JRTC Greyhound Terminal Design Moving Forward

[Metro Jacksonville]

JRTC Greyhound Terminal Design Moving Forward



Despite significant questions regarding the cost, need, and feasibility of the Jacksonville Regional Transporation Center (JRTC), the design of the JRTC's Greyhound bus terminal has been recommended for final approval by the Downtown Development Review Board (DDRB), for Thursday's DDRB meeting.

Full Article
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2011-dec-jrtc-greyhound-terminal-design-moving-forward

[simms3]

Waste of money.  I can understand the city urgently moving the Greyhound if there were a developer trying to put up a tower on the current site, but come on we all know that will never ever happen.  Might as well keep the Greyhound activity in the center of town for now, it does provide some semblance of life around it or the hot dog guy would not be there

[tufsu1]

Its more of the anti homeless nincompoopery, simms.

The new bank decided that they didnt want their customers seeing the class of people who ride the greyhound so they are taking this transit element out of the downtown proper and exporting it to the extreme edge of downtown, where there is no service infrastructure like shops or restaurants already in place.

I think it is more about their employees....there won't be many customers coming in

[Lunican]

It's really hard to imagine a plan worse than this.

I think JTA has it all wrong with these city bus stations anyway. Why do buses have to loop around and pull into some big bus station, wasting time and fuel, instead of just having frequent service on the road in front of the station?

There is no bus garage at Grand Central Terminal or Chicago Union Station.

[jcjohnpaint]

more of the same... more of the same. 

[thelakelander]

I never really expected more out of JTA.  Urban planning and land use policies aren't their specialty (although it should be if we ever want transit to work in this city).  However, I do worry about DDRB staff recommending approval of a design like this.  The way the system is set up, they're supposed to be the watch dogs.  Expensive crap like this only provides downtown naysayers with more ammunition about wasteful spending in the urban core.  In this sense, Mayor Brown's reorganization of how things currently operate in regards to downtown is long overdue.

[JeffreyS]

Aren't their specialty or more accurately aren't something they care about.

Leave Greyhound where it is and combine the rest of it into the skyway and convention site.

[jaxlore]

wow. looks like they got the same hack that builds the high schools to come up with the design. Jacksonville we do mediocrity right!

[thelakelander]

^That's the same thing I thought.  It looks like some of the cheap classroom buildings one would find at a newer public school.  Worst of all, there appears to be little to no thought about how the design impacts or fits into the surrounding area.  I seriously can't believe that in the 21st century, we're still allowing people to build solid walls along main streets and at street corners.

[PhanLord]

is there anything that we can do force them to reconsider ?
Occupy JRTC ?

[Tacachale]

^I doubt it. One of the downsides of the JTA as an independent agency is there's little that can stop them when they've put their minds to something.

[PhanLord]

can city not revoke permit or something like that.

[Lunican]

The DDRB is supposed to prevent crap like this, but obviously they don't care.

[duvaldude08]

This scares me. A- The design is terriable, B- We dont have funding and dont know if we will ever have the money to complete the entire project. I have a bad feeling that the rest of the center is never going to get built and the  new greyhound station is going to isolated in the middle of nowhere. This is just stupid

[Jaxson]

Waste of money.  I can understand the city urgently moving the Greyhound if there were a developer trying to put up a tower on the current site, but come on we all know that will never ever happen.  Might as well keep the Greyhound activity in the center of town for now, it does provide some semblance of life around it or the hot dog guy would not be there

Its more of the anti homeless nincompoopery, simms.

The new bank decided that they didnt want their customers seeing the class of people who ride the greyhound so they are taking this transit element out of the downtown proper and exporting it to the extreme edge of downtown, where there is no service infrastructure like shops or restaurants already in place.

The result will be the loss of a few hundred people from downtown's dwindling customer base and less of a reason to stop in Jacksonville

The same thinking is what moved Amtrak out of downtown.  Imagine how many retailers would have benefited from train passengers in the LaVilla/Downtown area...