Would you commute by train in Jacksonville?

Would you be interested in commuting to work on a train? The Jacksonville Transportation Authority is now conducting a study looking into the feasibility of having more commuter rail in the Jacksonville area. Is it a good idea to have commuter rail?

Where should the trains go? Tell Florida Times-Union reporter Larry Hannan what you think by calling him at (904) 359-4470 or e-mail him at larry.hannan@jacksonville.com.

Nashville's Music City Star $41 million / 32 mile commuter rail line opened in 2006.  Will Jacksonville be receptive to a similar "no-frills" type of rail service?

As of Thursday, May 29th, 2008 at 12:00am over 91 responses had been posted online.  With residents now forced to pay $4 dollars per gallon for gas, the overwhelming response has been yes!

Examples of typical positive responses:

"I would loop the train starting at the Airport, move it to the Regency Square Mall, to St Johns Town Center, to the Avenues Mall, then Downtown somewhere around the Bank of America Tower, and complete the loop at the airport. It makes a perfect loop, connects a lot of points of work and businesses. Add a few extra stops between the malls and a lot of people would use the system. I know I would." - David

"I would absolutely ride a train to the downtown area if I could board it somewhere between the Avenues Mall and the Julington Creek bridge … PROVIDED it ran early enough for me to get downtown." - Jim

"I would providing it ran early enough and it would have to go from Julington creek. Mandarin, Philips and University areas. It would need to go past the buiness that most of us work around to help any of us." - prmami

"Would I commute by train? In a heartbeat! I commute from St. Augustine to downtown. A commuter rail would be my heart’s desire, even if it took longer than my usual drive." - DoWhat

"I think rail is becoming a necessity, and I support the development of a commuter rail infrastructure wholeheartedly. Jacksonville is great, but it has long frustrated me with its lack of travel options.

We should allow for dense development to take place around the stations, as this will give us the most bang for the buck. Simply trying to retrofit a system upon Jacksonville’s existing sprawling development pattern without allowing the system to jumpstart and support its own development would be wasteful.

As for the route, I would suggest starting near the Orange Park mall, go across the Buckman, stop in Mandarin and the Baymeadows/Southside business district, and continue through downtown to the airport. A spur from Southside to the beaches would be useful." - Kirk

"Of course, it would be great to have a commuter rail here in Jacksonville. However, I think such system may only succeed if we have many stations and cover all main city areas. Otherwise, it would be a train to nowhere. I have seen a few failed projects like this around the country. If you’d have to drive 3-4 miles to the station, park your car, walk 5-10 minutes to the train, wait for a train, ride, wait for a bus or shuttle, and ride again — this wouldn’t work. It would take an hour and a half to get from Avenues Mall to Downtown. Nope, you need lots of rail so you could walk to the station. Guess what? Not gonna happen. I do not believe the city and county own enough land to build multiple loops. Plus, this is a colossal investment, I don’t think we can afford it now. The irony is that now is the perfect time to start building public transportation system: gas will only get more expensive and land is cheap now. Now, go explain this to the politicians. :-)" - Greg

"I would much rather ride light rail in to town than city bus transit. I believe the rail system is a must and we already have a good portion of the infrastructure in place. I would run veins from a central hub downtown to points like the airport north, the beaches east, st. augustine south, and orange park south west with stops along each line.I would be very much in favor of such a proposition." - Bassmouth

Of course, there are a few naysayers:

"Won’t work and it would be a colossal waste of taxpayer money, just the the so called “people mover.” I’ll fight it all the way." - William

"It wouldn’t work. Up north, they have sidewalks and crossing walks and all the shops and stores are crammed in small spaces. Here in Jacksonville, everything is so spread out. So let’s say I get off at a stop, it’s a pain in the butt to go anywhere because it’s hard to cross the streets and it’s hard for a lot of people to walk long distances. For instance, let’s say one of the stops is at the Avenues mall. But then I see Target and I want to go there. I don’t want to cross that five lane street to get to Target. On top of the fact that it’s about half a mile down. It’ll be easier to have my own car and go where I need to go" - Gabby

"We should all just stick to our hummers. Trains are for unamerican sissies." - Negative Nancy

"I would prefere to drill for oil through the heads of liberals and up the carabou’s rump! I am an American, not a friggin’ European. I want my car not a train!" - A Conservative

"My first thought is No, because it is inevitable that you would STILL be driving, to get to the train station….but then again, if it went from Orange Park to Baymeadows, it would probably still be worth it." - mels

"The City can’t even collect the garbage without raising our taxes.

