I don't think the city of Jacksonville has ever done anything to help the black community. To be honest the best thing that could happen is un- incorporation of the city. It was a money grab and the corruption is real.
I used to live in San Marco right next the skyway, all that thing did was ride back and forth either empty or with homeless people in it, the bus stations under the skyway saw a 100 times the traffic
as a jacksonville citizen, me as well, you should know how dangerous downtown and public transport here is, there is really no improving that, so why put money into it?
@@h7pubglol what? This goes for most American cities also but, it’s dangerous as a result of the lack of investment. People need to get from point a to point b somehow
Living in Jacksonville it’s pretty clear they tore up half this city for highways. Whether or not it was necessary or justifiable it does make me feel somber for what we’ve lost.
I live in Jacksonville and did a project on the history of LaVilla once. It was truly a cultural hub. The sad part is that a majority of LaVilla was torn down to be "revitalized" however most of LaVilla is just empty lots now.
Jacksonville native here, who now lives in Tampa. This video is right on. I worked downtown in Jax for several years... it's a ghost town after 5PM. The transit system is hardly used by any commuters. My father's generation (post-war boomers) remember a vibrant downtown. I hope the city can one day reclaim that.
@@tracyi9152pretty sure they're referring to downtown but yeah, Jacksonville is unfortunately spawling more meaning more suburbanization and roadway pavement.
It's also sad how the system has gotten worse technologically. It started as a VAL rubber tired train, which is a gadgetbahn, but is still very capable and can be scaled, with cities such as lille, Rennes, Toulouse and Turin using them as subways. Then it was downgraded to a monorail with much smaller trains and an even more proprietary technology that can't be used for anything but people movers. And now it's gonna be an automated bus with horrendous capacity, which realistically will never be able to drive in mixed traffic because self-driving cars just don't exist yet.
As an example, I live in Taipei and one of the metro lines uses the VAL 256 system (though it was retrofitted by Bombardier and now uses Innovia rolling stock, but is basically still the same system). October this year saw daily average trips of over 160k. Granted, it's a much longer and complete system which integrates with the broader MRT network, but it does demonstrate the capability of the system versus whatever Jax is using now.
VAL is pretty good even though rubber-tyred trains are now a bit old-fashioned. Jacksonville should keep the Skyway's viaduct for a light rail system and extend it on the streets.
*Downtown Jax is almost creepy to walk through. Feels like a ghost town from how empty it is now. Very few places there people still frequently go to.*
have you seen the crime rate? might explain why, not somewhere you would want to bring your family. i used to go with my family so much in the early 00s but it declined so bad since even then
I drive limousines and am downtown there often. Without exception, every time I’m there I hear gunshots, see a police chase, witness some major police presence or am personally accosted by someone. The only time I regularly carry my handgun is when I have to go to Jacksonville at night. I hate it.
Thanks for putting this together. I live in Jacksonville, and I am amazed at how much wealth the area has in creativity and trade, while the powerful elite choose to invest in the suburbs.
West St. Augustine is a perfect example of millions $ invested in the landscaping and redevelopment along a main through fare into downtown St. Augustine and within 5 years the areas were littered with trash and landscaping destroyed and looked as bad as it did before the city spent all that money.
The sad thing about the LaVilla area, I went to the arts middle school named after the area, located directly in lavilla, is that there is this abandoned building right next to the school. One of my history teachers told the class it used to be one of the biggest jazz clubs in jacksonville back in the twenties.
I had an office on the south bank and needed to get downtown often and used the skyway for years on a daily basis. It was great. Had it traveled to the beach, riverside/five-points, and the stadium, it would have been used far more. And that’s just the white perspective.
I use to ride this when I lived in Jax. It has potential be great but it's so underfunded. One thing you didn't mention was the 1968 annexation of Duval County. Jacksonville like many cites had an issue of white flight, but to alleviate the suburb move, Jacksonville city leaders decided to make the entire Duval county apart of Jacksonville hence why the city feels more suburban/rural in many areas. The Arlington section of Jax use to be it's own city until it got swallowed up by Jacksonville. Arlington had one of the most profitable malls in the US at one point called the Regency Mall which propelled Jacksonville to add land to it's city boundaries since many Jacksonville residents went there to shop. Nowadays much of Arlington is in the same boat as the urban core, but yea Jax had poetinal to be a beacon of urban density in the south.
Totally agree. I did leave out the city-county consolidation since it’s such a big topic. But of course, it’s a super important aspect of the city’s history.
But how can a city council decide to annex other cities that have their own city councils? Seems like they wouldn't be able to unilaterally make that decision. Obviously, it happened though. Maybe it was county leaders rather than city leaders?
It’s sad, because I went to Regency Mall for the first time two months ago despite living here my whole life in the Westside area and it was like 10AM on a Monday, it was open but COMPLETELY abandoned almost. None of the shops were open but music was playing and there were old shops like Auntie Anne’s before they had more booth shops inside malls. I felt like I was in a zombie movie and the horde was gonna rush me at any point, was so eerie that it was even open but I was just able to walk around freely, then a Bed Bath & Beyond opened up an hour later and I was still surprised to see next to nobody in the place besides the workers. I get it’s a weekday so it’ll be mostly dead, but I expected SOME shops open and at least mild patronage, it was legit a ghost mall.
@@OhNoSoLoDoLo This is one of the biggest issues here. Not only were there no investments, but the city leaders also seem to have abandoned the area. Atlantic was one of the main arteries that lead to the urban core of downtown but by ignoring it in favor of boosting St Johns, they essentially bled it dry of resources. Atlantic still has high passenger traffic, but the Chamber of Commerce and city counsel continue to ignore the sheer potential of the area. It's pretty sad IMO
Great vid! I ride the Skyway weekly for college, and I'm often wondering why downtown Jax seems so...depleted. My U.S. history class went over redlining a bit, but your video went into depth as it relates to Jax. Hopefully our city leaders make the right decisions for the Northside, we need a change. Thanks again for the vid, you've got a new subbie!
I studied Human Geography in England - this is a goldmine for anyone interested in Urban studies. More generally, it's a shame more American's do not see academic geography as a viable subject beyond how you can use google maps and GIS to make money! It's a very, very interesting video.
I love the skyway, there was a time I was so afraid of it because I’m afraid of heights so I rode it after work every day from the Rosa Parks Station to San Marco then took the 50b to my house. I don’t want the skyway to go away, it’s the last free public transportation system in Jacksonville, if anything it needs to be expanded not replaced!!
The Jacksonville Sky way can be improved. A project like this needs to run to Jacksonville beach, Jacksonville international airport, Orange Park main shopping centers and malls. This can increase the ridership an increase revenues for the City. The other good thing it can decrease traffic and improve the traffic flow with in the traffic communities.
As nice as that sounds where and how would it end up? For downtown Jacksonville going to the stadium, Landing, Riverside/Five Points and the beach would be nice but for outside of that with the west and south sides, there’d need to be giant concrete structures everywhere cutting through roads and the skies in order to actually get to where you need to be in terms of OP malls and everything else, it’d be an eyesore. I just think we need to invest in trains and our bus infrastructure and add it in more areas and have more buses around so that if you don’t have a car like many do you can at least somewhat rely on it.
Agree with new monorail material and building techniques it could go from above to ground level to below the road. As well as a major expansion of software, hardware, and new trains with bombardier sold to the largest train company we could see mass improvements such as going down the center of the high way and reaching speeds of 80mph being much safer and faster then a car
I think they should use other faster trains than the current Skyway. Plus, the budget of Jacksonville (1.53 billion dollars) won’t work unless Jacksonville puts a bunch of improvement to downtown and other parts and it appeals to more tourists.
I lived in Jacksonville (and Orange Park) up until around 2009 when I moved to Philadelphia. The problem with the skyway is that it simply does not go to the places people want to go. I never understood why they didn't extend the skyway down Bay St. to the stadium complex (but I am sure it was about the cashola required to do so). I think a big problem in Jax is there's more than one business area, and they're spread out to the point that it's difficult connect commuters to the business centers. I am not sure if it's still the case but I'm thinking Southpoint, Baymeadows, etc. Jax is just too spread out.
