Few people realize that Jacksonville briefly hosts the longest passenger train in the world, twice a day, 365 days a year. The Auto Train is considered America's most unique passenger train operation for many reasons.

Metro Jacksonville explains what our own transit authority can't: Transit Orented Development.

From the JTA Website...

News Releases

Tuesday Transit Talk Cancelled
September 18, 2007

Due to bad weather, the Transit Talk scheduled this afternoon at River City Marketplace has been cancelled. It will be rescheduled in the near future.

http://www.jtafla.com/news/news_selected.aspx?prID=176

Apparently JTA doesn't want to come outside during bad weather.  With that said, I wonder what it must have been like to wait for a bus under one of their non-existent bus shelters.

Once again, Jacksonville has proven incapable of implementing simple solutions to solve simple problems. Now that bus shelter advertising has been rejected, let's take a look at some viable and attractive solutions we should have taken advantage of.

Tacoma Link is a 1.6 mile light rail line that serves downtown Tacoma.  As of 2006, Tacoma had 598,023 less residents than Jacksonville.

Despite being more spread out, sprawled, and less dense than Jacksonville, Charlotte is already reaping the benefits of constructing its first light rail line, after a successful ten years of operating a downtown streetcar service. 

The Memphis Area Transit Authority (MATA) operates 6.7 miles of trolley lines with a fleet of 20 vintage and replica trolley vehicles.  As of July 2006, metroplitan Jacksonville had 17,416 more residents than metropolitan Memphis.

AirJTA is a regularly scheduled bus service from Downtown Jacksonville to the Jacksonville International Airport. This service is a fast and economical way to get to the airport; the only problem is, no one is riding.

The River Rail Streetcar is a 3.4 mile heritage rail system that began operating in 2004, connecting Little Rock and North Little Rock.  As of July 2006, metropolitan Jacksonville had 448,965 more residents than metropolitan Little Rock.

This presentation outlines Metro Jacksonville's solution for decreasing the cost of JTA's Bus Rapid Transit proposal, while creating an overall mass transit system that works best within our neighborhoods.