JTA Skyway Expansion Loses: 2013 TIGER Grant Awards

[Metro Jacksonville]

JTA Skyway Expansion Loses: 2013 TIGER Grant Awards



U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx recently announced 52 transportation projects across the country will receive a total of $474 million from the U.S. Department of Transportation's (DOT) Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) 2013 discretionary grant program.  The Jacksonville Transportation Authority's (JTA) application for funding to extend the Skyway to Brooklyn was not among them. While it's back to the drawing board for JTA and Jacksonville, here is a look at where the award money is actually going.

Full Article
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2013-sep-jta-skyway-expansion-loses-2013-tiger-grant-awards

[simms3]

So basically TIGER money was awarded to generally useful or economically beneficial projects.  I'm shocked!

JTA is a f*****g joke.  In fact, given that hardly anyone uses JTA's pathetic transit, the city could save money by having NO transit at all rather than continuing to fund this useless organization.  And no I'm not mad we didn't get awarded, I was against the project the whole time and never thought we would be awarded.  I'm glad our opportunity for TIGER money wasn't wasted on such a worthless project; perhaps someone with a brain and actual knowledge of how transit can serve population and move goods can figure out how to pitch a new/useful project to the feds...how egotistical of locals to even think that what's going on in Brooklyn is enough to warrant $10M federal taxpayer money??  So ~500-1,000 new upwardly mobile young professionals with cars living in way above market rent apartments can have a $20M monorail station to whisk them to a downtown they probably don't even work in?  News flash - that isn't even a blip on construction radar and to quote myself from August:

They are projecting a net increase of 1,250 new daily riders and a net decrease of 208,321 daily vehicle miles in the urban core.  Assuming these 1,250 new riders are riding in and riding out, that 625 new people.  Are we to seriously believe that these 625 new people are driving 333 miles each in the core each day???  How do they calculate these numbers?  See bottom of page 1 of the proposal.

This city throws tennis balls against a wall year in and year out and keeps its fingers crossed that one year there will be a large crack in the wall where the ball might stick, accidentally.  It hasn't figured out that it needs a nerf gun, decent aim, and appropriate distance, preferably closer to the wall.

[simms3]

Though I will say I think it's a waste of federal funds to convert diesel busses to electric (IndyGo in Indianapolis).  They must have made a nice pitch.  JTA's project wasn't good, but having read their pitch on this site as well, I thought it was pretty bad.  I'm very pro-transit and pro-infrastructure funding.  It's probably more difficult to convince me not to spend money on this type of stuff, and somehow after reading JTA's pitch I came away with too many questions and thought it sounded wasteful/disingenuous/potentially fishy.  Not surprised the feds felt the same way.

KCMO got $20M for their starter streetcar.

[dougskiles]

Bummer.  I was hoping they would get the grant, and would like to see them do the expansion regardless.

[Sunbeam]

JTA and the other "powers that be" are WRONG to keep pushing this boondoggle.

The Transportation Element of the Comprehensive Plan REQUIRES substantial growth in the Riverside area for this leg of the Skyway to be considered and a few apartments built in the area and only a small resurgence does not qualify as substantial. The Feds know that and so does the State YET JTA wants it anyway.

This is ANOTHER example of the wastefulness pushed upon tax payers JUST LIKE THE TRANSPORTATION CENTER!

Just like the Transportation Center where the Fed's will not give money, the State will not give money but JTA is trying to make local tax payers pony up money WE DO NOT HAVE NOR CAN JTA JUSTIFY forcing us to pay for. GREYHOUND doesnt even want anything to do with it!

This Riverside extension is only a 1/2 mile long and just look at the money JTA wants to spend PLUS JTA has no answers when asked about bringing the Skyway down to grade level.

This idea is more of the "build it and they will come" garbage being shoved down the tax payers throat like the transportation center and jumbotrons, swimming pools and palm trees at the stadium.

[Kay]

Totally agree Sunbeam.  Why isn't J-ville applying for federal grant dollars to implement complete streets, return downtown streets to two-way, etc. etc. etc.?

[thelakelander]

JTA continues quest to build new Skyway station despite missing out on $10 million federal grant

Plans to build a new Skyway station along Riverside Avenue suffered a setback when the Jacksonville Transportation Authority missed out on winning a $10 million federal grant.

