Should Skyway Be Expanded?

[thelakelander]

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/6427/skywayextension7yn.jpg

Since the San Marco Riverfront District will add nearly 4,000 residents to the Southbank, transit improvements will have to be made to serve this mega development. Although it would be expensive, is it more beneficial to expand the skyway to serve this community or spend money improving local roads, such as Prudential Drive and Montana Avenue? What are the pros & cons?

[antonio]

The only con I see is how long will it take JTA be able to make back the money they invested to extend the system? Plus, does that development really need the extension. Why not just have them walk however far it is to get to the next station?

For me, extending the system to the Sports Complex is more a priority slash need.

[Jason]

I voted jointly, however, Cowford should be picking up the expansion on their site which would be the majority of the cost. Maybe at least a nice terminal on their end and let JTA pick up the tracks and necessary improvements on the Kings Ave. station.

[thelakelander]

I believe it should be extended and jointly funded by JTA and Cowford, since there are several benefits of extending the skyway for both parties.

For JTA, the skyway's ridership would increase substantially because the with over 300ksf of retail, an expanded riverwalk, public marina and 10 acre public park, this urban village would not only be a prime destination spot for it's own residents, but all downtown residents and workers.

For Cowford, expanding the skyway enhances the project's marketability. By being connected to the skyway, urban living is truly achieved because these residents won't have to drive to access the office towers and cultural/entertainment establishments available on the in other areas of downtown.

[thelakelander]

Originally posted by antonio@Dec 30 2005, 10:38 AM
The only con I see is how long will it* take JTA be able to make back the money they invested to extend the system?* Plus, does that development really need the extension.* Why not just have them walk however far it is to get to the next station?

For me, extending the system to the Sports Complex is more a priority slash need.
Expanding to Alltel and down Riverside Avenue should also be priorities. However, the main priority should be doing what it takes to push urban living in Jax to its highest potential and working with some of these developers to have them contribute to enhancing transit in the core. So when the opportunity presents its self, JTA should be willing to sit down and see what could be worked out.

Its roughly about 6 blocks, from the center of the JEA property to the Kings Avenue Station. Unless something is done with the school board property and Prudential Drive, most of that walk is going to be through tree-less surface parking lots. When considering our weather, this will end up making driving to other parts of downtown a more viable alternative, increasing traffic on local roads, as well as leaving the skyway terminating without a true destination spot.

With possibly 4,000 residents, 300k of retail, 200k of offices, and a massive public riverfront park, this development, alone could attract just as many riders as extending the skyway a mile to the Stadium District, for a fraction of the cost, considering the distance. If I were JTA, I'd pull the trigger, if Cowford would agree to pick up half the costs.

[Jim]

Absolutely. Both Cowford and JTA stand to benefit from such an expansion that the tab should be split.

The question of should it be expanded is simple one to answer. This is the single largest development in DT. More people, more retail, more river access (shipyards aside).

ST Johns Center and SMP have a station within 1 block.
San Marco Riverwalk has 2 options at 2-3 blocks depending on what side of the project they are on.

Adding one more that would serve the largest concentration of people on the southbank along with a huge amount of retail makes perfect sense to me especially given the limited access to the property to begin with.

[RiversideGator]

I think so, although it seems to me that the skyway stops are a little close together, when compared with say subway stations in NYC. Am I wrong about this? I guess I am just saying that it isnt unrealistic to expect people to walk a few blocks to the subway in NYC, so why not do the same here? That having been said, 6 blocks is a long way in the summer monsoon season here. What do y'all think?

By the way, I voted that the line should be extended and paid for jointly.

[thelakelander]

^My reply would be that people who dare to drive into NYC also won't complain about finding a parking space two blocks from their destination, like they do here in Jax.

Its important to remember, the skyway is a downtown peoplemover and not a regional subway or light rail system. Given our climate, there won't be many downtown workers who would live in this development, walk 6 to 9 blocks (most through surface parking lots/w little to no trees) in 100 degree weather or afternoon thunderstorms, when they could just get in their air-conditioned car and drive across the river.