I think that Jacksonville could best address their transit problem with the following three steps... *1. Build the First Coast Regional Rail Network* - Build a line between JAX Airport and St. Augustine - Start out with diesel engines to ensure that service begins as soon as possible at a minimum cost, then electrify the system as demand increases - Build simple, open air stations with safe bike storage, good sidewalks, mixed use zoning, and parking garages instead of sprawling surface lots - Ensure a frequency of at least 20 minutes, 18 hours a day, 7 days a week *2. Relocate the Amtrak station to the old downtown location, work with Brightline to help fund the construction costs* - The current station is outdated, car dependent, and 5 miles from the downtown - The old train station site is within 100m of the brand new bus station/skyway station, and has enough room for 5 train platforms - Brightline already has rights to the tracks and has plans to extend service from Orlando in the late 2020s - The vacant and sprawling surface parking lots next to the convention center should be replaced with a parking garage, square, and transit mall (similar to the one at Krakow Glowny) *3. Replace the monorail with a more intricate aerial tramway network* - Aerial tramways are automated - They don't use proprietary technology - They have almost no headway, making them ideal for short distance journeys (no one wants to wait any period of time for 2 mile journey, and a sprawling city like Jacksonville won't allow for high frequency rail transit) - They are significantly cheaper to construct than light rail and other "gadgetbahns" - They are pandemic proof, and allow for more privacy and social distancing than other modes of transit - Can utilize existing Skyway stations, since they are elevated - Could be easily extended to serve the entire downtown area
Ikr. Just actually installing light rail and clean and fast bus system with complementary land use policies (using tested best practices) is bold in USA! 💁♂️
Yes, the 'bold' new idea is what was said of the Skyway. First time I ever saw it, I rolled my eyes, knowing how dumb it was and how it made the city look quite foolish; the Jethro Bodine city. But what can you expect from a town first named Cowford. If any consolation, I've seen little evidence of smart (meaning both functionally and cost efficient) urban mass transit created in the U.S. since the earliest decades of the 20th century. The skyway is essentially the transit mode that is used at major (mostly hub) airports to ferry people from terminal/concourse to terminal/concourse. There aren't too many airports in the center of Jax.
@@aldinlee8528 when I've used that type of system at the Dallas and O'Hare airports (hubs like you said), they worked great. But even with those airports, the... Trains(?) Held a lot more people than this seemed to. And as big as those airports are, they're not cities. It's like "it looks cool" was the only requirement.
A well produced video 👍👍 Being born in Jacksonville 1957, I could share stories of it's unique and ugly past. Growing up here I've said, "Jacksonville is the tale of two cities, this side of the river, and that side of the river". Now it has "Gated Communities".
Kudos on the best overview I've yet seen on how Federal policy, aided by state and local actions, destroyed American cities. Every one of any size existing in 1934 when the FHA mortgage was first offered saw this fate. VA mortgages had the same redlining and mandatory racial covenants. As you correctly state, the Interstate Highway System provided highly subsidized access to new white only suburbs, also paving the way for the highest assessed property, industry, to abandon cities. I've seen innumerable videos on urban decline that relegate it's effects to a brief sentence. For those claiming it's irrelevant to this story, you clearly describe how these policies destroyed two stable neighborhoods and transformed a mixed use downtown into offices and parking lots. The Skyway stands as yet another pathetic attempt to achieve the impossible, restoring what government destroyed.
The streetcar system could have been modernized it would have resembled Boston San Francisco Pittsburgh Newark,NJ & Philadelphia systems by actually piggybacking on the orders on the trains they have from the 1970s-2000s to replace ageing Trams European and Australian term for an American streetcar.
Your explanation of the macro reasons for the Jacksonville Skyway being a failure is very good. It was doomed from the beginning. The decisions made in the Skyways original routing did it no favors. One leg to the Convention Center (Another failed city project), another leg across the river to the Southbank and the third leg to the FSCJ downtown campus. The city should have built the first leg from the Jacksonville Landing to the sports complex (Football Stadium, Baseball Stadium, Arena). If they had built that leg first, annual ridership on the system would have been at least doubled from just the riders on gamedays (NFL and College) and special events. This would also have helped out the Jacksonville Landing and possibly have kept it profitable.
I agree. When I moved here in 2021 and was working downtown, one day I thought I would get on the Skyway to go over and see the Sports district. Was SHOCKED and confused to find out the Skyway doesn't even run over there. It makes zero sense.
The paradigm of an indoor shopping center, as we can see today, has it's problems. Plopping it downtown, far from where the biggest spenders live, especially when those folks had more convenient shopping, was a losing formula. A dozen events wouldn't have changed the outcome.
Failed because they never connected the track to Riverside. It's like a couple hundred yards. I live here less than 2 mi from it. They never finished it. It was supposed to take us from the neighborhoods downtown so we didn't have to drive our car cuz there's no parking downtown. They need to just finish it and people will use the hell out of it.
At, one minute and one second you can see the branch they never finished. If they would have connected that down the road to the neighborhood that skyway would have been a success.
Jacksonville native- the deep irony is that if they expanded the skyway by about 4 miles, 2 along the north bank to the stadium and 2 to at least Brooklyn, but ideally Riverside, you would have an absolutely fantastic piece of unique transit that covered the main part of the city with enough natural (and developing) density to support it. Also I've lived here my whole life and never been to the neighborhood of Springfield, which is just to the east of Spring Hill. It's been decimated by white flight, but has all the bones to be the sort of dense, affordable urban center that would differentiate Jacksonville from the rest of Florida cities.
I lived in Jacksonville in the early 80's. The southern area. The bussing system at that time was good. A lot of people used it and the stops were everywhere. I do not understand why they didn't expand that.
My dad gave my friends mom a hard time because of the inefficiency of the project back in the late 90s. I forgot the contractor she worked for, but she was heavily involved.
I live in Jacksonville and I can confirm this. I think they should use their budget on tourism and then use it on making trains connect to most visited places (Town Center, Zoo, Jax Beach, Downtown, etc.) and maybe expand to Southside, Westside, Northside, and/or Arlington.
Great video. I lived in Jax for a few years, and you provide a great deal of context to the de facto segregation, poverty, and hollowed out urban core that the city suffers from. It is a lovely place that has been mangled by highways and sprawl.
Jacksonville has claimed to be the “bold new city of the south” for generations, yet local government, NIMBY, racism, and disastrous planning have just turned it into a nightmare of suburban sprawl. They subsidized the construction of the town center and forgot all about downtown. Cities like Tampa can teach us a lot about revitalizing our waterfront.
Here in Norfolk, VA, (where the Navy moved the Jacksonville fleet) was the state's largest city. Then the mass exodus to the suburbs, which continues. In recent years, the city's population has grown. Numerous apartment buildings are being built and office towers are converting to apartments. Our light rail was built to connect to the suburbs, but they have fought the expansion. I just wished the Navy would step in and make it easier for the sailors to reach the base.
The problem is that even the tide has terrible lands use adjacent to its stations. There are so many areas where it stops and is surrounded by parking and single family homes, that if they just built apartments and retail (plus maybe some light industry) the ridership would skyrocket. It's a great system and I love riding it when I can, but it's being hobbled by terrible land use (as is common with almost all North American transit). Though I do agree that it should be expanded to the beach and the base, plus the airport!
Mayport still has ships but no carriers.. What Norfolk did steal were Jets which closed Cecil 25 years ago.... The new stadium deal is hoped to transform downtown... We'll see..
Meanwhile, down here in Miami, our "Metromover" is something of a success; so much so that the newest plan calls for extending it across Biscayne Bay to Miami Beach.