In a decision eagerly awaited by the JTA, the U.S. Department of Transportation announced it would award $474 million to 52 transportation projects across the country for its Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery program, known as TIGER. JTA wasn’t among those selected.

Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2013-09-09/story/jta-continues-quest-build-new-skyway-station-despite-missing-out-10#ixzz2eU90lcD7

[thelakelander]

So basically TIGER money was awarded to generally useful or economically beneficial projects.  I'm shocked!

From what I can tell, it seems the pattern is to spread TIGER grant money around instead of dumping it into the same cities every year, regardless of individual projects.  We just got TIGER grant money for a railyard at JAXPORT two years ago.

JTA is a f*****g joke.  In fact, given that hardly anyone uses JTA's pathetic transit, the city could save money by having NO transit at all rather than continuing to fund this useless organization.

The city would be better served financially and economically by getting transit right than abandoning it.

[thelakelander]

The Transportation Element of the Comprehensive Plan REQUIRES substantial growth in the Riverside area for this leg of the Skyway to be considered and a few apartments built in the area and only a small resurgence does not qualify as substantial. The Feds know that and so does the State YET JTA wants it anyway.

FYI, this is one of the most backwards things I've ever seen.  Transportation infrastructure builds the types of communities you want.  It doesn't happen the other way around.  In fact, it never does. Adding something like that in your comp plan is virtually another way of saying we don't want to really do anything.

Riverside would not look anything like it is today if streetcars were not installed in the area when it was actually rural. SJTC, UNF, Mayo and everything else on the Southside would still be dairy farms and abandoned sand mines if we didn't slice highways through it to open previously unaccessible land up to development. San Marco and Arlington would have never taken off if decisions weren't made to connect their areas to downtown with bridges.  Downtown Jax would have never become what it once did if earlier decisions to extend railroads to the area never came to fruition.


When it comes to mass transit, Portland and San Diego would still look like Jax does now if they didn't make decisions 30 years ago to invest in it to build the type of urban environments their community's desired.  In the last 20 years, Charlotte has caught and pulled away from us economically because of their willingness to invest in themselves and alternative mobility choices.

With all of that said, when the mobility plan, fee and associated projects were created, the comp plan was modified to include them.  Specifically speaking, the streetcar was included as a priority project to help spur walkable development and infill in under utilized areas of the urban core like Brooklyn and LaVilla, while also enhancing mobility between Riverside and Downtown. With the DIA now doing a CRA, I'm pretty sure transportation connectivity will be a major part of it as well.

[thelakelander]

Totally agree Sunbeam.  Why isn't J-ville applying for federal grant dollars to implement complete streets, return downtown streets to two-way, etc. etc. etc.?

We still would have lost.  We just got +$10 million in TIGER grant money two years ago.  I'm not sure that project has even broken ground yet.  Nevertheless, we don't need federal money to implement complete streets or return downtown streets to two-way.  These are affordable improvements.  The reason they don't get done is because they've never become a local priority, although Councilman Boyer is working hard to change this.

[FSBA]

Addition by substraction. This boondoggle would've only added another mile of riderless cars along the Skyway system.

[thelakelander]

Yes, instead we'll spend a couple of hundred million on a 15-mile segment of the First Coast Expressway (formerly Outer Beltway) and SR 9B and be forever tied to the financially subsidizing responsibilities that will come with them. 

As for JTA and the Brooklyn extension, my advice would remain the same as it has been for the last few years.  Go "no-frills" and add a cheap at-grade station at that location.  You generate the same ridership for a fraction of the costs.  Yes, you may not be able to extend it to Forest Street but if the streetcar comes to fruition, you won't necessary have to do that anyway.

[tufsu1]

So basically TIGER money was awarded to generally useful or economically beneficial projects.  I'm shocked!

JTA is a f*****g joke. 

uncalled for simms.  The fact is that this project was a viable one, but put together fairly rapidly given that JTA's new leadership team didn't really get into place until late winter.

[tufsu1]

Addition by substraction. This boondoggle would've only added another mile of riderless cars along the Skyway system.

riderless cars....like the 4,000 passengers a day who currently use the system?

[I-10east]

Thanks Lake for making sense of this thing. It's so easy to be caught up in irrationalness like "JTA sucks, and they didn't apply themselves, that's why they didn't receive the money!!!!" blah blah blah. Nothing's a 'gimme' esp when the Feds are involved with a situation.