[Joe]

Sorry to be the unpopular one and vote "no" ;)

But it sounds like the Eastern portion of the development will be townhomes, with the highest density on the Western side. All these people will easily live within a 5-10 minute walk of the skyway. The entire development is pretty darn close to the Kings Ave. station. I mean, sure, it would be nicer to have even more connectivity, but I can't even beging to imagine it justifying the cost. It would be like a giant monument to Jacksonvilles' unwillingness to walk 800ft !! :)

The important areas for future skyway expansion would be towards Altell and Riverside - which is something I think we all agree on.

[thelakelander]

Joe, any idea on how much it would cost or the impact on ridership, if it were extended into the heart of the development?

If its not extended, what transporation alternatives would have to be made to accomodate potentially 10 to 20k additional vehicular trips a day? Widening and streetscaping Prudential Drive or running the proposed Phillips Hwy BRT line through it?

[RiversideGator]

Originally posted by thelakelander@Dec 30 2005, 01:27 PM
^My reply would be that people who dare to drive into NYC also won't complain about finding a parking space two blocks from their destination, like they do here in Jax.

Its important to remember, the skyway is a downtown peoplemover and not a regional subway or light rail system. Given our climate, there won't be many downtown workers who would live in this development, walk 6 to 9 blocks (most through surface parking lots/w little to no trees) in 100 degree weather or afternoon thunderstorms, when they could just get in their air-conditioned car and drive across the river.
You make good points Lake. I agree that we should make public transit as easy as possible for people to use downtown. I guess I just remember taking the skyway to that station and then walking to the JEA site for the Super Bowl event (Fan Fest) there and not thinking it was a bad walk. But, on a daily basis and in inclement weather, this could be a problem. If the Skyway is to be extended, this should be designed in from the start. I wonder if the developers are interested in this. Also, water taxis could take up some of the public transit duties from this riverfront development theoretically.

[Joe]

Well, currently the Skyway has cost about $74 million dollars per-mile. One would hope that a short expansion would be at reduced cost, but keep in mind that a station is a great expense in itself, usually the biggest. So would a - let's really lowball it - $25 million skyway expansion really be worth it? I don't know. If we are talking about a 20 minute walk, sure, I think it becomes a no-brainer. That's why I think Alltel and Riverside expansions are no-brainers. But it sounds like most of this development is still within the desired 5-10 minute walking range for public transit.

One could use the "ruler" feature on the GIS maps at COJ.net and find out the exact distance.

As for the roadways, I do honestly wonder if Prudential Drive and Broadcast Place (or Montana Av) are enough. But they provide tolerable access to I-95 and Atlantic Blvd, and are currently extremely underutilized.

I'll whip out my "new urbanism best practices" book and caculate if the current road capacity is enough. ;) But some other time.

[thelakelander]

Don't get me wrong. The walk from the Kings Avenue Station to the western edge of the JEA site is a relatively short distance. However this site is roughly 40 acres and I may be jumping the gun without seeing a site plan, but that would become a fairly long walk for the average Jacksonvillian if a significant portion of the commercial, residences and public park are located on the center to eastern portion of the property.

From looking at the aerial, I assume this will be the case to allow the development to take advantage of the riverfront.

[thelakelander]

Well, currently the Skyway has cost about $74 million dollars per-mile. One would hope that a short expansion would be at reduced cost, but keep in mind that a station is a great expense in itself, usually the biggest.

I figured the cost would be significantly lower because I assume most of the costs for the skyway probably came from crossing the river and the building of elaborate stations, such as the highly elevated one next to Prudential.

As for the roadways, I do honestly wonder if Prudential Drive and Broadcast Place (or Montana Av) are enough. But they provide tolerable access to I-95 and Atlantic Blvd, and are currently extremely underutilized.

I must say streetscaping Prudential Drive wouldn't be a bad idea. However, I wonder if it or Broadcast would have to be widened. If so, in Prudential Drive's case, this means additional right-of-way would have to be purchased (most likely on the northside) from San Marco Blvd to Broadcast which would probably begin to even out the costs.

