by Bailey White
Staff Writer
A long-awaited plan to bring the Downtown Trolley to the Southbank may become a reality by January, according to the Jacksonville Transportation Authority.
Marci Larson, a spokesperson for the JTA, said the trolley service will soon be extended to San Marco. The JTA has ordered three new trolleys, which should arrive by the end of the year.
Currently, the City has five trolleys in service for its downtown routes. The Southbank route will be the first change made since the system was revamped in July, when the Azalea and Magnolia routes were added to the existing Sunflower route downtown.
The current plan calls for the San Marco trolleys to begin and end on the Southbank and run between the hours of 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.
City Council member and mayoral candidate Matt Carlucci was an early supporter of the Southbank trolley, hoping it would improve the lunch time business in the parking-deprived San Marco area.
He was disappointed when, in July, plans for the new trolley routes were delayed because the JTA had not yet provided the Jacksonville Economic Development Commission with an interlocal agreement. The JEDC is providing half of the funds for the project, and requested a document describing the use of these funds. The interlocal agreement finally passed recently, said Al Battle, managing director of the Downtown Development Authority. The one-year pilot service will cost approximately $100,000, half of which is coming from the JTA via the Florida Department of Transportation while other half will be provided by the JEDC from its Southbank Tax Increment Fund.
According to Larson, if everything goes as planned — the funding must first pass a couple of Council standing committees and then the full Council, a process that can take several weeks —Southbank merchants and workers should receive trolley service early next year. Plans also call for the two new routes to be strictly Southbank routes.
According to Carlucci, there were never plans for the trolleys to cross either the Main Street or Acosta bridges. That, he said, would deplete Skyway ridership which is designed to make it easy for downtown workers to cross the river without their cars.