Author Topic: St. Augustine Selects Location for Amtrak Station  (Read 22292 times)

fsujax

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Re: St. Augustine Selects Location for Amtrak Station
« Reply #15 on: May 13, 2010, 10:15:46 AM »
Clay County has actually been proactive in their planning for future transit needs. Good for them. I do not think the station for commuter rail identified in Lakeside was intended to be a large park and ride station, maybe more like a small neighborhood station.

thelakelander

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Re: St. Augustine Selects Location for Amtrak Station
« Reply #16 on: May 13, 2010, 10:18:26 AM »
The site (the one in jandar's image) is already owned by Clay County.  That's where the proposed multimodal station will be located.

Quote
What is this regional park-and-ride in Clay County?

It is a long-term plan to have a bus station, and possibly a train station, in Clay County that will allow commuters access to downtown Jacksonville. More than $1 million is going toward the design and construction of the facility that will be off of County Road 220 adjacent to the CSX railroad tracks.

The timeline for getting the park-and-ride built is still up in the air, but design work will take more than a year, Arrington said.

http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2010-03-22/story/jta-get-93-million-federal-stimulus-money
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jandar

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Re: St. Augustine Selects Location for Amtrak Station
« Reply #17 on: May 13, 2010, 10:23:27 AM »
Wow, missed that story. Thanks Lake.

Surprisingly Clay is serious about this.

Captain Zissou

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Re: St. Augustine Selects Location for Amtrak Station
« Reply #18 on: May 13, 2010, 10:23:51 AM »
This is great news.  A step towards creating a regional network of transit.  Now jax will be able to develop as a city should, with hubs of activity and development connected by mass transit.  No more sprawl!!

jbroadglide

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Re: St. Augustine Selects Location for Amtrak Station
« Reply #19 on: May 13, 2010, 10:59:16 AM »
Hi Metro Jax
 I am flattered that you chose to use my YouTube video of the Amtrak/FEC train crossing the St Johns downtown, but could I at least get credit for it?
BTW I am as excited about anyone at the prospect of riding the train from Jax to Miami without having to go through West wayoutback Florida to get there.
John Buckley
Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus (Never Tickle a Sleeping Dragon)

thelakelander

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Re: St. Augustine Selects Location for Amtrak Station
« Reply #20 on: May 13, 2010, 11:38:27 AM »
Sorry about that.  I thought I had included a link to the video.  I'll add it to the article.
"A man who views the world the same at 50 as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.” - Muhammad Ali

jbroadglide

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Re: St. Augustine Selects Location for Amtrak Station
« Reply #21 on: May 13, 2010, 11:41:15 AM »
BTW my buddies and I were going to try and pace it down US1 from Bayard to St Augustine. But as you can see from the last few seconds of the video, they were already moving at close to 60mph and by the time we got onto US1 they were long gone! I was told later by some friends who rode the train that they even hit the max speed of 79 mph in a few spots.
Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus (Never Tickle a Sleeping Dragon)

Mattius92

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Re: St. Augustine Selects Location for Amtrak Station
« Reply #22 on: May 13, 2010, 12:12:23 PM »
Duuh, I live in Clay and I really want commuter rail, and we really need it. Scratch the outer beltway and just invest in commuter rail. I am sure it will be of much more use then the outer beltway, and it should be a lot less then $1.8 billion.

The St. Augustine Station is in a very strategic position near historical downtown, like the idea.

JIA needs to have an commuter rail connection. A connection to that from Downtown would be a vital network.
SunRail, Florida's smart transit idea. :) (now up on the chopping block) :(

Mattius92

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Re: St. Augustine Selects Location for Amtrak Station
« Reply #23 on: May 13, 2010, 01:07:32 PM »
I am thinking about creating a website called, Jax4rail.org, it will be a website promoting the use of rail in Jacksonville, for freight, state-wide and city-wide passenger rail.

However, there might already be a site promoting this...
SunRail, Florida's smart transit idea. :) (now up on the chopping block) :(

TheProfessor

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Re: St. Augustine Selects Location for Amtrak Station
« Reply #24 on: May 13, 2010, 01:21:08 PM »
This is exciting.  I wonder what the timetable is in building the transportation center around the Union Station?

jandar

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Re: St. Augustine Selects Location for Amtrak Station
« Reply #25 on: May 13, 2010, 01:21:32 PM »
Mattius,

The one chink in the armor about Commuter Rail is that it first relies on Downtown Jax being the only hub.

Yes, this makes logical sense, and would work for most of Jacksonville.
There is however, a huge portion of Clay that commutes to the Southside.
You will not get buy in from that crowd until there is a direct route between points in Clay and the Southside of Jax without having to go through downtown first.
If you want to tie commuter rail in with the Amtrak/FEC line, it still wouldn't attract that many people from Clay to downtown Jax. Most would drive to St Augustine and use that facility.

I say build the outer beltway, a good portion is already done/started. And yes, it does help relieve congestion (although a bridge in Fleming Island is a much better idea than GCS)
Add a commuter line down the middle of it, this will attract more ridership from Clay than the route through downtown would.

Trust me, this is what helped slap JTA in the face over BRT. You cannot expect people to take longer to commute by bus or rail than they do by car. My commute is 45 minutes each morning, it would take over an hour using Commuter Rail. Not only do I save 1/2 hour each day, I also have my car with me. Is it worth the extra 30 minutes a day, and loss of car use if needed for work, and being stuck to a schedule for a few dollars a day savings in gas?

You have to hit home on time/cost/speed.

JeffreyS

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Re: St. Augustine Selects Location for Amtrak Station
« Reply #26 on: May 13, 2010, 01:30:42 PM »
Jandar one of the main benefits of fixed rail is delopment starts to conform to it. People start to live and work with commuting in mind. So employers and deveopers start taking advantage of the transit lines.
Lenny Smash

Doctor_K

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Re: St. Augustine Selects Location for Amtrak Station
« Reply #27 on: May 13, 2010, 01:30:57 PM »
I don't know - he has a point about the OP-Southside commuters.  

And, as the vast majority of people in this area are mass-transit uninformed, I believe jandar actually puts forth a majority question/concern.

The question is, since Downtown will be the hub, you will have commuter lines running primarily north-south, and the only viable option for those commuters is and will be for the foreseeable future the Buckman Bridge, how *will* you entice this demographic to use it?

EDIT: JeffreyS posted before I was done.  So basically, you'll entice these people over time?
"Imagination is more important than knowledge. For while knowledge defines all we currently know and understand, imagination points to all we might yet discover and create."  -- Albert Einstein

fsujax

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Re: St. Augustine Selects Location for Amtrak Station
« Reply #28 on: May 13, 2010, 01:37:19 PM »
The argument of downtown not being the largest employment hub is often used. Two things it is still the most dense employment center in the region, served by existing transit to circulate people once off the train and secondly, people need to realize that commuter rail may actually entice some employers back to Downtown! all trains lead to Downtown.....all aboard!

Captain Zissou

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Re: St. Augustine Selects Location for Amtrak Station
« Reply #29 on: May 13, 2010, 01:39:07 PM »
Perhaps you would entice the OP-Southside commuters to move....  If a regional transit network develops, it will be desirable to live anywhere near the FEC line, or around the Roosevelt line if they work downtown.  Maybe poorly planned areas of town will become less desirable and die off, allowing for denser development near transit lines.