I'll whip out my "new urbanism best practices" book and caculate if the current road capacity is enough. ;) But some other time.

I'll have to hold you to that.

[Jim]

I measured a 0.4 mile path from Kings directly into the central portion of the property. At $74 million per mile and giving weight to the cost of the station itself, I'd speculate about $40-50 million for the expansion. Splitting that in some form would ease the cost.

Perhaps similar to the policy of having businesses help pay for roads, they could be taxed a little to help offset even more. Cowford could also pass it onto residents in the cost of the residences. $25 million / 2,000 = $12,500 each.

[Joe]

RE: the traffic capacity issues (sorry it took me so long to respond, I forgot).

Okay, so the general question is this: Is the current road capacity enough to fully service the JEA development? Unfortunately, our information is limited, but we'll only have to make a few assumptions ...

In general, a typical suburban family makes 10 one-way car trips per day. I'm not just making that number up either, it's the number the state of Florida assumes when calculating impact fees. Apparently, the comfortable traffic capacity of a 2-lane road, at 15 mph is at least 2,500-2,800 cars per hour. 15 mph, is a tad slow, but it's a decent conservative figure for a residential street, whith people slowing traffic down to make turns and so forth. The minimum for a 4-lane is at least 3,800-4,000 cars per hour. (source: new urbanism handbook)

Figure Prudential drive at 4-lanes, and Broadcast Place at 2-lanes, you get a capacity of 6,000-6,800 cars per hour. 2,000 units = 20,000 trips per day. Even if you restrict every single vehicle trip to the morning and evening rush-hours, you still have tons of excess capacity. Even assuming Prudential Drive at only 2-lanes too - with 5,000-5,600 total trips per hour - the capacity still seems comfortable.

You can go even further with this analysis too. For example, the JEA site residents will not have the same demographics as a typical suburban family. There won't be as many families with children. There will be more single-person housholds. Furthermore, people will theoretically walk places more often. Consequently, the number of avereage daily car trips could be drastically reduced below 10.

Basically, no matter how you shake it, the current layout should have decent capacity, not only for JEA, but also for the school board site, and San Marco Riverwalk. (Keep in mind that both streets currently have nearly zero real use, with only several hundred office employees using them daily.)

So there you go ... I should petition the DOT for my consulting fee? ;) (Though I didn't waste nearly enough time and money to be an official govt. consulant.)

[thelakelander]

Good work. Any idea on how the office, retail, hotel and public uses at these sites (San Marco Riverwalk & JEA) will factor affect these numbers? Basically we'll have 3 roads (Prudential Drive, Riverplace and Broadcast) serving 4,300+ units, nearly 600,000sf of office/retail and whatever is developed on the school board property. Hopefullly, we'll at least get both Riverplace and Prudential streetscaped.

[Joe]

I have no solid information on office traffic. However, I can make a reasonable guess. Let's be as conservative/safe as possible ...

I don't know what's typical for Jax, but let's assume you are going to have a maximum 10 people per 1,000 sqft of office space. Now let's make the extreme assumption that no one walks or carpools. Then, let's further assume that every single solitary person drives by themselves to lunch every day. That would mean an absurd maximum projection of 24,000 daily one-way car trips for 600,000 sqft office.

And again, that's an absurdly high estimate. If you figure more liberal numbers for the number of workers per 1,000 sqft, plus the fact that most people will walk/carpool to lunch (and in fact, many people might actually live within walking distance). I think you're looking at well under 10,000 total one-way trips per day for 600,000 square feet.

[wolfdawg54]

Personally, I would like to see JTA put a connection out by the stadium. That would increase ridership to and from the games. Plus with the incoming residential units potentially being constructed, it would be a better idea. The other section can be completed later since there is already a station nearby.

