by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
Starting July 1, there will be two new downtown trolley routes with names identifying each route.
Since its inception, there have been three trolleys running during the week from the trolley lot near the new arena to the Humana Building on South Laura Street and back. For the better part of a year, City Council member Elaine Brown has been campaigning for at least one trolley to make a pass by City Hall. In a few weeks, she’ll get her wish and then some.
“We will have one route that goes by the Landing, the City Hall Annex, City Hall, the library and the courthouse,” said Stephanie Barker, a spokesperson for the Jacksonville Transportation Authority. “We are still tweaking the other route right now, but it will go past FCCJ, service us and then go back down Forsyth Street.”
For Brown, the announcement is the culmination of months of pestering JTA officials.
“I am very excited. It will come before TEE next [this] week,”said Brown, the chair of Council’s Transportation, Environment and Energy committee. “It took a long time, but now I really believe JTA was truly working on other routes like they said.”
The new trolleys and their routes will be identified by flower names: Azalea, Magnolia and Sunflower. Within the next week or so JTA will begin to market these routes by name and erect new signs downtown at the new stop locations. While it may be a little confusing at first, riders are encouraged to pay attention to the trolley and its designated route in order to get on the right trolley. Regardless of the destination, though, all three routes will still originate and end at the parking lot near the new arena.
Brown said with all the new downtown housing being built it was important to get the routes established in time for residents and workers to get accustomed to them.
“This will help people get around downtown and we need to grow it,” said Brown.