JTA: BRT is Better! Metro Jacksonville Responds

[Metro Jacksonville]

JTA: BRT is Better! Metro Jacksonville Responds



Last week, JTA published an article proclaiming that BRT is the best solution for Jacksonville despite what others may say. Today, Metro Jacksonville responds by pointing out why JTA is mistaken in their proposal.

Full Article
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/content/view/677

[vicupstate]

As part of JTA's 'apples to apples' comparison between the LA Orange BRT line and the LA Rail Gold line, it was stated that the Orange line (which had greater ridership) and the Gold line both served areas that were of the same socio-economic demographic.   

I have no first or even second hand knowledge if this is true, but I would be VERY curious to find out if it is indeed true.   My guess is that the Orange line is actually serving an area less affluent than the Gold line.   In other words, the residents of the Orange line vicinity have fewer commuting options (they don't own cars) than the residents in the vicinity of the Gold line.  If so, this might explain why the BRT line has greater ridership and also further discredit the 'apples to apples' comparison.

Probably worth a look.   

[thelakelander]

Is it really an apples-to-apples comparison?  Would anyone in Jacksonville bother to look it up?



here's a few reasons why this is not an apples to apples comparison.

1. The orange line BRT route was built as a feeder route into LA's busy Red Line Subway.  For BRT in Jacksonville, this is precisely what we've been saying is the proper way to develop BRT.  What JTA is proposing is BRT being the Subway, not a feeder.

2. In Jacksonville, JTA has basically said that BRT is the best choice for the city, instead of being the best choice for a specific corridor.  Then they attempt to back up that flawed opinion by comparing a BRT line with a half-completed light rail line in the same city.  Somewhere, they overlooked that LA's transit system is integrated, just like we're pushing with mixing different modes of transit technology to best serve specific corridors.  In LA alone, the main spine is the Red Line, which is a subway, secondary trunk lines (light rail) and then BRT to serve as feeder routes.

3.  While the Orange Line is "at-grade", the Gold line LRT is not.  It has subway and elevated segments.  This alone eliminates the "apples-to-apples" comparison point of view between the two.  Furthermore, what's proposed locally is closer to what the Gold line would be infrastrucutre wise.  The major difference would be that instead of trains, ours would have buses.  The unknown factor is after we've paid for BRT and it then becomes time to convert to light rail in the future, how much will that cost?  If you're going to compare the two apples-to-apples, then the conversion to LRT would have to become a part of the BRT number, since the other is LRT from the start.

4. Last, but not least, we've been pushing for "urban commuter rail" using DMUs.  That's multiple times cheaper than both LRT and dedicated busways because you're using track already in place.

[Ocklawaha]

The social and economic differences in the two lines are not as important as the routes themselves. The Orange Line follows the Ventura Freeway 101, which runs M/L East-West just North of a mountain range, on the Eastern end it ties to the 134 which cuts across to Pasadena, again, just North of the mountains. Thus it follows the line of least resistance and a historical heavy travel route. It is fed on the East end by the Red Line SUBWAY, a major HEAVY RAIL system which accounts for a huge share of the Orange Lines boardings, in fact it could be considered an extension of the Red Line. Traffic on this route is "Joe Lunch Bucket", long range commuters, and visitors to the City Parks complex. The Orange-Red union is just what Jacksonville needs to do with say the CSX line to Orange Park (our "red line") and BRT connections on Kingsley or Wells to Blanding (our "orange line"). Another way to view it would be Rail to JTB and BRT to the Beach, or rail to Gateway Mall and BRT up Lem Turner.

The Arroyo Seco (dry creek) Historical Parkway or the 110 freeway, is LA's answer to Riverside, San Marco, Ortega, Avondale. It is almost completely within heavy hills and twisting canyons. Homes here are probably less working class then the Ventura "Orange" route. This is not really fed by anything, it is also not the historical travel pattern along the base of the Mountains, such as I-210, or the Pasadena Freeway. While it originates at Union Station the "Gold Line's" core are business trips, sight seeing and domestics. Apples to Apples it is not.

