JTA Shrinks Transportation Center's Footprint

[Metro Jacksonville]

JTA Shrinks Transportation Center's Footprint



For years, Metro Jacksonville has claimed the Jacksonville Transportation Authority's (JTA) Jacksonville Regional Transportation Center (JRTC) was too big for its britches and expensive for taxpayer's wallets. Now it appears that JTA is beginning to move in the right direction with a revised plan that reduces the JRTC's massive footprint.

Read More: http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2014-aug-jta-shrinks-transportation-centers-footprint

[thelakelander]

If you have any suggestions for the JRTC, you can let JTA know today at:

www.newsystemjta.com

[Steve]

Still not the most inspiring thing I've ever seen, but it's WAY better

[BridgeTroll]

Its a start...

[jcjohnpaint]

I'm sorry, am I seeing something wrong?  Greyhound would still be north giving this the same footprint.  Wasn't the huge footprint the problem to begin with?  Still working around the convention center space. 

[Charles Hunter]

Greyhound used to be fronting Adams Street, now it is along Forsyth Street - a block (two if you count Houston St.) closer.  But, yeah, still working around the Convention Center - and until someone moves the darn thing, they will have to.

[thelakelander]

I'm sorry, am I seeing something wrong?  Greyhound would still be north giving this the same footprint.  Wasn't the huge footprint the problem to begin with?  Still working around the convention center space. 

^Greyhound is a block closer in the revised plan.  A block and tons of money was saved by combining the local intercity bus terminal with the existing Skyway station.  The Greyhound station and restaurant now directly faces the JTA bus bays and the Skyway is above them.

In this layout, only the future Amtrak station sits south of the Prime Osborn, but there's not much you can do there, since that's where the tracks run. In my opinion, the JTA Skyay, intercity bus/BRT block is ideal, although I hope the architecture will be more modern than the last concept. It makes transferring between those three modes them quick and easy and Greyhound faces it, so it's not the end of the world. 

The bull in the china shop is still the convention center.  If it we're gone, Greyhound could be there or at least in the parking lot behind the exhibition hall. However, that's not under JTA's control and the city has no money to move it this decade. So the question becomes, is it worth holding the entire thing up for 10-20 years to allow COJ to make up its mind on what it wants to do with the convention center? Or is it better to develop something that works for the next two decades, along with an incremental expansion plan that considers the eventual relocation of the convention center?

[PeeJayEss]

How many square feet would be needed at the Prime to get phase one of this multi-modal facility in there? Is it not possible to cut the convention space down from 265,000 sf (do we really need all that anyway?), fit Amtrak, Greyhound, and Megabus in there, and still have over 100,000 sf of convention space?

[thelakelander]

The convention center needs to be doubled in size. The exhibition hall is only 78,500sf.  Cutting it down isn't the way to go if Jax wants to be in the business. Either expanding it or building a larger center off-site are the options for remaining in that industry. 

In either scenario, whether the convention center stays or goes, the potential location of Amtrak platforms and the existing Skyway station remain the same, so you're not gaining much by tearing down the exhibition hall and moving the intercity terminal there. At least utilizing the existing Skyway bus bays for the intercity terminal, allows for quick short term implementation at an affordable price.  Given that the Skyway and intercity buses are local, it also makes sense for transferring between those modes to be as efficient as possible.

Nevertheless, the bull in the china shop situation is still COJ coming up with a solution and cash to do something with the convention center.  That's not happening anytime soon, so is it worth not doing anything to improve intermodal connectivity, while waiting on a resolution for the convention center that could never come? Furthermore, in the event that AAF does eventually expand into Jax, then we're presented with another opportunity.

It would be cool to have alternatives for if the convention center stays and expands west, or goes altogether.  My guess is that you'll find parts of the layout that won't really change one way or the other.  In a phased implementation plan, that's where it would make most sense to invest first.  In that scenario, I think intercity buses directly under the Skyway makes sense.

[finehoe]

Is there really that much demand for transfers between Greyhound/Amtrak/JTA buses?  I still don't see what unmet need this would fill.

[Charles Hunter]

There must be some demand.  For example, when I travel Amtrak, I would have to take a 2 hour, 2 bus ride to get the station where it is now.  If - no, When - it moves back downtown, it would be less than an hour.

After the route changes in December, I won't even have that option, as the bus that comes near my house is being taken away.

[thelakelander]

Is there really that much demand for transfers between Greyhound/Amtrak/JTA buses?  I still don't see what unmet need this would fill.

This is the basic type of transit connectivity you need if you want to be a part of larger regional projects like All Aboard Florida. When you put the right infrastructure and supporting land use policies in place, you have the basic building blocks to morph into a more multimodal friendly community over time.  If you don't get your basic infrastructure right, nothing changes.

The industry panel took a local view, though, by asking which investments would promote Jacksonville the best. Downtown public transit connectivity was considered one of the missing puzzle pieces.

It’s one of the things holding back All Aboard Florida, a privately funded high-speed rail initiative that will connect Orlando with Miami. Jacksonville is not yet included in that plan.

The initiative is first targeting cities that have local routes in place to take riders from high-speed rail stations to their final destinations, said Husein Cumber, executive vice president of Corporate Development for the Florida East Coast Railway, the parent company of All Aboard Florida.

Orlando is one such city. It has been investing in its public

transportation system for decades.

To compete, Jacksonville would have to have routes in place so a rider could get from a high-speed rail station to places like EverBank Field for a game, to the airport, San Marco or Jacksonville Beach, Cumber said.

“If a person can’t easily get off our system and move to their end destination, when we do our ridership studies, the numbers are not going to come out as strongly,” he said.

FEC is investing $2 billion to create the first phase of All Aboard Florida, Cumber said. The project is viable because population growth is now headed away from suburbs and towards urban centers.

“When we think about an intra-city rail system, we need to have that density pick up, so that we can have a population to target and to pick up as riders,” Cumber said.

full article: http://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/showstory.php?Story_id=543684

[IrvAdams]

Kudos to our JTA. They are making some great moves lately. Many people are taking notice.

[Tacachale]

This looks WAY better. Good on JTA.

[Noone]

Congratulations to Metrojacksonville.