Miami's Metromover is successful because it worked well in a symbiotic relationship with the city's Heavy Rail system Metrorail. It solved what is called in Public transit the "Last Mile" issue where if you can get people to their last destination using public transit they will use it. Jacksonville reversed Miami's system instead thinking a Metromover type system first will build consensus for a more sustainable rail system which it didn't.
@@sensatovideos It will be an interesting compare and contrast to the Skyway. I believe there are plans to extend the Metro Mover to PortMiami, although I don't know how serious a proposal that is. Brightline is supposed to open a PortMiami station in the future as well.
I don’t know that replacing one gadgetbahn with another is a good plan, and driverless busses have a long time before they’re mature. Going back to the VAL system and expanding that would be a better idea. Or just do trams since that’s what’s in vogue these days.
Of course they’re going to replace it with “driverless buses” like when they replaced the trams with regular buses back in the day, it’ll doom public transit for Jacksonville even more n
Great video, it's nice to watch a video about a city that isn't talked much about. As a person from the city it's interesting to see the history behind the many neighborhoods I see everyday.
Considering your last point I think that the gentrification of Springfield may hopefully at the very least lead to the revitalization of Downtown. I live in Seattle now and every time I visit home I'm kind of blown away by how much more of a neighborhood downtown feels like compared to a twelve - fifteen years ago.
I always had the feeling that the skyway was there for looks, to make Jax look more urban, and developed. Most of the people I know don't like going downtown unless they absolutely have to.
It’s hell, driving through there as it’s just so compact and congested especially during a big event. Traffic accidents feels bound to happen, and then there’s using the I-95/I-295 near downtown just to navigate to other parts of the city since everyone drives so aggressively or don’t pay attention
@@OhNoSoLoDoLo Definitely not congested have you ever lived in a densely populated area I have I can tell I've never seen actually bad traffic in this city may change soon though who knows
@@GeneralProspecterCongested was probably a poor word choice on my part, I was just speaking with how cramped driving downtown is, it’s not made for a lot of cars and much better for pedestrians which ironically would be a better place for me to be stuck at tbh minus all the crime.
@@OhNoSoLoDoLo I feel that this is a very unique city and proud to call it home I'm more built for a small town at this stage of life but the business is here and it's such a hard working city I do not miss the lazy and rude west coast.
I really like this video and you make excellent points about urbanism and land use in America. Interestingly, almost everything you discussed about Jacksonville is true of most North American cities. Even NYC suffers from this type of urban renewal and lack of transit investment where its needed. I did want to address one thing, though, with this "Skyway" system. Even if the city had built it in an area with proper land use, an automated people mover would've been unsuccessful. That's because these systems are not designed to be actual mass transit, but rather, just hyper-localized point-to-point movement for relatively small numbers of people. That's why you see them mostly in airports or amusement parks. The trainsets are just too small and the operations too complex to allow for any kind of rapid movement of large numbers of people. It's likely this design was chosen because it was the cheapest and the city could toss a bit of money at it to pretend like they were investing in this community, while still throwing fistfuls of cash at highway expansions. Anyways, great video and I look forward to seeing more content from your channel. Thanks!
A train to nowhere? I highly doubt that. I was born and raised in Jacksonville and I rod the Skyway a lot when I go the downtown area. I liked the Skyway. It was not much as far as the size, but it's got it where it counts, and that says a lot. I live in the Metro Orlando area now. I have seen pictures of downtown Jacksonville's progress with more new loft apartments and condos in and around the area. Some of those buildings are happened to be right near the Skyway's path. I wouldn't be surprised if the residents in downtown used them to go to and from home.
Would love to see more in depth videos of Jacksonville especially the county and city consolidation along with the sheer corruption the police department showed and why the sheriff's office took over.
"Well it's not a Monorail..." It IS a Monorail. Not only is it a Monorail, it the only Pure-Transit Monorail in the country that NOT a Airport Connector or a Tourist Attraction. Even Las Vegas's Monorail that they try to claim is a form of actual transit is listed as a Tourist Attraction because of it's high fare and disconnection from the Vegas Transit System. The Skyway originally opened as a rubber tired people mover similar to the system used in Miami and ran very similar to this automated bus idea they wanna replace it with. It was in 1998 when they open that final station they relized the signal system needed to be modernize and they contacted Bombardier who said "Screw your Elevated Buses....we're going Monorail!" Then they slapped monorail beams to the guideway and called it a day. Now that the monorail system needs to be modernized, they wann turn it back into an automated elevated bus again?....who will now run in the street too? Just built a goddamn elevated subway system already. You have the guideways, you have to potential to expand, and you literally have a city in the same state operating an elevated subway. (Miami Metrorail). Just built an el! We have our el in Philly, it great...if you ignore the drugs being done onboard.
So sad to see the state of Lavilla today. I live in Jacksonville and it is now one of the most underserved areas and designated as a food desert, residents only have a family dollar to shop for non-perishable only groceries. Very few businesses exist there today and the ones that do are in rough shape.
Thank you for this. I live in Jacksonville, originally from Chicago. I love how people in Jax shit on Chicago because of a now outdated reputation on crime and corruption when Jacksonville has corrupt, incompetent politicians that broke the city public transit system. And now these idiots are about to make AI-driven transports in the same city where some of the WORST drivers in the state tear up the roads like they’re qualifying for the Daytona 500. Yeah, I miss Chicago. At least they have whole network of buses and trains so expansive that you can literally travel across the city for LESS than an Uber or Lyft!
I checked out Jacksonville on Google Maps while watching this. As soon as you mentioned Lavila being a prosperous Black Neighborhood, I checked it out today and saw a highway through empty lots. Which is exactly what I expected. And this is why kids need to be taught the true depth of racism in schools.
The U2C is just slower autonomous buses that cannot even go the speed limit on many of these roads. Jax is obsessed with what is fancy and cool and not with what actually works. Most people in the city expect it to fail horrendously, but the local politicians got buzzworded by some consultants into thinking it was a good idea. All these will do is make traffic worse without moving an adequate number of people. Overall the skyway is sad, as a Jax native its a sign that the city is still decaying as its leaders watch and do nothing.
I’m a surveyor in Jax. Sometimes we use old hand-drafted blue plat maps with a title something along the lines of “Colored Subdivision”. New enough that we keep copies of it for work with up to hundreds of thousands in liability. This is not ancient history.
Very much liked the map work, before/after renderings. Rode the people mover in 1993, early in my career in public transit system design. Denver's 16th Street shuttle is the route design I study and write about in an essay "The Walking Communities of 2040" a new direction for public transit.
Near the end, the term "high density" is touted as development tool, but I take issue with any assumption that density is a end all be all. What to consider as a planner's tool is "diversity" as in an economically "diverse" mix of uses. Density without diversity increases travel demand and traffic.
0:45 The real reason is a small 2.5 mi line with just 8 stations, witch makes it a "ride to nowhere". 1:00 wrong, it's a monorail which was built on the previous automated people mover system, was it so hard to look it up before making this video?
I love monorails. When my family took a trip to Disneyworld when i was a kid that was what i enjoyed and remember the most. It was so comfortable and relaxing with the big tinted windows I didnt want the ride to end. I guess im weird.
Important point that wasn’t mentioned: there were TWO federally-funded national projects running at the same time that trashed American cities. In addition to the freeway system there was Urban Renewal. In this, urban areas were assessed for their physical conditions and locations the were deemed “slums” were condemned, completely bulldozed, then sold to large scale developers. Freeways and Urban Renewal together totally wiped out immense tracts of American cities everywhere.
This is so sad. I didn't realize Jax' trolley system was so extensive, even reaching to Ortega! Now its just a typical car-centric sprawl. This is another proof of how highways decimates communities. Jax could have been a really vibrant city.
Wow. This is surreal. This video popped up in my recommendations. I live in 5 points and work in Downtown as a Delivery Cyclist for Jimmy Johns and it is kind of bizzare seeing a video about the failure of thr skyway. Everyone i know that takes public transportation talks about the failure of it. Lol
The growth of downtown is in constant discussion with the Jax govt. Believe it or not, the funding of the skyway has potential to be a campaigning issue in the upcoming 2023 mayoral race. Hoping Jax can make a turnaround and become a thriving city.
I lived in Jacksonville for several months over 15 years ago, and visited there again five years ago. While the Skyway has achieved only a fraction of its potential, and while Jacksonville is quite car dependent just like almost all other US cities, I went on that a number of times and the ride's awesome where it does go.
I use to ride the Skyway from the lot over by the Convention Center to my job at what was the Bank of America Tower (a few blocks away). Aside from that it was always empty - I’d use my pass to just ride around if I was bored such a short track and no passengers.
Unfortunately Jacksonville is a big suburb filled with cars. It is a mess. Most American cities are like this and getting worse. We all know there is a problem, but nobody wants to invest in transit
The 'Riderless Express' was a boondoggle from day one. There was no way to justify the expense for the 'Great White Elephant' - as my out of town friend called it. Total waste of money. I remember when City elites heard about ABC's 20/20 coming to town to do a story about pork barrel spending, the City packed the cars with employees to make it seem useful. lol Then there's the time that Congresswoman Tillie Fowler explained to a reporter that the reason why she voted to spend another $3B was because we had already spent a $1B on it already. Jacksonville was accurately depicted in a Simpson's episode where a con artist talked Springfield into buying a monorail that the city didn't need. Hilarious.
As a history buff on monorail and bombardier Inc. And native Florida man As an engineer I always wondered the same system that runs in disney is same as Jacksonville although they call it a people mover it's proper name is innovia gen 2 by bombardier the the system dosnt work because of it not being easy to get on when jtrc was built more people used the monorail because it was easy to use as two stations were closed. Sweet petes has improved traffic on it as the stations is infront of it. It became very popular during one spark and the super bowl where it did very well for its age. Today if they were able to upgrade the system to tell them where to get on and off as well as delays through a smartphone along with new stations the system could help reduce the traffic in Jacksonville in half.
The skyway was a great idea but poorly planned in regards to areas served and geographical trackage. There should have been several spans that crossed the St John's River serving as far as the Beaches, East Arlington, Mandarin, Ortega, Westside and Northside. Instead of a skyway the city would have been better served developing a Metro Rail System using existing CSX tracks and creating spur tracks to specific commutter dropoff points within the city.
This is like the PRT in Morgantown, where I work, except somehow worse. Lol. We carry 2-3x the people daily despite the vastly smaller size of the town and university.
U2C will fail because the cost required to integrate CBTC moving block autonomous vehicles on grade separated guideway integrate with city traffic. Why have grade separation if the vehicles will get stuck in traffic? And to develop a non tag-based position sensing system will end up costing way too much money and won't work well. But good luck Jacksonville from fellow gadgetbahn.
Jacksonville made a big mistake. They did not build a light rail system to feed the Jacksonville Skyway along with re-zoning and re-development for good transportation.
The Skyway would've been successful had they built it from the Gator Bowl (Now TIAA Bank Field) to the Convention Center. That would've attractacted more riders from concerts and events being held at the football stadium, Metro Park, Vystar Arena, Florida Theater, The Landing, Times Union Center and Convention Center. Poor planning and poor leadership has resulted in a failed skyway, failed convention center, failed entertainment district and failed downtown. That simple! EXCELLENT piece on redlining as well!
It's sad how cool the Jacksonville skyway is and that it's not gaining much attention; left to die by policymakers. However, I have hopes that they'll expand the system to other areas of the city to encourage urban density instead of bulldozing swamps for suburban living. Also, they need to bring back streetcars as a substitute.
There used to be an alternative school for kids who had dropped out or been expelled from a Duval County public school. You had to pass the AP test or had been in the gifted program at your school in order to go there though. It was called Pathways and at FCCJ Downtown Campus (FSCJ currently/the second year I was there was when they changed the name). We used to use the Skyway almost every day just because our school was right at the very end, but it's NOT really reliable or realistic for moving large numbers of people, at least it doesn't seem like it is compared to subway and light rail systems in other cities. One thing I do think you HAVE to remember about Jacksonville is that by land mass we're the largest city in the lower 48 at 840 square miles (2,175.6 sq km). Our city is just so freaking big that they've had an impossible time figuring out public transit. Our bus system has always been a hub and spoke so it takes forever to get anywhere. Awesome video, thank you for taking an interest in our city. I live in Seattle now so it's nice to see home. Especially all the historic stuff.
Jacksonville has the largest land mass of any U.S. city, but it's like they don't know what to do with it. That city could be truly great, but the last few times I visited the downtown area, there was nothing to do... No attractions, no aquarium, no family places, city shuts down after dark fall etc. It's like they got focused solely on football & attracting the wealthy while forgetting about everything & everyone else. I've heard of Pathways at FSCJ, I knew someone who completed that program. Seems like it was a pretty good thing. Do they still have it or any similar program like it?
@@corlenajames1381 they got rid of it sadly, but if your homie was there the first two years of the program I know them. Pathways was kindaaaaa a bad idea cause it was like. Let's take all the kids who are at higher risk of getting in trouble but ALSO smart, put them all together and give them more freedom and less structure.. Older me would of taken to the opportunity with more gratitude but 17 year old me was just trying to sell molly and fuck girls so, I didn't use the opportunity to it's max. I was prom king my Junior year tho!
Hopefully Jacksonville doesn't destroy the monorail cars. There's still a few systems left that use them, they could definitely use the spare parts or for expansion.
![Stroads are Ugly, Expensive, and Dangerous (and they're everywhere) [ST05]](/img/1.gif)
Native Jacksonvillian and urbanist here, currently in school for civil engineering. I am smack dab in the center of the demographics for this video
Oof and I’m over here in Atlantic Beach near Dutton Island. The worst part of the Beaches…
I don't think the city of Jacksonville has ever done anything to help the black community. To be honest the best thing that could happen is un- incorporation of the city. It was a money grab and the corruption is real.
I used to live in San Marco right next the skyway, all that thing did was ride back and forth either empty or with homeless people in it, the bus stations under the skyway saw a 100 times the traffic
as a jacksonville citizen, me as well, you should know how dangerous downtown and public transport here is, there is really no improving that, so why put money into it?
@@h7pubglol what? This goes for most American cities also but, it’s dangerous as a result of the lack of investment. People need to get from point a to point b somehow
Living in Jacksonville it’s pretty clear they tore up half this city for highways. Whether or not it was necessary or justifiable it does make me feel somber for what we’ve lost.
That's because of car companies lobbying to make cities car centric
I live in Jacksonville and did a project on the history of LaVilla once. It was truly a cultural hub. The sad part is that a majority of LaVilla was torn down to be "revitalized" however most of LaVilla is just empty lots now.
Jacksonville native here, who now lives in Tampa. This video is right on. I worked downtown in Jax for several years... it's a ghost town after 5PM. The transit system is hardly used by any commuters. My father's generation (post-war boomers) remember a vibrant downtown. I hope the city can one day reclaim that.
Not anymore is Jacksonville a ghost town Jacksonville is getting lots of immigrants from other cities the downtown is being rapidly developed now.
@@tracyi9152pretty sure they're referring to downtown but yeah, Jacksonville is unfortunately spawling more meaning more suburbanization and roadway pavement.
It's also sad how the system has gotten worse technologically.
It started as a VAL rubber tired train, which is a gadgetbahn, but is still very capable and can be scaled, with cities such as lille, Rennes, Toulouse and Turin using them as subways.
Then it was downgraded to a monorail with much smaller trains and an even more proprietary technology that can't be used for anything but people movers.
And now it's gonna be an automated bus with horrendous capacity, which realistically will never be able to drive in mixed traffic because self-driving cars just don't exist yet.
Exactly. They should have gotten fired for that decision
As an example, I live in Taipei and one of the metro lines uses the VAL 256 system (though it was retrofitted by Bombardier and now uses Innovia rolling stock, but is basically still the same system). October this year saw daily average trips of over 160k. Granted, it's a much longer and complete system which integrates with the broader MRT network, but it does demonstrate the capability of the system versus whatever Jax is using now.