There WAS a apples to apples route in Southern California though, it ran from LA to Long Beach, or at least covered much of the same. The Blue line was all LRT and ran through such communities as Watts and Compton. Meanwhile over to the West the "Harbor Freeway Transitway BRT" was built along the same basic route. "113,000 persons a day would ride the BRT", claimed Los Angeles officials... NOT! The blue line LRT blew away the most critical projections, but the Harbor never got above 9,000 daily. Finally the expensive BRT was converted to HOV, and faded into the smog with the rest of the rubber tire junkies.

Oh yeah, "I WAS THERE TOO!" JTA want to try one I haven't been in? Try Omaha...

Ocklawaha

[Nawdry]

.
Re: LA's Orange Line "BRT" vs. Gold Line LRT...

"BRT" promoters like to contrast these two lines as if they had virtually identical characteristics. Baloney. The Orange Line through the San Fernando Valley was constructed almost entirely in readily available surface ROW (except for about a mile in suburban streets on the western end). In addition, it provides an essential feeder service to the North Hollywood Red Line subway station, thus funnelling thousands of commuters into center-city destinations.  Furthermore, it serves a considerably denser population base and more activity centers.

The Gold Line into Pasadena includes both subway and elevated sections (at its easter end, it goes into a tunnel to then come up in the median of the Ventura Freeway. On the western end, to get to Union Station at the edge of downtown LA, it has an extensive elevated viaduct to carry it over the broad trackage of LA's rail passenger yards, which serve both Amtrak intercity rail and Metrolink (regional rail).

There are substantial drawbacks to the Gold Line "BRT" operation compared with LRT. These are detailed in the following articles:

Rail Transit vs. "Bus Rapid Transit": Comparative Success and Potential in Attracting Ridership
http://www.lightrailnow.org/facts/fa_brt_2006-08a.htm

LA's "Orange Line" Busway – "Just Like Rail, But Cheaper?" A Photo-Report Reality Check
http://www.lightrailnow.org/facts/fa_brt_2006-10a.htm

Hope this helps...

LH

[JaxNole]

JTA should change its name to JBA for Jacksonville Bus(way) Authority and a new agency that embraces efficient and sensible transportation should be formed.  With the majority of their focus on road building (read: sprawl), pollution and minimal cost-per-benefit BRT, JTA and the Peyton administration that seek to improve Jacksonville's quality of life continues to fail miserably.

What is the real reason JTA so adamantly pushes BRT?  It's obviously not a cost-savings measure.  The majority of our elected (not my choices) will carry themselves through their careers until we are dangerously reliant on the automobile.  Imagine Jacksonville's version of the multi-billion dollar Big Dig in the next 25-50 years.  We would undoubtedly not have access to the nation's money to mitigate the mess we continue to champion as progressive.

Who is a powerful mass transit lobbyist who can transform this grass roots campaign into one that is formidable and challenge our leaders to quit kneeling before and bending over for those tied to oil and road construction?  Occasional features in the T-U, although a nice gesture, will have little impact on the momentum we seriously need.

[veritas]

I think there is a sucessful BRT system in Brazil, in Curitiba, (in a completely different culture) however I am not aware of any such system in the US that has even begun to overcome the bus stigma problem.  LRT is no panacea either, but it does attract ridership, that's been proven.  Ridership should be Job#1 for the JTA, seems to me.  Also, the notion that a 'one size fits all' the routes needs to be dispensed early in this process.   One would think with the nearly complete failure of the local elevated people mover to attract ridership that JTA would be 'once burned twice shy' of systems whose key selling feature isn't ridership.

Secondly, all transit systems depend on density, so that in order to be sucessful Jacksonville needs to tightly coordinate zoning and land use regs with transit planning, which we've never done before.  There's no point in building transit to places where there aren't people or aren't going to be people soon - (another reason the Skyway didn't work, it didn't go from one traffic generator to another).

