The Jacksonville Skyway: A Failed Transit Experiment

The Miami system is a way bigger success for three reasons in my option: 1. Connects with the main train stations and bus terminals. 2. Runs from 5am to midnight everyday. 3. Goes to a ton of different neighborhoods that are culturally and economically connected. I go from University of Miami in Coral Gables to Sunny Isles every once in a while and I always take it to get from Government center to Arsht bus terminal.

I'm getting strong vibes of "I've sold monorails to Brockway, Ogdenville, and North Haverbrook"

I’m not opposed to free transit. but it seems the only places to ever to have free transit have service worth the price.

I'm glad I'm not the only person who thinks the new replacement idea for the Skyway is ridiculous. Really wish they would just extend the current system to Riverside & Springfield rather than have autonomous "pods" come down to street level to serve those neighborhoods. There used to be more daily riders before COVID, which hit downtown really hard. Anyway, apparently Brightline has been in regular talks with JTA and some other folks to bring commuter rail to connect St. Johns county to Jax, and should be using the old Jacksonville Terminal railway station (now a convention center) that is right next the fancy new bus station.

The elevator moved because you said hello to it! This is why it is very important to be friendly to the elevator and thank it! Here's some Jacksonville lore: In the 16th century, the beginning of the historical era, the region was inhabited by the Mocama, a coastal subgroup of the Timucua people. The St. Johns River was once called Welaka, or river of lakes, a name of Seminole-Creek origin. In 1562, French Huguenot settlers landed at the mouth of the St. Johns River and later established Fort Caroline. Then the Spanish invaded Fort Caroline in 1565, renaming it San Mateo to honor the saint whose feast followed the day they captured the river. Later, the river was renamed Rio de San Juan after a mission near its mouth named San Juan del Puerto. The English translation of the name Rio de San Juan, St. Johns River, has lasted through English, Confederate and now today. In 1822, Jacksonville was named for Andrew Jackson. At the time, Jackson was the military governor of the Florida territory. Jacksonville became an official port of entry that year. Duval County was created that year as well from St. Johns County. It was named for William Pope Duval, who succeeded Jackson as Governor of Florida Territory from 1822 to 1834. Since then, the city has grown as a national logistics center.

Jacksonvillian here, you actually went over my house in San Marco. You know how many times I’ve ridden the Skyway in the last 40 years? Just a handful. It goes nowhere. You can walk across all three bridges in the time it takes to wait for it to pick you up and take you in the right direction. Pretty much the only time it has any traffic is during events like Jazzfest. If they expanded the routes into Riverside, Springfield, Murray Hill, Ortega, or even Mandarin there would be a reason to take it. But Jax HATES public transportation, the only reason it still exists is because they spent so much money on it in the 80s. I still remember when my mother took me on it when it opened, what a waste.

Everything I know about Jacksonville comes from The Good Place, and this experience changes none of that understanding.

Making the Detroit People Mover look good is pretty impressive so congrats Jacksonville

Ah yes, dots, peeling paint, flickering lights, sketchy elevators, and no vulgar language, a truly state of the art system. That Drake & Josh clip added in was stellar! I still can't believe both Josh Peck AND Devon Bostick/Rodrick Heffley were in Oppenheimer...what a timeline we're living in. The Skyway is a cute little guy! Up there with the Glasgow Subway, Princeton Dinky, and MTR Disneyland Resort Line. The announcements are just like AirTrain JFK! I too have been fascinated with monorail switches. There's a viral clip of Japanese monorail track switching from Osaka, and it's just so interesting to watch. I gotta give kudos to Jacksonville for having a Skyway station within their Transportation Authority headquarters as part of the transit center at LaVilla. The rolling stock is Bombardier, but it wasn't always that way. They used to have rubber-wheeled vehicles designed by Matra. That changed in 1997 and the Matra ones were given to O'Hare for the ATS, which in turn were also replaced by Bombardier with the Innovia APM 256s. The bridge is called the Acosta Bridge, named after councilman St. Elmo W. Acosta. It was constructed in 1990 and opened in 1994. It replaced the St. Johns River Bridge that opened in 1921. It was replaced because not only was it old, but it was also a three-lane carrying lift bridge and thus got the nickname Yellow Monster because of the times it was upward.

Jacksonville native here. No, they will not be replacing the transit system with autonomous pods. It’s currently in the planning phase. But just like every other project in downtown Jacksonville, it’ll fail. So those rails will slowly deteriorate and become abandoned until the end of time. Just like everything else in this sad, pathetic city.

A befitting memorial to Rosa Parks' legacy of having shitty experiences on public transit.

What is sad that Jax use to have an extensive trolley system...but it got paved over for highways (which coincidentally happens to be in predominantly black neighborhood).

The only thing wrong with the skyway is it was never finished. It is so post to go to the stadiums, the hospital in riverside via 5 points, and shands.

A rare transit system that gives its riders an opportunity to bring a wii and a tv, plug them in, and play some Mario Kart while you're traveling. Just make sure you're not occupying more than one seat, that's against the code of conduct!

The system is reminiscent of the city as a whole, tragic.

Actually recently got stuck on the Sky Way my first time.. very fun and interesting. One guy had to manually drive us back to James Weldon Johnson. Or here known as library stop. Luckily the two other passengers were calm and cool.

It feels so weird watching somebody make a video in my city, especially just about the Skyway that nobody uses. Ty for the vid tho :)

I feel like this transit system was Jacksonville's attempt to copy Miami's people-mover, but evidently it isn't anywhere near as decent. Also the train cars look like the ones on the EWR AirTrain

The Tampa Airport used to have a very similar system to this in the parking garage. I recall them having the same vehicles.

the fact that the skyway doesnt connect to any residential areas was always gonna be its biggest downfall, and the lack of regular weekend service also hurt it though conventions along the lines can put in a request for it to be operating on weekends but JTA requires an estimated passenger usage above 3000