I’m in favor of any type of transit program (preferrably a mixture, including real car and van pool programs), but I want to know how they plan to pay for it first and make sure it’s funded enough to be effective. The current plans for the BRT and the Jax Transportation Center are only funded for small piece of the entire project, if they don’t get the additional phases funded then what we end up with will be worse than what we have now.

I have zero faith in JTA being able to implement any type of transit system that will actually be functional. They are a road building agency that deals with transit because they have to, but they have very little in-house expertise on how to do it. They rely almost entirely on out of town consultants to tell them how to run their transit operations. As long as JTA is the driver on this project it will probably turn out to be a train wreck (pardon the pun)." - Getreal

Words of Wisdom

As JTA's hired rail consultants move forward on their commuter rail studies, here are a few tips from Metro Jacksonville that may help.

1. Confusion about Rail

In general, Jacksonvillians still appear to be confused about the differences between light rail and commuter rail. The study being currently conducted by JTA is for potential commuter rail lines.  In short a "commuter rail" train can operate on existing railroad tracks, alongside freight rail cars.  A "light rail" train will typically be electric and, by law, can not operate on the existing freight rail corridors in Jacksonville.

For Jacksonville, having the ability to use our vast network of existing rail corridors allows our region to implement commuter rail at a cheaper price then building light rail.

Charlotte's New LYNX Light Rail System

The American Public Transportation Association (APTA) in its Glossary of Transit Terminology defines light rail as: "An electric railway with a 'light volume' traffic capacity compared to heavy rail. Light rail may use shared or exclusive rights-of-way, high or low platform loading and multi-car trains or single cars."  

However, some diesel powered transit calls itself light rail, such as the O-Train in Ottawa, Canada and River Line in New Jersey, United States, which use diesel multiple unit cars.  In traditional transit terminology, these would be considered commuter rail lines.

 San Diego's new Sprinter DMU line would be an example of diesel multiple unit commuter rail system that many confuse with traditional light rail. 

Most commuter trains (Nashville Music City Star above) are built to heavy rail standards, differing from light rail or rapid transit systems by:

Being larger;
Having (in most cases) a lower frequency of service;
Having scheduled services (i.e. trains run at specific times rather than at specific intervals);
Serving lower-density areas, typically by connecting suburbs to the city centre;
Sharing track or right-of-way with intercity or freight trains
Their ability to coexist with freight or intercity services in the same right-of-way can drastically reduce system construction costs.

For Jacksonville, having the ability to use our vast network of existing rail corridors allows our region to implement commuter rail at a cheaper price then building light rail.

2. Keep it Simple

While we would all like a rail system to immediately take us anywhere we want to go, it is unrealistic to expect that the community can cover the expense.  Instead of trying to swim across the Atlantic, lets conquer the swimming pool first.

In other words, it is unfeasible to immediately purchase right-of-way and lay track to the beaches.   Instead, follow the step of successful peer cities by moving forward with a decent affordable starter line.  This method allows visual progress to take place quickly and makes it easier to secure funding for additional lines.

 Using the 2002 Winter Olympics as a catalyst for introducing light rail in the region, Salt Lake City officials moved forward with 15 mile starter light rail line in 1999.

Today, only nine years later, Salt Lake City's mass transit system operates two light rail lines and a commuter rail line (above) running on 63 miles of track.  As of July 2006, metropolitan Jacksonville had 210,275 more residents than metropolitan Salt Lake City.  Despite being smaller, Salt Lake City has become a model community that kept things simple by starting small and expanding with time.

3. Take Advantage of Opportunities

When opportunity knocks, we have to take advantage and answer the door.  In the past few years, with projects like the farmer's market, Florida Coastal School of Law, the Landing expansion and FSU Medical School, we've found a way to take advantage of significant opportunities.  Today, several factors are creating an opportunity for bringing rail transit back to Jacksonville. 

For example, gas prices continue to climb, the Orlando commuter rail and CSX/JaxPort deals create additional rail capacity locally, and we have $100 million set aside in Better Jacksonville Plan funds for purchase of rapid transit right of way.

 The 7.5 mile long Houston Metrorail light rail system was fully financed locally, after failing to receive help from the State of Texas and the FTA.  Today, the city is preparing to move forward with a massive expansion of this successful rail system, despite the FTA's desire for bus rapid transitways.

Traditionally, we would have had to rely on the FTA for funding and navigate years of expensive red tape to be rejected the funding to help establish a system locally.  With the stars aligning, it may be time for Jacksonville to chart a new path and follow those taken by Austin, Houston, and now Detroit.  This is the path of opening the door of opportunity, even if the FTA isn't on board.

Article by Ennis Davis