What Does Arizona and Texas Know About Light Rail -vs- Bus Transit, That JTA Hasn't Figured Out?
JTA imagines this in downtown Jacksonville? When one holds their feet to this fire they quickly back-peddle to say the downtown transit mall will be more like surface streets. Sorry JTA, but if THAT is true then all of the "speed" benefits of BRT just flew out the window. Spell this delima as traffic, congestion and even less available parking.
So JTA says they HAD to abandon Light Rail because it was far too expensive. They have convinced City Hall, Tallahassee, Washington and perhaps the Times-Union that BRT or "Bus Rapid Transit" is going t be the salvation of transportation in Jacksonville. No one in the media has called their hand on this, because no one still living in Jacksonville, has a clue what rail transit is all about.
One has to wonder about loyalty's and preferences of a "Transportation Authority" that is also the local highway builder. This is rare indeed, so rare that Jacksonville is one of only TWO City's in the USA to have an agency with such conflicting purposes. Frankly, splitting up JTA into two separate agency's would be a real smart move. With highway trust fund, and Big Oil money, still rattling around in their pockets, they keep coming out with fuzzy math, right out of the highway lobby hand book.
JTA, will parrot the numbers from the successful BRT system in Curitiba, Brazil and Bogota, Colombia, as examples of how attractive "quality bus" on it's own highway can be. They will quote ridership figures from the Los Angeles, Metro-Rapid bus system, to prove this concept will work in Jacksonville. Cheaper, and "just like rail" is their battle cry. Let's look at these claims under the crystal ball of a Transportation Consultant. JTA says BRT will cost us up to a billion dollars and 20 years. Is this cheap? For all of their plans they want to build a bus highway right alongside our railroads? How hard is this to figure out?
Curitiba and Bogota, both have populations of about 5 million persons. Both cities are highly dense. Both cities have a poverty rate of about 50%. So I ask, is it any wonder that their transit ridership has soared with dedicated bus service? Not only did Bogota build bus freeways all over the mesa, they also moved the poor out of town and into miles and miles of new "social housing". All of this new housing is connected to the city center via the new BRT lines. It works! it works! Well duh? But pray tell Jacksonville, just what part of our city looks like Curitiba or Bogota?
What about Los Angeles? Well a trip into the transit web sites for Metro-Rapid show very little gain in ridership except for stations shared with Metro-Rail. In other words Metro-Rapid is an extension of Metro-Rail, Light Rail, commuter rail and subway lines. Someone at JTA please explain where our own Light Rail, commuter rail and subway are? We don't have it!
They are not even planning to tie the BRT into the Skyway, effectively neutering the Skyway as a critical transit link. You will remember, these are the same people that sold us the skyway as "cheaper and better then Light Rail" back in the 1980's. The whole system was designed around express bus service that would feed passengers into the system at end-point transfer stations. Now, hundreds of millions of dollars later, they have another idea?
Someone please ask them to explain why New Jersey Transit, Pittsburgh and the Twin Cities dumped BRT?
Why did Pittsburgh experience a crash in ridership in it's brand new Southside Busway, while experiencing a surge of riders in it's LRT system? When JTA tells you it's because a bridge was closed and it shut down the busway... well guess what Sherlock, it shut down the LRT line too!
So what about Dallas and Phoenix? Read on Jacksonville: