{"id":129246,"date":"2026-01-23T15:34:31","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T15:34:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/129246\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T15:34:31","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T15:34:31","slug":"jta-may-bring-navi-to-the-beaches-but-councilman-scoffs-at-it-happening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/129246\/","title":{"rendered":"JTA may bring NAVI to the Beaches but councilman scoffs at it happening"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jacksonville City Council member Rory Diamond, who represents the Beaches, said if autonomous passenger service comes there, it will be run by private companies.<\/p>\n

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Jacksonville Transportation Authority CEO Nat Ford said he can see a time when the agency’s\u00a0self-driving NAVI transit shuttles<\/a> are carrying passengers at the Beaches.<\/p>\n

“If you’re a tourist coming to our beaches, it may not be too far in the future that you can actually hop on NAVI at the beaches,” Ford said Jan. 21 at the agency’s annual State of the Authority luncheon.<\/p>\n

Jacksonville City Council member Rory Diamond, who represents the Beaches, said if autonomous passenger service comes to the Beaches, it will be run by private companies operating self-driving taxis, not NAVI.<\/p>\n

Diamond has called on JTA to pull the plug on NAVI after it struggled to attract riders<\/a> since its first leg launched last summer in downtown.<\/p>\n

“The Beaches will have Waymo before downtown has NAVI working,” Diamond said.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Neighborhood Autonomous Vehicle Innovation service<\/a> \u2014 NAVI for short \u2014 is operating now on a Bay Street loop in downtown with plans by JTA to expand the service to more of downtown and then out to neighborhoods bordering downtown such as San Marco, Springfield and Riverside.<\/p>\n

The shuttles often run empty of passengers while making the drive up and down Bay Street. But supporters of NAVI say ridership will grow when downtown attracts more development<\/a> along the route.<\/p>\n

Ford talked about future possibilities for NAVI as he announced JTA will be examining how to shape transportation over the next 25 years through a plan called Jacksonville MVP 2050, which stands for Mobility Vision Plan.<\/p>\n

“It is a once in a generation collaboration where government, business, education, healthcare and residents come together with a shared goal to design a mobility network that works for everyone from the Beaches to Baldwin, from the seaport to the airport and from every neighborhood to every opportunity,” he said.<\/p>\n

He said it will examine “all modes of transportation” including passenger rail, autonomous vehicles, and bicycle and pedestrian paths. The study will feature public meetings for residents to give their views.<\/p>\n

JTA is doing a separate study just on how to design and build the expansion of the NAVI system downtown. That study will determine what it would cost to convert the elevated Skway structure so it can handle the rubber-tired NAVI shuttles.<\/p>\n

JTA isn’t doing a similar analysis of where to create routes at the Beaches or what it would cost to install the roadside technology for guiding the shuttles.<\/p>\n

“There’s a great opportunity there,” Ford said. “It’s flooded with tourism during certain times of the year.”<\/p>\n

Editor’s note: This story was first published by our news partners, The Florida Times-Union.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jacksonville City Council member Rory Diamond, who represents the Beaches, said if autonomous passenger service comes there, it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":129247,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-129246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}