Bay Street Station and Streetcars coming downtown?

[reednavy]

Even in the renderings Jason, it looks lonely and uninviting. It reminds me of a giant domino.

[Jason]

^ +1

I had never thought about that before.  For ONCE, we already have the Skyway in place, we just need the development to go with it.  Lets be honest, the Convention Center isn't a real destination.  On the off chance that the car show or something that doesn't go to the Hyatt ends up at the Convention Center, maybe a few people use the skyway to get there.  Theres already an absolutely useless stop right by those grass fields in front of the (Optimus) Prime Osborn. Let's build this yesterday and begin to build up downtown.

^ +2

IMO, a skyway extension to the sports district with a stop at a new convention center at the old courthouse site will be the tipping point for core development and still keep Bay Street station connected to the CC and allow the Optimus to be the Prime transportation center of Florida.

[futurejax]

Jax as Fla's transport center, I like it.  Amtrax from downtown to Orlando and Miami, (Atlanta even?).  Those on business trips that start in Jax but also have a needed day stop in the other cities use the rail for their one day meeting and are back same day and maybe staying another night in town before heading out. $$$

[coredumped]

I think it looks good in the shipyards rendering. Try to imaging the arena behind it, in the image it's flat, but I think it would look great there!
I'd like to see a new addition to our skyline:) I bed the view of the Hart would be amazing!

[Rynjny]

What's the status for this project??

[Ocklawaha]

At least the Toonerville Trolley was 'real'.

They are still in the neighborhood, but don't hold your breath. There was a Representative on the Downtown Transition Committee who was pushing for the streetcar on Water Street but what a typical Jacksonville joke it would be.

The car comes from a toy train museum in Orlando. I've been told it is only 2' gauge, looks worse then out Potato-Chip-Trucks-Think-Their-Trolleys vehicles and about 1/2 their size. It also has an 'authentic' gasoline engine so it sounds like a cross between your neighbors lawn mower and a Japanese Zero.  I seriously doubt the FTA or anyone else would seriously consider letting this thing operate in the street, in a busy urban downtown. In weight alone a collision at Jefferson or Broad with a Mini-Cooper would total it and a 18 wheeled Peterbilt rig would annihilate it and its passengers.

There ARE REAL narrow gauge streetcars out there that would actually be interesting. Streetcars have a large fan following and narrow gauge ANYTHING is extremely popular with train spotters and those wanting to add more miles to their 'collection'. A real narrow gauge streetcar is going to weigh in somewhere around 25,000 pounds so even though it's small its nothing you would want to smash into. The streetcars are mostly older wood and steel vehicles with some beautiful REAL wood and very ornate. Narrow gauge was generally out of favor by the 1890's so we'd be talking about very few cars (I know of 3 for sale) and almost zero chance for more since they'd be 100+ years old.

So there is narrow gauge and there is this Orlando 'thing,' and it's probably unholy to mention the two in the same sentence.

OCKLAWAHA