[RiversideGator]

Originally posted by wolfdawg54@Jan 17 2006, 12:13 PM
Personally, I would like to see JTA put a connection out by the stadium. That would increase ridership to and from the games. Plus with the incoming residential units potentially being constructed, it would be a better idea. The other section can be completed later since there is already a station nearby.
I have often thought about this too, wolfdawg. The only problem I see with extending the Skyway down Bay Street to the stadium is, on game days at least, this would result in the removal of one lane of traffic and the capacity of the Skyway trams is not large enough to compensate for the loss of one lane of flowing vehicles, in my opinion. Maybe if it could be run to the stadium in some other way than down Bay Street it could work, but it seems to me that logistically this could be a lot of hassle for little gameday benefit. Of course, the rest of the time (i.e. non gamedays) this system would be nice to have.

[thelakelander]

The lanes on Bay have already been reduced to 3 to allow for parallel parking. Although the skyway isn't the best looking creation, if it is to be expanded to the stadiums, its the most logical route, with all of the development planned in the area.

[Jim]

They could use an arching system that puts smaller pillars on each side of the road to form either an arch or like this....


_|_
| |

[simms3]

Viper, that's a nice idea, but could it work for 2 way skyway? I think that a skyway extension on the southbank to feed all the development is more of a priority than the sports distrtict (IF and only IF all this devlopment occurs) The sports district currently sees use only 1-3 times per week really, and the Shipyards looks like nothing will happen for a while, and same for the 70 floor tower.
Meanwhile, the southbank is maybe imminently a majorly dense neighborhodd with a couple of 4 and 2 lane roads. The skyway is probably more needed right now for the southbank.

[thelakelander]

Andy is on a rampage about the skyway again. He now says that fixed transit will NEVER work in Jacksonville and if anyone wants to see mass transit in Jax, then it should be buses.

[thelakelander]

The rant is in response or support of this letter to the editor yesterday

JACKSONVILLE: Skyway is a financial black hole

After reading the letter about what a positive experience a couple had on the Skyway, I just had to reply lest people forget what an unmitigated failure and financial black hole it truly is.

I will not even dwell on the fact that the Skyway still does not carry one-tenth of the projected riders estimated by the Jacksonville Transportation Authority.

Also to keep the ball rolling, I will hardly even mention the fact that the Skyway does not go anywhere that people can't get to more quickly and more conveniently in a car.

Of course, in a nod to irony, one of the original purposes of the Skyway was to keep cars outside of downtown.

Now, years later, the city of Jacksonville is spending tens of millions of dollars building public parking garages right in the middle of the areas where the Skyway was supposed to keep cars out.

I do, however, want to mention that the taxpayers of Jacksonville are paying $3 million to $4 million every year to subsidize the operation and maintenance of the Skyway.

This is money that would normally come from the fee collected from riders of which there are too few. So, the taxpayers have to step in. I, for one, think this is outrageous.

We are, in essence, paying for a service that the citizens of Jacksonville have demonstrated loudly that they don't want or need. If the Skyway were a private for-profit business, it would have been shut down long ago.

I say it is well past time to open our collective eyes and see the obvious and shut down the Skyway. Let's tear out the tracks and repave the entire line as a beautiful outdoor jogging track.

We could possibly charge a dollar a person to use it and make way more money than the Skyway currently does.

The real benefit, of course, would be the millions of dollars spent on the Skyway could now be put back into the general fund and used for something most all of us use, for example, libraries.

The mayor has touted himself as the "education" mayor and the "literacy" mayor. What better way to prove this than to greatly expand library hours so more citizens could use them?

Maybe we could even have the Main Library open 24 hours like almost all cities our size do.

MARK MUSSELWHITE, Jacksonville

This story can be found on Jacksonville.com at http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stor..._20936187.shtml (http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/012906/opl_20936187.shtml).

[Keith726]

New guy here.I dont think of buses as rapid transit.Many locals here in Jax know nothing of mass transit.They know nothing about parking there car at a station and then riding the skyway to the stadium,with that said,the skyway should be expaned to the stadium area,riverside,an other business areas.Buses are slow and they eat up alot of gas and pollute the air.People are always going to complain about all the new developments here in Jax cuz they are still living in the 1950's.The skyway should be extended and connected to light commuter rail that goes t/o Jax ie the airport.I have a friend that works for JTA I am going to give him a call and email the JTA on this issue.

