JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Things got heated Wednesday morning as Jacksonville City Council members grilled leadership at the Jacksonville Transportation Authority over a pilot program that would raise rates for the city’s premium paratransportation service by more than 300 percent.
That debate put renewed scrutiny on another JTA service: the autonomous NAVI shuttle program.
JTA is justifying the rate hike on Connexion Plus by pointing to the fact the cost of subsidizing the service has increased roughly 800 percent since its launch, ballooning from under a million a year in 2019 to $8 million in 2026.
The agency claimed the rate hikes would cut the overhead down to $5 million this year, but at the same time, the agency admitted it expects to spend $7 million on the NAVI this year.
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“If you cut NAVI could you keep Connexion Plus fares the same? Would you save enough money?” Councilmember Rory Diamond (R-District 13) asked JTA CEO Nat Ford in Wednesday’s hearing.
“No,” Ford responded.
“$7 million is not more than $3 million?” Diamond rebuffed.
Diamond ripped into Ford over the proposed rate hikes during the hearing, calling the move “morally wrong”.
“Explain to me how hundreds of millions of dollars on NAVI and this whole autonomous thing is tightening your belt? You’re creating a whole new thing, sending all this money,” said Diamond. ”If you didn’t do NAVI, would we have to increase these fares on the basically completely disabled people in Jacksonville?”
Ford noted that unlike most JTA services, Connexion Plus offers private rides like Uber or Lyft, and rates for the base multi-rider Connexion service would be cut by a third under the agency’s proposed plan.
He argued the agency doesn’t pit riders against one another and has to balance priorities to the benefit of all riders.
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“32 percent of our customers that have gotten used to Connexion Plus, we’ll continue to provide Connexion Plus, but we’ve got to get closer to the actual cost of the trip in terms of managing that subsidy,” Ford said.
Despite the NAVI having only about a quarter of the average daily ridership of Connexion Plus, Ford argued NAVI is worth the current investment.
“It’s at the very beginning. Research and development is still happening with autonomous vehicles, but that’s mobility of the future,” Ford said. ”And I think that JTA has shown that from a national and international standpoint, the NAVI service is gonna bring us returns far greater than the actual today’s cost.”
During the meeting, JTA indicated it would look into a potential two-year phase-in of the rate hikes at the council members’ request.
The board is expected to take final action on the proposal Thursday at 2 PM.
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