JTA Facility Decentralization Plan

Following the pandemic, Jacksonville Transportation Authority (JTA) refocused its transit services to be more innovative and nimbler across the Jacksonville region, resulting in longer deadheading, increased fleet mileage, and added strain on its existing downtown maintenance and operations facility. Foursquare ITP helped JTA to develop a comprehensive facilities and fleet plan to support increased fixed-route and paratransit operations over the next several decades.

Foursquare ITP shaped a vision for transit and translated it into facility, fleet, and workforce needs, as part of a multidisciplinary team of engineers, architects, planners, and data scientists charting a roadmap for the future of transit in Jacksonville. Our team developed a 20-year transit plan that informs where JTA places future facilities, including a facility location optimization model that evaluates the location and space constraints of several potential operating sites. We also developed a fixed-route fleet plan, including the transition to alternative fuels, and a workforce plan to guide JTA as it grows and expands service.

The long-term transit plan sets a vision for the region’s future and positions JTA for success by addressing the practicalities of running a transit system — how many vehicles to procure, where to store and maintain them, and how to build tomorrow’s workforce. The plan connects 98,000 more people and 75,000 more jobs to core transit — service running every 30 minutes or better — and the site selection model evaluated nine sites across six operating scenarios to identify the configuration that best met JTA’s operational goals and minimized costs.