JACKSONVILLE, Fla — The Skyway coming down from the sky that’s the headline of JTA’s plan. Today the city laid out a plan for a 379-million-dollar project to expand and improve the Skyway.
That money would be funded from the gas tax increase proposed by Mayor Lenny Curry.
“Doing so with the existing technology, the existing skyway vehicles, the monorail with elevated structures it was going to be cost prohibitive," said Nathaniel Ford is Chief Executive Officer of the Jacksonville Transportation Authority.
The first phase of the project will be the autonomous vehicles on bay street. JTA is calling the project the Ultimate Urban Circulator that will cost the city over 300 million dollars. The ten-mile system will interconnect various neighborhoods to downtown.
“The big mountain to climb is the conversion of the actual current skyway the two and a half miles from the monorails to the roadway," said Ford.
CEO of JTA says this major infrastructure project will take time.
“Probably on bay street innovation quarter 2 to 3 years, it could easily 5 years to even 7 years before we actually have the skyway fully converted in the extensions into the neighborhoods," said Ford.
Ford says JTA’s responsibility is looking at a whole street strategy and looking at their previous projects in the past year they’ve done it well.
“We’re on a road show in terms of capabilities and JTA’s expertise," said Ford.
The CEO of JTA says they want to get this right and to do that it will take time.