[RiversideGator]

Keith: Email him a link to this forum also, especially the threads which discuss the commuter rail proposal of Lakelander. This may be a way to get someone's ear inside the JTA. :)

[Keith726]

Ok will do that today,

[bruineyes]

I haven't been following any discussions on the Skyway, so forgive me if this has been discussed before. What is the feasability of extending the Skyway south of I-95 (towards San Marco)? Were there ever plans to do this (it must dead-end at the highway for a reason)? And... could it be looped up into the San Marco Riverfront District and still allow for future expansion?

On a slimly related topic... what do you guys think of a high school (Bishop Kenny) having such a large chunk of riverfront property right in view of downtown? Do you think in the next 100 years this could ever be on the market? I always think it's pretty unfortunate that this could be the farthest along the river the Southbank will develop, considering how much farther the Northbank is able to spread. It's an odd pattern that young cities like Jacksonville are beginning to exhibit: high density, mixed-use development abruptly ending at a suburban landscape that doesn't seem to have much potential for change (until maybe it becomes run-down/vacant). At least with historic streetcar suburbs, there's more of a buffer between the two forms.

[Keith726]

Mention the Skyway and most people will say tear it down.Why doesnt the Skyway Work.

1.Poor planning
2.MONEY lack of it (JTA)
3.People here have no idea what rapid transit is.
A buddy of mine works for JTA,I asked him why hasnt JTA expaned the skyway to the stadium,he states JTA would lose money because people would not ride the shuttle buses.Now if that isnt the stupidest thing I've heard I dont know what is.How would they lose money if people paid to park and then ride the skyway to the stadium.

If anything they are losing money with all the sporting events held in the city.The idea is to have people park on the edge of downtown in garages and then ride the skyway into the downtown core/stadium.This would decrease traffic congestion downtown and around the stadium.Same with San Marco/Riverside areas people could ride into town on the skyway instead of driving. Another problem is that the Skyway also needs to go to more areas(business) downtown. The major problem though will be getting the people here to use the system.Right now this is a driving city,thats all they know here.

[Keith726]

Re Bishop Kennedy, mention tearing it down and the city will go into an uproar. If you thought they complained about saving that ugly Haydens building wait til someone wants to tear that school down.I dont think no other city in FL has planned worst than jax, what other cities in fl would put an ugly building like the school board on the river front,and lets not forget the landing was once a dirt filled parking lot.Even in a 100 yrs if Bishop is falling apart people here will want to save it,I am not saying it should be torn down,but it certainly shouldnt be on the river front.

[fsujax]

Extending the Skway to capture these new planned developments is a great idea. This would be a good way to create a transit oreinted development (TOD). It's about time Jacksonville steps up to the plate and ties our new large developments especially downtown in with transit. I also believe the Skyway should be extended to the Sports Complex District. Original plans of the Skyway show this expansion and I believe it is sorely needed, it would also pass by and capture riders from the proposed Shipyards and Berkman Plaza.

The Skyway was a little before its time. When the original alignments for the Skyway were drawn up, they relied upon a continued strong growth downtown, including a new convention center hotel. The Jefferson Station located now in an empty dirt lot, was originally designed so that a hotel could be constructed around it and the station would be inside the hotel. It is quite obvious to all none of this happened and ridership has suffered dramatically.

I wrote an entire paper on the Skyway when I was graduate school so I know lots of trivial Skyway information.

[Jason]

I wasn't aware of the Jefferson station plans. That would be a great idea for a future hotel.

[TheITSteve]

Originally posted by Keith726@Feb 4 2006, 06:03 PM
Re Bishop Kennedy, mention tearing it down and the city will go into an uproar. If you thought they complained about saving that ugly Haydens building wait til someone wants to tear that school down.I dont think no other city in FL has planned worst than jax, what other cities in fl would put an ugly building like the school board on the river front,and lets not forget the landing was once a dirt filled parking lot.Even in a 100 yrs if Bishop is falling apart people here will want to save it,I am not saying it should be torn down,but it certainly shouldnt be on the river front.
At least it is private development......