VAL is pretty good even though rubber-tyred trains are now a bit old-fashioned.
Jacksonville should keep the Skyway's viaduct for a light rail system and extend it on the streets.
@@unlapras9365 well I live in Paris France do rubber tired trains are normal to me.
China: wrong
*Downtown Jax is almost creepy to walk through. Feels like a ghost town from how empty it is now. Very few places there people still frequently go to.*
have you seen the crime rate? might explain why, not somewhere you would want to bring your family. i used to go with my family so much in the early 00s but it declined so bad since even then
Literally. Even St. John’s Town Center has more activity.
@@mrjuicejunior Its a far better place.
@@quicke5486 And I dare say...It's WALKABLE.
I drive limousines and am downtown there often. Without exception, every time I’m there I hear gunshots, see a police chase, witness some major police presence or am personally accosted by someone. The only time I regularly carry my handgun is when I have to go to Jacksonville at night. I hate it.
Thanks for putting this together. I live in Jacksonville, and I am amazed at how much wealth the area has in creativity and trade, while the powerful elite choose to invest in the suburbs.
West St. Augustine is a perfect example of millions $ invested in the landscaping and redevelopment along a main through fare into downtown St. Augustine and within 5 years the areas were littered with trash and landscaping destroyed and looked as bad as it did before the city spent all that money.
@@disgruntledgrunt241 St. Augustine looks like a European city mixed with hoodlike features
Not anymore right now downtown Jacksonville is being rebuilt rapidly
The sad thing about the LaVilla area, I went to the arts middle school named after the area, located directly in lavilla, is that there is this abandoned building right next to the school. One of my history teachers told the class it used to be one of the biggest jazz clubs in jacksonville back in the twenties.
I had an office on the south bank and needed to get downtown often and used the skyway for years on a daily basis. It was great. Had it traveled to the beach, riverside/five-points, and the stadium, it would have been used far more. And that’s just the white perspective.
I use to ride this when I lived in Jax. It has potential be great but it's so underfunded. One thing you didn't mention was the 1968 annexation of Duval County. Jacksonville like many cites had an issue of white flight, but to alleviate the suburb move, Jacksonville city leaders decided to make the entire Duval county apart of Jacksonville hence why the city feels more suburban/rural in many areas. The Arlington section of Jax use to be it's own city until it got swallowed up by Jacksonville. Arlington had one of the most profitable malls in the US at one point called the Regency Mall which propelled Jacksonville to add land to it's city boundaries since many Jacksonville residents went there to shop. Nowadays much of Arlington is in the same boat as the urban core, but yea Jax had poetinal to be a beacon of urban density in the south.
Very insightful comment, thank you!.
Totally agree. I did leave out the city-county consolidation since it’s such a big topic. But of course, it’s a super important aspect of the city’s history.
But how can a city council decide to annex other cities that have their own city councils? Seems like they wouldn't be able to unilaterally make that decision. Obviously, it happened though. Maybe it was county leaders rather than city leaders?
It’s sad, because I went to Regency Mall for the first time two months ago despite living here my whole life in the Westside area and it was like 10AM on a Monday, it was open but COMPLETELY abandoned almost. None of the shops were open but music was playing and there were old shops like Auntie Anne’s before they had more booth shops inside malls.
I felt like I was in a zombie movie and the horde was gonna rush me at any point, was so eerie that it was even open but I was just able to walk around freely, then a Bed Bath & Beyond opened up an hour later and I was still surprised to see next to nobody in the place besides the workers. I get it’s a weekday so it’ll be mostly dead, but I expected SOME shops open and at least mild patronage, it was legit a ghost mall.
@@OhNoSoLoDoLo This is one of the biggest issues here. Not only were there no investments, but the city leaders also seem to have abandoned the area. Atlantic was one of the main arteries that lead to the urban core of downtown but by ignoring it in favor of boosting St Johns, they essentially bled it dry of resources. Atlantic still has high passenger traffic, but the Chamber of Commerce and city counsel continue to ignore the sheer potential of the area. It's pretty sad IMO
Great vid! I ride the Skyway weekly for college, and I'm often wondering why downtown Jax seems so...depleted. My U.S. history class went over redlining a bit, but your video went into depth as it relates to Jax. Hopefully our city leaders make the right decisions for the Northside, we need a change.
Thanks again for the vid, you've got a new subbie!
I studied Human Geography in England - this is a goldmine for anyone interested in Urban studies. More generally, it's a shame more American's do not see academic geography as a viable subject beyond how you can use google maps and GIS to make money!
It's a very, very interesting video.
I love the skyway, there was a time I was so afraid of it because I’m afraid of heights so I rode it after work every day from the Rosa Parks Station to San Marco then took the 50b to my house. I don’t want the skyway to go away, it’s the last free public transportation system in Jacksonville, if anything it needs to be expanded not replaced!!
The Jacksonville Sky way can be improved. A project like this needs to run to Jacksonville beach, Jacksonville international airport, Orange Park main shopping centers and malls. This can increase the ridership an increase revenues for the City. The other good thing it can decrease traffic and improve the traffic flow with in the traffic communities.
The sky way doesn't go anywhere is why it felled.
As nice as that sounds where and how would it end up? For downtown Jacksonville going to the stadium, Landing, Riverside/Five Points and the beach would be nice but for outside of that with the west and south sides, there’d need to be giant concrete structures everywhere cutting through roads and the skies in order to actually get to where you need to be in terms of OP malls and everything else, it’d be an eyesore. I just think we need to invest in trains and our bus infrastructure and add it in more areas and have more buses around so that if you don’t have a car like many do you can at least somewhat rely on it.
Agree with new monorail material and building techniques it could go from above to ground level to below the road. As well as a major expansion of software, hardware, and new trains with bombardier sold to the largest train company we could see mass improvements such as going down the center of the high way and reaching speeds of 80mph being much safer and faster then a car
I think they should use other faster trains than the current Skyway. Plus, the budget of Jacksonville (1.53 billion dollars) won’t work unless Jacksonville puts a bunch of improvement to downtown and other parts and it appeals to more tourists.
@@mrjuicejunior really the current trains go upto 35mph and they don't really even hit that speed
I lived in Jacksonville (and Orange Park) up until around 2009 when I moved to Philadelphia. The problem with the skyway is that it simply does not go to the places people want to go. I never understood why they didn't extend the skyway down Bay St. to the stadium complex (but I am sure it was about the cashola required to do so).
I think a big problem in Jax is there's more than one business area, and they're spread out to the point that it's difficult connect commuters to the business centers. I am not sure if it's still the case but I'm thinking Southpoint, Baymeadows, etc. Jax is just too spread out.
I think that Jacksonville could best address their transit problem with the following three steps...
*1. Build the First Coast Regional Rail Network*
- Build a line between JAX Airport and St. Augustine
- Start out with diesel engines to ensure that service begins as soon as possible at a minimum cost, then electrify the system as demand increases
- Build simple, open air stations with safe bike storage, good sidewalks, mixed use zoning, and parking garages instead of sprawling surface lots
- Ensure a frequency of at least 20 minutes, 18 hours a day, 7 days a week
*2. Relocate the Amtrak station to the old downtown location, work with Brightline to help fund the construction costs*
- The current station is outdated, car dependent, and 5 miles from the downtown
- The old train station site is within 100m of the brand new bus station/skyway station, and has enough room for 5 train platforms
- Brightline already has rights to the tracks and has plans to extend service from Orlando in the late 2020s
- The vacant and sprawling surface parking lots next to the convention center should be replaced with a parking garage, square, and transit mall (similar to the one at Krakow Glowny)
*3. Replace the monorail with a more intricate aerial tramway network*
- Aerial tramways are automated
- They don't use proprietary technology
- They have almost no headway, making them ideal for short distance journeys (no one wants to wait any period of time for 2 mile journey, and a sprawling city like Jacksonville won't allow for high frequency rail transit)
- They are significantly cheaper to construct than light rail and other "gadgetbahns"
- They are pandemic proof, and allow for more privacy and social distancing than other modes of transit
- Can utilize existing Skyway stations, since they are elevated
- Could be easily extended to serve the entire downtown area
💯
Build the First Coast Regional Rail Network? Sorry, pure LOL. If you can't fill a bus, you can't support a train.
