904 356-JOBS (5627)

904 356-JOBS (5627)

Jacksonville Transportation Authority board approves project list for gas tax increase (Courtesy of Mass Transit Magazine) — The Jacksonville Transportation Authority board Thursday unanimously approved a list of hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of transportation projects, topped by a proposal to extend the downtown Skyway system into neighborhoods surrounding downtown.

The list will be JTA’s submission to City Council for how the agency would use its share of a gas tax increase when Mayor Lenny Curry brings legislation to City Council for doubling the the local 6-cents per gallon tax to 12 cents.

The JTA board met in special session to take its action before the legislation arrives at City Council.

The city and JTA would split the proceeds of the tax increase with the city having its own list of projects for submission to City Council.

The Skyway expansion, which now covers 2.5 miles in downtown, into a 10.2 mile system would be the single-biggest JTA project at a cost of $379 million.

The bigger system would covert to using autonomous rubber-tired vehicles that can travel on the elevated Skyway structure as well as at street level. JTA calls it the Ultimate Urban Circulator, or U2C for short and has been working for years towards rolling it out in downtown.

“Now is not the time to reverse course,” JTA board Chairwoman Ari Jolly said. “We are too far in the implementation of the U2C program.”

She said not building the system would be turning “our backs on the progress and innovation of the city for generations to come.”

The cost of that project will make it a focal point for City Council where some council members have already said they will oppose a gas tax increase and others will be closely going through the project list.

City Council member LeAnna Cumber has said it would be better for JTA to absorb the cost of tearing down the Skyway structure and use the hundreds of million of dollars for other needed transit projects.

JTA board members said the U2C system will position the city for future growth.

Board member Debbie Buckland said after years of studies it’s time “to move from planning to execution” rather than have studies just go on a shelf “collecting dust.”

“One think I love about this project is that it’s allowing us to make our downtown into Jacksonville’s great neighborhood and number two, it’s going to connect it to so many more really great neighborhoods,” she said.

The build-out of the 10.2 mile system would have service to the sports complex along with the Springfield, Brooklyn, Riverside and San Marco neighborhoods.

Curry and JTA representatives have been meeting with City Council members about extending the current 6-cent per gallon local gas tax, which expires in 2036, for another 10 years while also adding 6 cents to the tax for a 30-year period.

The city would get the money from 3 cents of the gas tax increase and JTA would benefit from the other 3 cents.

JTA also would purchase a second ferry for the St. Johns River Ferry Service, which the agency says would eliminate the need to put the service on hiatus for weeks at a time while doing maintenance and repairs to the single boat that crosses the river now between Mayport and Heckscher Drive.

The estimated cost for buying the second ferry and building docks for it is $16.2 million.

Dozens of other road and transit projects round out the JTA list.

Photo courtesy of Encyclopedia.com