I confess -- I was on the original citizens' committee back in the 1980s that made recommendations for the new "people mover." JTA did not heed my recommendations on where or how to build it. The resulting "Skyway Express" in Jacksonville has never worked and is horrendously ugly. It ate Downtown. Tear it down, and then let's redesign our urban streetscape for beauty and shade. I would love to return to street cars, with tracks connecting Downtown with Springfield, East Jax, the Sports Complex, Riverside, and San Marco. But as long as we have more parking spaces Downtown than we do people, street cars would not work either.
In the past when the excellent idea of tearing down the skyway was brought up, it was said (probably by JTA) that we’d have to repay the federal government a massive amount of money for essentially wasting government funds. Like over $100 million in government fund, in 1990 dollars. If that is still true, then it would cost substantially more to tear this albatross down than knocking down concrete and hauling it away.
Question: who wants to tear down the Haskell building? That’s a new idea to me.
I don't think that Jacksonville is ready to embrace it, but m a n y international cities (including Paris, Santiago, Warsaw and (even) NYC ) have transformed their downtowns and urban neighborhoods into Car-Free areas (OMG !!) that are thriving. The reality is that the health of urban areas are inversely proportional to the number of parking garages that exist. This equation suggests that Jax is definitely unhealthy. The only folks that benefit are the owners of the money -making-machines called parking garages. When you add this to the statistics noted above (the vicious cycle of job relocations, etc) , it speaks to the incompatibility of the Skyway with a healthy downtown.
Au contraire. Reducing auto traffic downtown, on both sides of the river, makes the Skyway or something similar integral to reducing congestion and air pollution. Otherwise, except on those rare cool, sunny days that make walking the bridges a bracing exercise, crossing the river mandates an auto or bus. (The long-tenured mayor of Paris who has led the charge is a socialist.)
We lived in St. Johns County from 1997 to 2017 - in 20 years, we rode the Skyway once - during a One Spark event. For the past 9 years in Avondale, we have never considered using the Skyway.
Being very familiar with The High Line, I thought a pathway conversion of the Skyway would be great. In reality, the conversion cost, landscaping (as depicted on the over-wrought illustrations), maintenance, safety, and security expense would never be commensurate with the use.
The High Line works because of the resident density and the international visitation. Its a tourist destination - and its free - and it connects to other desirable destinations, making for an engaging full day of activities. The High Line is an incredible and ingenious example of inventive re-use - but its example far exceeds what our downtown could support (certainly in the near-term).
Our Skyway could initially be an elevated encampment (?).
I think Sherry's wisdom is right - the Skyway should probably come down and the materials should be re-cycled (offshore reefs, crushed for paving, used for pathways).
As part of a young family that left Jacksonville for a city with better walkability and public transit, I would say tearing it down may be a step backwards, as likely there will never be consistent public transit in Jax. This is just more doubling down on car-centric infrastructure, and more and more of our land will be parking lots. I wish I could get from Avondale to Downtown or to Springfield without my car, but that's impossible; we refuse density, we refuse transit, so most of the new construction in town is strip malls and subdevelopments.
A most sticky wicket ,this Skyway. While it's true that a dedicated public transportation initiative for downtown has always been the answer to a question no one has asked, forty years of a (questionable) legacy project is nothing to blithely frost over.
However, a few points are unquestionably apparent:
The opportunity to utilize the Skyway as a starting point to a more holistic solution to mass transit throughout the city at large is not nothing; in fact, it is something. It most especially is something that does not cost the taxpayers +$100M in penalties.
How many walkways does downtown need? A half-assed High Line that, as well noted by the critics of the Skyway, "goes nowhere," serves no purpose whatsoever, in addition to being a redundancy in light of the already budget-threatened Emerald Trail initiative.
Other than as bait for locating their manufacturing facility in the 904, the NAVI concept makes sense to no one. If we learn one thing from the Skyway, let it be not replacing one problem with another. And why should the city lift up something like NAVI anyhow? It's much more the function of the private sector to take the risk on something like this, as Waymo is already doing in many other cities.
The spite and small-time thinking that has traditionally--and, apparently, still--run Jacksonville will never cease to amaze me. But for the bruised egos and heel-digging of man-babies and nabobs for forty years, the Skyway might have birthed something truly useful and productive for our citizens by now.
Unfortunately, the likelihood that the "Tear It Down" philosophy that pervades our community almost definitely ensures that I'll never see the faintest breath of a functioning mass transit system in my lifetime, because forty years later, it looks like we're still going nowhere.
So much packed into this post today, you could write a year’s worth of articles about it! Problems indeed.
I agree with those who want to tear down the Skyway structures and stations. (maybe leave the ones in between the Acosta bridge to save $$) It defies logic that the federal government would incentivize us to spend hundreds of millions of more taxpayer dollars on something we’ve tried to make work for over 30 years. Find a way to just call it a day. Then, on downtown parking and transit. One of the problems is that our downtown is four square miles. Sherry has said it before, we need to focus more on the 1 sq mile core that is walkable. Data shows people will walk within that radius.
Still, I don’t understand why JTA, DIA and COJ cannot work with the community to come up with a coherent parking and transit plan. We see more large, hard to hide standalone parking garages proposed with each new development at DDRB every month. Everyone wants their own private parking, so there are endless dead blocks of either surface or parking garages (more ugliness) but everyone says there is no place to park, because they are closed, private use, or scary to park in for women.
I’m sure many in this community would have creative ideas and solutions….if they are authentically and meaningfully engaged in the process, but that is a topic for another day!