Being "bold" and too creative may not be the most successful way to develop urban transit.
Ikr. Just actually installing light rail and clean and fast bus system with complementary land use policies (using tested best practices) is bold in USA! 💁♂️
Yes, the 'bold' new idea is what was said of the Skyway. First time I ever saw it, I rolled my eyes, knowing how dumb it was and how it made the city look quite foolish; the Jethro Bodine city. But what can you expect from a town first named Cowford. If any consolation, I've seen little evidence of smart (meaning both functionally and cost efficient) urban mass transit created in the U.S. since the earliest decades of the 20th century. The skyway is essentially the transit mode that is used at major (mostly hub) airports to ferry people from terminal/concourse to terminal/concourse. There aren't too many airports in the center of Jax.
@@aldinlee8528 when I've used that type of system at the Dallas and O'Hare airports (hubs like you said), they worked great. But even with those airports, the... Trains(?) Held a lot more people than this seemed to. And as big as those airports are, they're not cities. It's like "it looks cool" was the only requirement.
@@CortexNewsService Yep, looks cool to people who've seen little else. I have that problem in Savannah. Such ignorance here at the top levels.
A well produced video 👍👍
Being born in Jacksonville 1957, I could share stories of it's unique and ugly past. Growing up here I've said, "Jacksonville is the tale of two cities, this side of the river, and that side of the river". Now it has "Gated Communities".
what’s wrong with gated communities? we have so much crime here, wish my area had one
Kudos on the best overview I've yet seen on how Federal policy, aided by state and local actions, destroyed American cities. Every one of any size existing in 1934 when the FHA mortgage was first offered saw this fate. VA mortgages had the same redlining and mandatory racial covenants. As you correctly state, the Interstate Highway System provided highly subsidized access to new white only suburbs, also paving the way for the highest assessed property, industry, to abandon cities. I've seen innumerable videos on urban decline that relegate it's effects to a brief sentence. For those claiming it's irrelevant to this story, you clearly describe how these policies destroyed two stable neighborhoods and transformed a mixed use downtown into offices and parking lots. The Skyway stands as yet another pathetic attempt to achieve the impossible, restoring what government destroyed.
In other words USA wasted money on a big SELF OWN!!!!
Well researched, edited, and even cited. Great job! I hope you continue to make videos like this one. You gained a subscriber today!
Amazing quality video. Keep pumping these out and this channel will be a rocketship.
I was going to make a similar comment. This is their first video! I'm impressed. I wish I knew how to create videos like this for my org
GREAT video !!! Visited Jacksonville a few times and rode the skyway out of curiosity. Their downtown has so much potential
The streetcar system could have been modernized it would have resembled Boston San Francisco Pittsburgh Newark,NJ & Philadelphia systems by actually piggybacking on the orders on the trains they have from the 1970s-2000s to replace ageing Trams European and Australian term for an American streetcar.
Not to mention the streetcars of Toronto (Canada) and Melbourne (Australia).
Your explanation of the macro reasons for the Jacksonville Skyway being a failure is very good. It was doomed from the beginning. The decisions made in the Skyways original routing did it no favors. One leg to the Convention Center (Another failed city project), another leg across the river to the Southbank and the third leg to the FSCJ downtown campus. The city should have built the first leg from the Jacksonville Landing to the sports complex (Football Stadium, Baseball Stadium, Arena). If they had built that leg first, annual ridership on the system would have been at least doubled from just the riders on gamedays (NFL and College) and special events. This would also have helped out the Jacksonville Landing and possibly have kept it profitable.
I agree. When I moved here in 2021 and was working downtown, one day I thought I would get on the Skyway to go over and see the Sports district. Was SHOCKED and confused to find out the Skyway doesn't even run over there. It makes zero sense.
The paradigm of an indoor shopping center, as we can see today, has it's problems. Plopping it downtown, far from where the biggest spenders live, especially when those folks had more convenient shopping, was a losing formula. A dozen events wouldn't have changed the outcome.
As a Jacksonville native this answers so many questions I've had about the Skyway. Thank you for your research.
Failed because they never connected the track to Riverside. It's like a couple hundred yards. I live here less than 2 mi from it. They never finished it. It was supposed to take us from the neighborhoods downtown so we didn't have to drive our car cuz there's no parking downtown. They need to just finish it and people will use the hell out of it.
At, one minute and one second you can see the branch they never finished. If they would have connected that down the road to the neighborhood that skyway would have been a success.
Jacksonville native- the deep irony is that if they expanded the skyway by about 4 miles, 2 along the north bank to the stadium and 2 to at least Brooklyn, but ideally Riverside, you would have an absolutely fantastic piece of unique transit that covered the main part of the city with enough natural (and developing) density to support it.
Also I've lived here my whole life and never been to the neighborhood of Springfield, which is just to the east of Spring Hill. It's been decimated by white flight, but has all the bones to be the sort of dense, affordable urban center that would differentiate Jacksonville from the rest of Florida cities.
I lived in Jacksonville in the early 80's. The southern area. The bussing system at that time was good. A lot of people used it and the stops were everywhere. I do not understand why they didn't expand that.
My dad gave my friends mom a hard time because of the inefficiency of the project back in the late 90s. I forgot the contractor she worked for, but she was heavily involved.
I live in Jacksonville and I can confirm this. I think they should use their budget on tourism and then use it on making trains connect to most visited places (Town Center, Zoo, Jax Beach, Downtown, etc.) and maybe expand to Southside, Westside, Northside, and/or Arlington.
Great video. I lived in Jax for a few years, and you provide a great deal of context to the de facto segregation, poverty, and hollowed out urban core that the city suffers from. It is a lovely place that has been mangled by highways and sprawl.
Don't forget that a lot of political decisions were heavily influenced by First Baptist Church, which dominated downtown Jacksonville for decades.
Jacksonville has claimed to be the “bold new city of the south” for generations, yet local government, NIMBY, racism, and disastrous planning have just turned it into a nightmare of suburban sprawl. They subsidized the construction of the town center and forgot all about downtown. Cities like Tampa can teach us a lot about revitalizing our waterfront.
Here in Norfolk, VA, (where the Navy moved the Jacksonville fleet) was the state's largest city. Then the mass exodus to the suburbs, which continues. In recent years, the city's population has grown. Numerous apartment buildings are being built and office towers are converting to apartments. Our light rail was built to connect to the suburbs, but they have fought the expansion. I just wished the Navy would step in and make it easier for the sailors to reach the base.
The problem is that even the tide has terrible lands use adjacent to its stations. There are so many areas where it stops and is surrounded by parking and single family homes, that if they just built apartments and retail (plus maybe some light industry) the ridership would skyrocket.
It's a great system and I love riding it when I can, but it's being hobbled by terrible land use (as is common with almost all North American transit).
Though I do agree that it should be expanded to the beach and the base, plus the airport!
Mayport still has ships but no carriers.. What Norfolk did steal were Jets which closed Cecil 25 years ago.... The new stadium deal is hoped to transform downtown... We'll see..
Absolutely amazing video! Great piece on local history!
This is AMAZING for a first video.
Keep it up!
Dude I am looking forward to the day your channel is huge! I’m glad to be an early subscriber and I wish you nothing but the best.
Meanwhile, down here in Miami, our "Metromover" is something of a success; so much so that the newest plan calls for extending it across Biscayne Bay to Miami Beach.
