us over GM.  cheers to you GM and your monopolies failure!

[Jason]

I bet the guy getting off of the trolly is thinking "Now wich car is mine?!"

[zoo]

The removal of streetcars shows what happens when a community takes a short sighted view and sells itself out to the money interests and developers for the quick "economic growth" so many of our citizens are always looking for at the expense of our quality of life. Let's sell out our beaches for offshore drilling, our rural and forrested lands for outer beltways, our parks for lower taxes, mass transit and pedestrian friendly avenues for wider, faster roads, historic structures for more parking or "new" office boxes, our cultural and educational institutions for a few pennies in tax savings, etc. Our society, stripped of all these quality of life building blocks is left with what?  A forgettable, flavorless, mass produced, devoid of character, boring, day to day grinding existence?

Excellent summary stjr -- we're already there, are you running for mayor?

[cracklow]

Yes, please do. Someone with vision (naturally I prefer the transit leaning vision of the group that tends to hang out here) needs to run for Mayor.  I will do whatever I can to help get someone with this quality elected, my family has been here all of the 20th century and remembers what it was like before the streetcars were dismantled.  It is ridiculous that Jacksonville devolved so quickly into the suburban hell most everyone else who is either a recent transplant or whom haven't lived here thinks that it has always been.

[Dog Walker]

Part of the reason we had sprawl and suburbs before anyone else is that Jax had the FIRST expressway system in the South; even before Atlanta.  Because of the river, all roads led to the bridges which created bottlenecks.  I can remember taking almost an hour to go from San Marco to Imeson Airport via San Marco Blvd, the Main Street Bridge and Main street.  The Jacksonville Expressway Authority was formed to build the Mathews and Fuller Warren Bridges and to open the suburbs, especially Arlington up for development.

The expressways were routed to take out "blighted" (read black) areas and separate black and white neighborhoods where possible.  Ferris Bryant, later governor, Hugh Dowling, a local attorney and William Cesary, Sr. were some of the movers behind our early adoption of an expressway.

[chris]

A lot of this problem speaks to Jacksonville's lack of identity. With the loss of the central and stationary transit, suburbia was left to swallow itself up, each new neighborhood developing on the skirt of the last one until now we have at least 40 "areas" of town that represent different ages, ethnicities, and aesthetics. Not only do we need leaders of vision, we need them to be focused and resolute, to have the courage to do what is necessary, not just what will win votes or a second term. We need leaders who can live up to our collective past, varied in quality as it may be, and then move on with singular purpose. This person cannot simply be transit oriented, as zoo may like, but needs to be aware of how our fair city's transit issues created and effected many of the problems we face today.

[9a is my backyard]

Jacksonville 70 years ago is exactly the kind of city I want to live in today.

Exactly!  Well, minus all the blatant racism. 

Look at all the abandoned development around where the streetcars used to go... At least if we scrap our bus system there won't be any signs of it.  We can just pretend it never happened

[mtraininjax]

Exactly!  Well, minus all the blatant racism.

You think so? Ever been deep in the Westside? Its there....sadly. This still is the south passed on from many generations. I do not enjoy it, but I am not naive to believe it does not exist either.

Ever seen a black member at Timuquana Country Club?

[Ocklawaha]

Jacksonville's streetcars were off the street on many of the routes including this Kings Avenue scene, streetcars are simply light railroads and can operate ANYWHERE we build the tracks. New "Transportation Thought," is circulating that streetcars do even better when they have their own right-of-way, looks like we were years ahead of our time only to trash it all.

The photo of the Gentlemen riding the streetcar is loaded... This isn't any particular "gentleman", but front and center is Judge Burton Barrs. The streetcar line is bankrupt and the case bounced around for about 5 years while the city of Jacksonville and the traction company engaged in a pissing contest. As the company went down the tubes, Barr's name pops up over and over and not always a judge. Commissioner? Councilman? etc. The photo is on-board the last run from the Courthouse down Bay Street to the car barn in Brooklyn. The darkness visible in the photo is due to the fact that the heavens were crying that cold rainy December day in 1936. The question remains, What did Barr's do? How was he in this? Who judged the bankruptcy? Why the order to dismantle? What kind of car did he drive in 1937?

In defense of the short sighted city leadership, let's say it was an "Everybody's doing it story..." Because the streetcars last forever (San Francisco and Kennebunkport Maine both have cars over 100 years old, New Orleans some that are 80 years old) they had collected signs of worn, used and neglected relics. What we would see as a major demand historical vintage machine, was seen as an old worn out trolley. Add to this the FACT that the city like every other city in America, would not allow the traction companies to raise their fares without a long and extensive legal fight. Jacksonville Traction finally got the 5 cent to 8 cent raise, when they agreed to provide closer headways. All major routes would now see more cars on duty as schedules closed from every 10 minutes to every 8, then to every 5.

Finally it was a tired company that fought off a franchise threat from a bus company from Georgia. The city was wowed by the sweets the bus line offered and then suddenly withdrew. The noise the bus operators made was so complete as to send city officials "looking" for these improvements when Motor Transit just happened on the scene representing National City Lines. Could it be the Georgia promises were so overwhelming that it set a trap for the city? Would research show a connection between the Georgia firm and National City Lines, or Motor Transit? Even if it were all a coincidence, the plant of the traction company was rotting away during several years of a franchise fight. We must also consider the brains capacity to understand the results of an 850 square mile sprawled city in a dense trolley era. FLEXIBLIITY, was the catch phrase used by every bus salesman both then and even now. Endless opportunity to run the vehicle where ever the passenger wants to go, seemed like an easily obtainable goal in theory, but in fact it was impossible. No one even gave a thought to the investment of really major money on office towers or factories based on a new flex based transit system. No one noticed that transit and development would become two unrelated worlds as a result.

"Railroad virgins," which describes most residents of the City under the age of 45, should note that track requires some maintenance. Certainly early streetcar style track which was often laid directly on the sandy soil, with wooden ties, light rail and jointed track. The weight of 75,000 pound streetcars running along this type of track would pump water to the surface causing the joints to loosen and sag. Vehicle crossings, switches and other unique areas would often get knocked out of alignment. So as the city considered it's options, while getting a "free ride" on a mint condition demo motor coach, they looked down their noses at a bumpy, swaying, tired, old trolley system.


Today's streetcars enjoy modern track that is nearly maintenance free providing heavy freight cars or CSX style locomotives are kept off. Our future streetcar line would be laid on a bed of concrete with steel ties, larger rail without any joints. In area's where the streetcar leaves the road the track would look just like the Florida East Coast mainline at Atlantic Boulevard in San Marco. The ride quality even in vintage 100 year old cars would be smooth enough to be almost imperceptible. We need the streetcars back, we need the improvements they bring and transit they provide. Mixed with BRT, Commuter Rail, Light Rail, River Taxi, Amtrak and Skyway, all revitalized would be an urban heaven.

So as we ran off the streetcars and trains what have we gained or lost? Here's a few fun facts and figures:

6,000,000 passengers a year come through Jacksonville International Airport on roughly 249 flights and 9 airlines.
12,000,000 passengers a year came through Union Station downtown between 1919 and 1974 on up to 250 daily trains and 4 railroads (When the Atlantic Coast Line and Seaboard merged they reduced this number to 3 railroads)
JTA 50 years old has just reached the 10,000,000 passengers a year mark on 60 plus routes
The unfinished Skyway (crippled by lack of will by the COJ) carries about 1/3 million passengers yearly
The streetcar system, Jacksonville Traction Company carried about 14,000,000 yearly, 1910-36
Most JTA buses run on 45 minute headways while others are hourly and a few every 30 minutes
Jacksonville Traction Company streetcars provided a general 8 minute headway with a few at 10 minutes and others at 5 minutes.
Today, Jacksonville has one of the smaller airports in the USA and in Florida
Jacksonville Terminal was the largest railroad terminal south of Washington DC
JTA is the third largest bus fleet operator well behind Miami-Dade, and Fort Lauderdale (both of which have advanced streetcar plans)
Jacksonville Traction was the largest streetcar system in the State of Florida

So you tell me...

Did we win or lose, or are we waiting for Saint Elmo's Fire?

[thelakelander]

We got the short end of the stick.  Do we have time for a 4th quarter rally?

[DONTBELIEVETHEHYPE]

Exactly!  Well, minus all the blatant racism.

You think so? Ever been deep in the Westside? Its there....sadly. This still is the south passed on from many generations. I do not enjoy it, but I am not naive to believe it does not exist either.

Ever seen a black member at Timuquana Country Club?

The answer to your last question is yes.  What point were you trying to make with this question?

[mtraininjax]

Today, Jacksonville has one of the smaller airports in the USA and in Florida
Jacksonville Terminal was the largest railroad terminal south of Washington DC

OC - Jax fell behind the rest of Florida because, IMO, the leadership here in our great city fell behind those in other more progressive cities. As those cities grew, Miami, Tampa, Orlando, they went and planned for ways to move people around the cities, where our leaders just sat by and did nothing to help manage population growth. If we did anything, we built bridges to Arlington and the Southside to further advance growth outside of downtown. Extreme hubris by our leaders of the 40s and 50s lead to where we are today with our current system.

Now the leadership in office now is non-existent and we will need better to plan for the future. Our city is in the denial stage, I see the need for better mass transit myself, but we need someone to get creative in our city to make the transit system funded and not to wait for the recovery of jobs and employees. When it hits and we have 5-6 dollar a gallon gas and 200 dollar a barrel oil is NOT the time to be planning a change in transit policy.


The rail change happened as a result of people wanting to go further South. Thank Henry Flagler for that one, had he build a few more luxury hotels here in Jax and done more to grow the Jax businesses, perhaps we could have been more of a destination town, other than a pit-stop on the way to the evil mouse, shamu orsome cocanut infused tropical infused coctail from South Beach.

[reednavy]

Just FYI: OKC unveils plans for streetcar system.

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=869948