I confess -- I was on the original citizens' committee back in the 1980s that made recommendations for the new "people mover." JTA did not heed my recommendations on where or how to build it. The resulting "Skyway Express" in Jacksonville has never worked and is horrendously ugly. It ate Downtown. Tear it down, and then let's redesign our urban streetscape for beauty and shade. I would love to return to street cars, with tracks connecting Downtown with Springfield, East Jax, the Sports Complex, Riverside, and San Marco. But as long as we have more parking spaces Downtown than we do people, street cars would not work either.
In the past when the excellent idea of tearing down the skyway was brought up, it was said (probably by JTA) that we’d have to repay the federal government a massive amount of money for essentially wasting government funds. Like over $100 million in government fund, in 1990 dollars. If that is still true, then it would cost substantially more to tear this albatross down than knocking down concrete and hauling it away.
Question: who wants to tear down the Haskell building? That’s a new idea to me.
I don't think that Jacksonville is ready to embrace it, but m a n y international cities (including Paris, Santiago, Warsaw and (even) NYC ) have transformed their downtowns and urban neighborhoods into Car-Free areas (OMG !!) that are thriving. The reality is that the health of urban areas are inversely proportional to the number of parking garages that exist. This equation suggests that Jax is definitely unhealthy. The only folks that benefit are the owners of the money -making-machines called parking garages. When you add this to the statistics noted above (the vicious cycle of job relocations, etc) , it speaks to the incompatibility of the Skyway with a healthy downtown.
Au contraire. Reducing auto traffic downtown, on both sides of the river, makes the Skyway or something similar integral to reducing congestion and air pollution. Otherwise, except on those rare cool, sunny days that make walking the bridges a bracing exercise, crossing the river mandates an auto or bus. (The long-tenured mayor of Paris who has led the charge is a socialist.)
Jacksonville - Demolition is Easier Here
We lived in St. Johns County from 1997 to 2017 - in 20 years, we rode the Skyway once - during a One Spark event. For the past 9 years in Avondale, we have never considered using the Skyway.
Being very familiar with The High Line, I thought a pathway conversion of the Skyway would be great. In reality, the conversion cost, landscaping (as depicted on the over-wrought illustrations), maintenance, safety, and security expense would never be commensurate with the use.
The High Line works because of the resident density and the international visitation. Its a tourist destination - and its free - and it connects to other desirable destinations, making for an engaging full day of activities. The High Line is an incredible and ingenious example of inventive re-use - but its example far exceeds what our downtown could support (certainly in the near-term).
Our Skyway could initially be an elevated encampment (?).
I think Sherry's wisdom is right - the Skyway should probably come down and the materials should be re-cycled (offshore reefs, crushed for paving, used for pathways).
Thank you very much.
As part of a young family that left Jacksonville for a city with better walkability and public transit, I would say tearing it down may be a step backwards, as likely there will never be consistent public transit in Jax. This is just more doubling down on car-centric infrastructure, and more and more of our land will be parking lots. I wish I could get from Avondale to Downtown or to Springfield without my car, but that's impossible; we refuse density, we refuse transit, so most of the new construction in town is strip malls and subdevelopments.
A most sticky wicket ,this Skyway. While it's true that a dedicated public transportation initiative for downtown has always been the answer to a question no one has asked, forty years of a (questionable) legacy project is nothing to blithely frost over.
However, a few points are unquestionably apparent:
The opportunity to utilize the Skyway as a starting point to a more holistic solution to mass transit throughout the city at large is not nothing; in fact, it is something. It most especially is something that does not cost the taxpayers +$100M in penalties.
How many walkways does downtown need? A half-assed High Line that, as well noted by the critics of the Skyway, "goes nowhere," serves no purpose whatsoever, in addition to being a redundancy in light of the already budget-threatened Emerald Trail initiative.
Other than as bait for locating their manufacturing facility in the 904, the NAVI concept makes sense to no one. If we learn one thing from the Skyway, let it be not replacing one problem with another. And why should the city lift up something like NAVI anyhow? It's much more the function of the private sector to take the risk on something like this, as Waymo is already doing in many other cities.
The spite and small-time thinking that has traditionally--and, apparently, still--run Jacksonville will never cease to amaze me. But for the bruised egos and heel-digging of man-babies and nabobs for forty years, the Skyway might have birthed something truly useful and productive for our citizens by now.
Unfortunately, the likelihood that the "Tear It Down" philosophy that pervades our community almost definitely ensures that I'll never see the faintest breath of a functioning mass transit system in my lifetime, because forty years later, it looks like we're still going nowhere.
So much packed into this post today, you could write a year’s worth of articles about it! Problems indeed.
I agree with those who want to tear down the Skyway structures and stations. (maybe leave the ones in between the Acosta bridge to save $$) It defies logic that the federal government would incentivize us to spend hundreds of millions of more taxpayer dollars on something we’ve tried to make work for over 30 years. Find a way to just call it a day. Then, on downtown parking and transit. One of the problems is that our downtown is four square miles. Sherry has said it before, we need to focus more on the 1 sq mile core that is walkable. Data shows people will walk within that radius.
Still, I don’t understand why JTA, DIA and COJ cannot work with the community to come up with a coherent parking and transit plan. We see more large, hard to hide standalone parking garages proposed with each new development at DDRB every month. Everyone wants their own private parking, so there are endless dead blocks of either surface or parking garages (more ugliness) but everyone says there is no place to park, because they are closed, private use, or scary to park in for women.
I’m sure many in this community would have creative ideas and solutions….if they are authentically and meaningfully engaged in the process, but that is a topic for another day!