That’ll be one of the next videos, stay tuned 👍
Miami's Metromover is successful because it worked well in a symbiotic relationship with the city's Heavy Rail system Metrorail. It solved what is called in Public transit the "Last Mile" issue where if you can get people to their last destination using public transit they will use it. Jacksonville reversed Miami's system instead thinking a Metromover type system first will build consensus for a more sustainable rail system which it didn't.
@@sensatovideos It will be an interesting compare and contrast to the Skyway. I believe there are plans to extend the Metro Mover to PortMiami, although I don't know how serious a proposal that is. Brightline is supposed to open a PortMiami station in the future as well.
I don’t know that replacing one gadgetbahn with another is a good plan, and driverless busses have a long time before they’re mature. Going back to the VAL system and expanding that would be a better idea. Or just do trams since that’s what’s in vogue these days.
Of course they’re going to replace it with “driverless buses” like when they replaced the trams with regular buses back in the day, it’ll doom public transit for Jacksonville even more n
Great video, it's nice to watch a video about a city that isn't talked much about. As a person from the city it's interesting to see the history behind the many neighborhoods I see everyday.
Considering your last point I think that the gentrification of Springfield may hopefully at the very least lead to the revitalization of Downtown. I live in Seattle now and every time I visit home I'm kind of blown away by how much more of a neighborhood downtown feels like compared to a twelve - fifteen years ago.
I'm a native Jacksonvillian and I will be moving to Seattle at the end of January 2023 (24th) . How does it compare to JAX?
I always had the feeling that the skyway was there for looks, to make Jax look more urban, and developed. Most of the people I know don't like going downtown unless they absolutely have to.
It’s hell, driving through there as it’s just so compact and congested especially during a big event. Traffic accidents feels bound to happen, and then there’s using the I-95/I-295 near downtown just to navigate to other parts of the city since everyone drives so aggressively or don’t pay attention
Yea downtown is not a place to be
@@OhNoSoLoDoLo Definitely not congested have you ever lived in a densely populated area I have I can tell I've never seen actually bad traffic in this city may change soon though who knows
@@GeneralProspecterCongested was probably a poor word choice on my part, I was just speaking with how cramped driving downtown is, it’s not made for a lot of cars and much better for pedestrians which ironically would be a better place for me to be stuck at tbh minus all the crime.
@@OhNoSoLoDoLo I feel that this is a very unique city and proud to call it home I'm more built for a small town at this stage of life but the business is here and it's such a hard working city I do not miss the lazy and rude west coast.
I really like this video and you make excellent points about urbanism and land use in America. Interestingly, almost everything you discussed about Jacksonville is true of most North American cities. Even NYC suffers from this type of urban renewal and lack of transit investment where its needed.
I did want to address one thing, though, with this "Skyway" system. Even if the city had built it in an area with proper land use, an automated people mover would've been unsuccessful. That's because these systems are not designed to be actual mass transit, but rather, just hyper-localized point-to-point movement for relatively small numbers of people. That's why you see them mostly in airports or amusement parks.
The trainsets are just too small and the operations too complex to allow for any kind of rapid movement of large numbers of people. It's likely this design was chosen because it was the cheapest and the city could toss a bit of money at it to pretend like they were investing in this community, while still throwing fistfuls of cash at highway expansions.
Anyways, great video and I look forward to seeing more content from your channel. Thanks!
Great video! I recently moved to Jax and had NO idea about this part of the city’s history.
As usual we would have had those “cool European cities” right here at home. But racism and greed won instead and we have this ugly unfixible mess.
Really great video. Very interresting but also sad. It is a shame, you have so few subscribers.
Interesting first video for the channel! Best of luck!
A train to nowhere? I highly doubt that. I was born and raised in Jacksonville and I rod the Skyway a lot when I go the downtown area. I liked the Skyway. It was not much as far as the size, but it's got it where it counts, and that says a lot. I live in the Metro Orlando area now. I have seen pictures of downtown Jacksonville's progress with more new loft apartments and condos in and around the area. Some of those buildings are happened to be right near the Skyway's path. I wouldn't be surprised if the residents in downtown used them to go to and from home.
It feels so weird watching a video about my own city like this lmao
Yes it does lol
Same here
Would love to see more in depth videos of Jacksonville especially the county and city consolidation along with the sheer corruption the police department showed and why the sheriff's office took over.
Finally somebody says something about a failed project that politicians would not admit
This an excellent conversation that is so needed.
I went to college in Jax in the 90s. I completely forgot about the skyway. I vaguely remember taking it one time. Really good video. Thank you!
"Well it's not a Monorail..." It IS a Monorail. Not only is it a Monorail, it the only Pure-Transit Monorail in the country that NOT a Airport Connector or a Tourist Attraction. Even Las Vegas's Monorail that they try to claim is a form of actual transit is listed as a Tourist Attraction because of it's high fare and disconnection from the Vegas Transit System.
The Skyway originally opened as a rubber tired people mover similar to the system used in Miami and ran very similar to this automated bus idea they wanna replace it with. It was in 1998 when they open that final station they relized the signal system needed to be modernize and they contacted Bombardier who said "Screw your Elevated Buses....we're going Monorail!" Then they slapped monorail beams to the guideway and called it a day. Now that the monorail system needs to be modernized, they wann turn it back into an automated elevated bus again?....who will now run in the street too? Just built a goddamn elevated subway system already. You have the guideways, you have to potential to expand, and you literally have a city in the same state operating an elevated subway. (Miami Metrorail). Just built an el! We have our el in Philly, it great...if you ignore the drugs being done onboard.
Jacksonville feels like a heartless city.
So sad to see the state of Lavilla today. I live in Jacksonville and it is now one of the most underserved areas and designated as a food desert, residents only have a family dollar to shop for non-perishable only groceries. Very few businesses exist there today and the ones that do are in rough shape.
DUUUUUVVVVVAAAALLLLLL!!!! Very well put together video, would like to see more content on Jacksonville
Long time Jacksonville native and I can give you the main reason of the failure. Blight and crime. Period
Thank you for this. I live in Jacksonville, originally from Chicago. I love how people in Jax shit on Chicago because of a now outdated reputation on crime and corruption when Jacksonville has corrupt, incompetent politicians that broke the city public transit system.
And now these idiots are about to make AI-driven transports in the same city where some of the WORST drivers in the state tear up the roads like they’re qualifying for the Daytona 500.
Yeah, I miss Chicago. At least they have whole network of buses and trains so expansive that you can literally travel across the city for LESS than an Uber or Lyft!
Great video about a sad history 😢
I checked out Jacksonville on Google Maps while watching this. As soon as you mentioned Lavila being a prosperous Black Neighborhood, I checked it out today and saw a highway through empty lots. Which is exactly what I expected. And this is why kids need to be taught the true depth of racism in schools.
The U2C is just slower autonomous buses that cannot even go the speed limit on many of these roads. Jax is obsessed with what is fancy and cool and not with what actually works. Most people in the city expect it to fail horrendously, but the local politicians got buzzworded by some consultants into thinking it was a good idea. All these will do is make traffic worse without moving an adequate number of people. Overall the skyway is sad, as a Jax native its a sign that the city is still decaying as its leaders watch and do nothing.
I’m a surveyor in Jax. Sometimes we use old hand-drafted blue plat maps with a title something along the lines of “Colored Subdivision”. New enough that we keep copies of it for work with up to hundreds of thousands in liability. This is not ancient history.
Very much liked the map work, before/after renderings. Rode the people mover in 1993, early in my career in public transit system design. Denver's 16th Street shuttle is the route design I study and write about in an essay "The Walking Communities of 2040" a new direction for public transit.
Near the end, the term "high density" is touted as development tool, but I take issue with any assumption that density is a end all be all. What to consider as a planner's tool is "diversity" as in an economically "diverse" mix of uses. Density without diversity increases travel demand and traffic.
0:45 The real reason is a small 2.5 mi line with just 8 stations, witch makes it a "ride to nowhere".
1:00 wrong, it's a monorail which was built on the previous automated people mover system, was it so hard to look it up before making this video?