Any elevated solution is expensive and ugly.  We've already got way too much concrete hanging in space here.  On the ground is cheaper and though not always as fast, it usually seems to work better to attract use. The JTA can't just ignore the aesthetics of transit - to be successful there has to be a 'cool' factor, especially in Downtown.

[Ocklawaha]

Veritas, Sure the Skyway as a giant error, but given some credit to the demons behind the plan, Washington, DC did dangle this out like a "free sausage". We jumped on it and got crushed in the grinder, then the FTA came out on international new's expo on TV saying "We NEVER supported it in Jacksonville..." Duh? I guess that $200 Million came from who? Oh yes, Saint Godbold, he was out on the St. Johns River, walking on water!
Now that we have the damned thing, it should at least be completed to a state of service to the core. This will almost certainly require some extension to the Stadium, Riverside and San Marco (at least over the FEC tracks). Did you know the "City of South Jacksonville" sued for some way over those tracks back about 1920?
As for "COOL", is there anything more DISNEY or Star-Trek COOL, then our own beat down Skyway?

Light Rail? "Well I've never been to Heaven, but I've been to Oklahoma..." where a whole new era of Light Rail is in the plans. When tiny El Reno built their 1 mile system in a dead cowboy/railroad town, with dead businesses, dead streets, unemployment at record numbers, band's of gangland youth running wild at night, the Transit World laughed. Today, El Reno is a vibrant, live and fun place with as much history as Guthrie, or Dodge City, and tourist dollars to show for it. Talk about Dead men walking!

Commuter Rail here doesn't have to be 12 car trains or subways. A single Rail Diesel Car running a shuttle service would do wonders for our City. I worked out schedules around the FEC freights that with some capacity investments would still give us something like 4-6 "trains" each way daily from St. Augustine or Avenues. A City doesn't have to be Los Angeles to have Commuter Rail, and blended with our BRT on feeder routes, this City could lead rather then follow.

If this World stays in orbit, and the Sky doesn't fall in on us, this is going to be a very cool next 20 years for Jacksonville.

Ocklawaha

[second_pancake]

I must admit, I'm new to this whole getting-involved, and caring about what is going on around me.  I usually stay closed-off in my little world and when the city slaps me across the face with something, I'm very vocal about what a joke the entire decision was and how much better it would be if more people got involved.  Shame on me.

I have a house in Riverside and about a year ago I got a flyer in my mailbox that touched on the BRT.  I, as per usual, thought nothing of it and as long as I wasn't going to lose my house or be directly impacted in some way, it didn't matter to me.  I came across this site and article out of sheer boredom...a fleeting thought of, I-wonder-what-ever-happened-to...  Now I know and it's disheartening.

Someone mentioned (I'm paraphrasing and interjecting my own opionion as well) how the BRT is just another wonderful decision made on the behalf of the citizens of Jacksonville by the Peyton administration (sarcasm of course), and I couldn't agree more, however I am surprised (very) to see all the valid points made for rail versus BRT, with no mention of cost of fuel or C02 emmissions comparisons.

There was a brief mention regarding DMUs which are (by definition) diesel powered.  I'm curious to know how fueling those compares to a bus operating on rapid transit.  Based on all the of the information provided by both JTA and Metro Jax, I would have a hard time believing that BRT would be the most environmentally-friendly option.  Especially, given the fact (as many have pointed out) that most citizens are turned-off by the option of commuting by bus (be it rapid-transit or otherwise) and are more than likely going to fight through traffic regardless, making BRT a useless C02 emitting machine.  Isn't it bad enough that JTA is outwardly contributing to Jacksonville's lack of eco-conciousness by utilizing more land rather than repurposing land?  That point would be moot, of course, if Jax were choosing bio-diesel, but something tells me that's not the case in a city where cyclists are honked at, run off the road, cycling lanes are ignored by city maintenance crews or don't exist at all (a-hem, Baymeadows), and businesses who violate city ordinances surrounding bicycle parking are neither fined nor reprimanded.

Has anyone polled the citizens of Jax to see what they thought of this?  I mean, some organization/person besides JTA or city-council members.  It would be interesting to see how many people from various parts of town, working in different areas, would say they would use BRT or some sort of rail, if they had the choice.  I know, I know, JTA already admitted more want rail, but if they were presented with thousands of signatures saying they would actually use a rail-system and would not use BRT, wouldn't that, if nothing else, just embarass them into dissolving the idea?  Wishful thinking I suppose.

[Ocklawaha]

Hey Second_Pancake: Welcome to the battle. We are winning small victorys and the stage is set for us to push this over the top. I am NOT aginst Bus-Rapid-Transit or BRT. Just aginst it the way JTA has it planned. I don't think that BRT is really the tool for a City of 1.5 Million to base their future on. Bogota, has a "good example" of BRT, and yet it is dirty, pours sulfur and carbon into the air, and slices the City into so many little Islands. What they don't say about this World Leader BRT is that the City is the "National Joke of Colombia" and Medellin (with rail) is the model. Anyone with a cartoon about "Transito bobo" will use Bogota as their background. Now the Capital is talking about building a Metro or LRT like Medellin.  Curitiba, Brazil, is the other poster child for BRT in Latin America, and now after years of hauling transit officers from the whole World around the City, and "selling both the concept and the perfection, if not the Volvo Buses" suddenly they are building a Subway. This didn't grow (as JTA and BRT USA nut cases would have us believe) from no-transit, to BRT, to Rail. This is because in a City where the fast bus travels at a speed of about 12 mph. BRT is NOT doing the job. BTW, Curitiba is headed into Summer right now, but this City is positioned not unlike Baltimore, and SNOW is a common winter visitor. Yet they have BRT in Boston, Cleveland and Canada, and we can't blame the weather in Curitiba either. All of the "it could be just like rail," "as good as rail," or "might carry more then rail," hype are full of words such as LIKE, AS, MIGHT... Sorry no cigar.

We need a cheap, simple way to get on track here in town. Something like the old RDC cars or SPV 2000 rail cars that were built by Budd Company, and look for all the world like a self propelled "Amtrak Coach". They are! These older units are now offered completely rebuilt, with backing from the re-builders. A 20 year service life, for about a million dollars a copy. They run down the tracks we already have like any other train, we just need to build good commuter stops. Then add BRT in HOV lanes out connector roads such as Edgewood, Lem Turner, Wells, etc... to bring in the buses to feed the trains. Re-open Union Terminal as our "central station" and finish it off with electric-trolley shuttle buses, Skyway and Streetcars downtown.

Take heart, we have been asked to write such a plan to show to the City.

Ocklawaha
"Old Hippie, Transit's Abbie Hoffman, and all around class clown"

[JeffreyS]

Has NAS ever taken a position on this. The rail would certainly be useful to them and the BRT plan to Blanding and 103rd ignors the Naval base.

[thelakelander]

There's no comparison between LRT and BRT when it comes to quality. Today, I've taken LA's Green (LRT) and Silver (BRT) lines back to back. You can feel every pot hole in the street on BRT. It also is subject to roadway congestion in DT LA because it shares lanes with regular traffic there. Last but not least, no TOD. However, I think Amtrak's Pacific Surfliner beats them both. I'm headed to San Diego on it now.

[JeffreyS]

Does anyone have the ear of any NAS big wigs? It would be nice to have a statement about wether or not the Navy would like the base served by commuter rail.

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

Out of curiosity, what would drive the necessity of rail to NAS Jax? 

Unless there is a line from the base to JIA, so the incoming/outgoing x-fers could get to the base without need of the shuttle service the Navy currently uses.

[JeffreyS]

Not all of the people,who work on the base live there and others may want transit for other purposes from time to time.