JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 The Jacksonville Transportation Authority held its second meeting discussing plans for the second phase of the Skyway expansion project.<\/p>\n
Today, community members gathered at JTA headquarters downtown to offer their input on the future of Jacksonville\u2019s Skyway.<\/p>\n
The meeting marks the beginning of phase 2 of the ultimate urban circulator program, which is essentially introducing autonomous vehicles to Jacksonville public transit customers. <\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n During the meeting, members of the public saw no build and build options for the Skyway as part of its project development and environmental study.<\/p>\n The five build options include fixing the current Skyway vehicle, getting new vehicles, converting the current Skyway track and system to autonomous vehicles, removing the Skyway altogether and just using autonomous vehicles on local streets, or using the Skyway as an extension of the long-awaited Emerald Trail.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s really important that we have a transportation system in downtown Jacksonville that can move people around. As you know, we\u2019re developing a lot in Downtown Jacksonville,\u201d Alex Sifakis, President of JWB Real Estate Development Company, said.<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n The money dedicated to autonomous vehicles \u2013 also known as U2C – has been the subject of an Action News Jax investigation<\/a>.<\/p>\n We asked JTA how much the entire project would cost and where the money is coming from to fund it.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019ll be a combination of sources. The cost estimates are too early to tell at this point. We\u2019re at the phase of the project where we\u2019re presenting options to the community,\u201d Taniel Koushakjian, Director of Communications, said. <\/p>\n Given the low ridership numbers of the current shuttles, also called NAVI, I also asked whether it\u2019s worth JTA potentially investing in a completely autonomous skyway.<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s up to the people to decide what they want to do with the system,\u201d Koushakjian said. <\/p>\n Alex Sifakis is the President of JWB Real Estate Development Company. He agrees the Skyway needs to be upgraded, but he thinks it\u2019s too soon to fully replace it with autonomous vehicles.<\/p>\n \u201cFor us converting the Skyway to the automated NAVIs is going to take a long time and costs a lot of money and we don\u2019t think downtown development can wait,\u201d Sifakis said. <\/p>\n JTA says phase two of the PD&E study is expected to be complete by August 2026.<\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 The Jacksonville Transportation Authority held its second meeting discussing plans for the second phase of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":169183,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[344,347,28,348,116,351,118,117,349,350,346,345],"class_list":["post-169182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-action-news-jax","tag-cbs47","tag-florida","tag-fox30","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-fl","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-northeast-florida","tag-southeast-georgia","tag-wfox","tag-wjax"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169182","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=169182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}