I love monorails. When my family took a trip to Disneyworld when i was a kid that was what i enjoyed and remember the most. It was so comfortable and relaxing with the big tinted windows I didnt want the ride to end. I guess im weird.
Oh I don't think the failure is that it's a monorail. The issue is it goes about a half a mile
@@NoThankUBeQuiet out of all mass transit monorails seem to have the most opposition. I dont have enough knowledge to know the pros and cons.
Great work, super impressive for a first video!! Keep going pls!!
Important point that wasn’t mentioned: there were TWO federally-funded national projects running at the same time that trashed American cities. In addition to the freeway system there was Urban Renewal. In this, urban areas were assessed for their physical conditions and locations the were deemed “slums” were condemned, completely bulldozed, then sold to large scale developers. Freeways and Urban Renewal together totally wiped out immense tracts of American cities everywhere.
This is so sad. I didn't realize Jax' trolley system was so extensive, even reaching to Ortega! Now its just a typical car-centric sprawl. This is another proof of how highways decimates communities. Jax could have been a really vibrant city.
Wow. This is surreal. This video popped up in my recommendations. I live in 5 points and work in Downtown as a Delivery Cyclist for Jimmy Johns and it is kind of bizzare seeing a video about the failure of thr skyway. Everyone i know that takes public transportation talks about the failure of it. Lol
Lives in Jax for a bit and never rode the skyway. It was just as easy to ride my bike the same route. Great first video look forward to more videos.
The growth of downtown is in constant discussion with the Jax govt. Believe it or not, the funding of the skyway has potential to be a campaigning issue in the upcoming 2023 mayoral race. Hoping Jax can make a turnaround and become a thriving city.
I lived in Jacksonville for several months over 15 years ago, and visited there again five years ago. While the Skyway has achieved only a fraction of its potential, and while Jacksonville is quite car dependent just like almost all other US cities, I went on that a number of times and the ride's awesome where it does go.
great video, hope your channel does well!
I use to ride the Skyway from the lot over by the Convention Center to my job at what was the Bank of America Tower (a few blocks away). Aside from that it was always empty - I’d use my pass to just ride around if I was bored such a short track and no passengers.
Unfortunately Jacksonville is a big suburb filled with cars. It is a mess. Most American cities are like this and getting worse. We all know there is a problem, but nobody wants to invest in transit
I grew up in Jacksonville. It used to be a swamp before the Jaguars came.
The 'Riderless Express' was a boondoggle from day one. There was no way to justify the expense for the 'Great White Elephant' - as my out of town friend called it. Total waste of money.
I remember when City elites heard about ABC's 20/20 coming to town to do a story about pork barrel spending, the City packed the cars with employees to make it seem useful. lol
Then there's the time that Congresswoman Tillie Fowler explained to a reporter that the reason why she voted to spend another $3B was because we had already spent a $1B on it already.
Jacksonville was accurately depicted in a Simpson's episode where a con artist talked Springfield into buying a monorail that the city didn't need. Hilarious.
When I worked downtown I used to take the skyway. It was a really nice trip over the river to my office and was free. No complaints.
As a history buff on monorail and bombardier Inc. And native Florida man As an engineer I always wondered the same system that runs in disney is same as Jacksonville although they call it a people mover it's proper name is innovia gen 2 by bombardier the the system dosnt work because of it not being easy to get on when jtrc was built more people used the monorail because it was easy to use as two stations were closed. Sweet petes has improved traffic on it as the stations is infront of it. It became very popular during one spark and the super bowl where it did very well for its age. Today if they were able to upgrade the system to tell them where to get on and off as well as delays through a smartphone along with new stations the system could help reduce the traffic in Jacksonville in half.
The skyway was a great idea but poorly planned in regards to areas served and geographical trackage. There should have been several spans that crossed the St John's River serving as far as the Beaches, East Arlington, Mandarin, Ortega, Westside and Northside. Instead of a skyway the city would have been better served developing a Metro Rail System using existing CSX tracks and creating spur tracks to specific commutter dropoff points within the city.
Grew up in Jax. Still in the area. Great video, had to hit subscribe
This is like the PRT in Morgantown, where I work, except somehow worse. Lol. We carry 2-3x the people daily despite the vastly smaller size of the town and university.
U2C will fail because the cost required to integrate CBTC moving block autonomous vehicles on grade separated guideway integrate with city traffic. Why have grade separation if the vehicles will get stuck in traffic? And to develop a non tag-based position sensing system will end up costing way too much money and won't work well. But good luck Jacksonville from fellow gadgetbahn.
I interned for the skyway this summer. So funny to see this on my feed
What is that building at 3:19? It's beautiful
Can’t believe you only have 600 subs, incredibly well done video
just moved to Jax Beach, crazy this popped up in my feed.
I'm a homeless veteran and I ride the skyway every day it runs. I love it and do not consider it a failure in any way.
Great video. Good luck with your channel. It’s hard work but worth doing!
I see this EVERYDAY, I've always wondered why no one's used it
Awesome information. Keep up the good work!
Great Video, alot of historical points ✅
This thing is free to ride now and even THAT’S still too much.
Jacksonville made a big mistake. They did not build a light rail system to feed the Jacksonville Skyway along with re-zoning and re-development for good transportation.
Great video buddy👍
The Skyway would've been successful had they built it from the Gator Bowl (Now TIAA Bank Field) to the Convention Center.
That would've attractacted more riders from concerts and events being held at the football stadium, Metro Park, Vystar Arena, Florida Theater, The Landing, Times Union Center and Convention Center.
Poor planning and poor leadership has resulted in a failed skyway, failed convention center, failed entertainment district and failed downtown. That simple! EXCELLENT piece on redlining as well!
Great video!! Hope to see more like it about Jacksonville
It's sad how cool the Jacksonville skyway is and that it's not gaining much attention; left to die by policymakers. However, I have hopes that they'll expand the system to other areas of the city to encourage urban density instead of bulldozing swamps for suburban living. Also, they need to bring back streetcars as a substitute.
4:44 lowkey looks like Statler and Waldorf are heckling the map.
There used to be an alternative school for kids who had dropped out or been expelled from a Duval County public school. You had to pass the AP test or had been in the gifted program at your school in order to go there though. It was called Pathways and at FCCJ Downtown Campus (FSCJ currently/the second year I was there was when they changed the name). We used to use the Skyway almost every day just because our school was right at the very end, but it's NOT really reliable or realistic for moving large numbers of people, at least it doesn't seem like it is compared to subway and light rail systems in other cities. One thing I do think you HAVE to remember about Jacksonville is that by land mass we're the largest city in the lower 48 at 840 square miles (2,175.6 sq km). Our city is just so freaking big that they've had an impossible time figuring out public transit. Our bus system has always been a hub and spoke so it takes forever to get anywhere. Awesome video, thank you for taking an interest in our city. I live in Seattle now so it's nice to see home. Especially all the historic stuff.
Jacksonville has the largest land mass of any U.S. city, but it's like they don't know what to do with it. That city could be truly great, but the last few times I visited the downtown area, there was nothing to do... No attractions, no aquarium, no family places, city shuts down after dark fall etc. It's like they got focused solely on football & attracting the wealthy while forgetting about everything & everyone else.
I've heard of Pathways at FSCJ, I knew someone who completed that program.
Seems like it was a pretty good thing. Do they still have it or any similar program like it?
@@corlenajames1381 they got rid of it sadly, but if your homie was there the first two years of the program I know them. Pathways was kindaaaaa a bad idea cause it was like. Let's take all the kids who are at higher risk of getting in trouble but ALSO smart, put them all together and give them more freedom and less structure.. Older me would of taken to the opportunity with more gratitude but 17 year old me was just trying to sell molly and fuck girls so, I didn't use the opportunity to it's max. I was prom king my Junior year tho!
Hopefully Jacksonville doesn't destroy the monorail cars. There's still a few systems left that use them, they could definitely use the spare parts or for expansion.