Let me also recap what the neighborhood did do:
-Convinced JTA to do a test run at Art Walk-Ridership went through the roof two out of the three times this was tried. The third time was cold and rainy. I personally ate dinner at Cafe NOLA that night and there were 6 vendors in all of Hemming Plaza and the streets were bare... meaning, no one showed up at Art Walk that night.
-Convinced JTA to get out in the neighborhood and promote the trolley service and run a free service day-Single biggest ridership day they had
-Made the RAP Home Tour part of the Riverside Trolley route-Ridership spikes to very high levels
-Downtown stakeholders meet with JTA about extending service to Bay Street on weekend nights like the Beaches Trolley system gets(who btw averages LESS riders per hour than Riverside Trolley). JTA never followsup with a promised second meeting.
-Riverside/Avondale advocates meet with JTA regarding several items:
*Thur-Sat evening hours-response was until ridership improves we won't do that
*Eliminate one of the 7 routes that touch Park Street and extend a secondary RT loop on Park so that the RT reaches more people-we already have ample service along Park Street(which is true as long as you want to go to Rosa Parks or the former Normandy Mall)
*A plan in hand with buy-in from local merchants about extending a direct merchant-based transit program with a bulk ticket program(done in other cities btw, with fantastic results in capturing choice riders)-response union bus drivers would never hand out tickets or validate any type of ticket* BTW, they turned their back on the beaches merchants in year 2 of the Beaches Trolley service and advertising revenue and rideship drops
*A plan for RT-specific month-long discounted passes-response, yes we want to do that, guess we will be waiting for a very long time now that they are eliminating what was the Riverside Trolley. BTW, the new plan is to terminate the trolley at the new courthouse, not the Landing.
-It has been said here and said many, many times to JTA by anyone who would speak up... but the route, headways and the terminus at FSCJ were all mistakes and not convenient to anyone. That was ignored.
-MetroJacksonville demonstrates a successful project with three months straight of successful trolley pub crawls, in part to demonstrate to JTA that evening service connecting vibrant entertainment/commercial nodes together works(as if you can't go to any city with a functioning transit system and witness this).
But hey, these are the smartest guys in the room... nothing to see here, move along.
There are about 5 senior people at JTA that get it. Otherwise, the senior leadership team needs to be replaced. And it needs to happen today.
