{"id":201196,"date":"2025-09-05T02:58:19","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T02:58:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/201196\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T02:58:19","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T02:58:19","slug":"no-rides-on-game-days-104-5-wokv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/201196\/","title":{"rendered":"No rides on game days \u2013 104.5 WOKV"},"content":{"rendered":"

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 JTA\u2019s semi-autonomous shuttle has been touted as the transportation of the future, but Action News Jax has learned the NAVI<\/a> won\u2019t be making the cut for Jags game days. Investigator Emily Turner has dug into the NAVI operations and found concerns that have riders scratching their heads. <\/p>\n

The problems aren\u2019t limited to when it runs. There are safety concerns as well. For a vehicle that is not only sporting multimillion-dollar autonomous technology but also has a driver behind the wheel, Action News Jax found it\u2019s already gotten into at least one wreck. <\/p>\n

While the NAVI came online to the public in June amid much fanfare, the acclaimed $65 and a half million-dollar shuttle has left much to be desired by some.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Local headlines on NAVI shuttle project Articles from Jax Today and Eye on Jax had less-than-favorable opinions on JTA’s NAVI program. <\/p>\n

RELATED: <\/b>Riders divided over Jacksonville\u2019s self-driving shuttles<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s basically a van,\u201d critic Meghan Banks said, \u201cand I don\u2019t know, it seems like technology\u2019s not there yet. Costs a lot of money [and] it looks like a normal van with the driver driving around in it.\u201d \u201cI hate that it blocks traffic,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The NAVI shuttles have already come under harsh criticism for their jarring ride and small 8-to-9-person capacity. But now there\u2019s more on that list: Action News Jax found the shuttle won\u2019t be running on game days, a time that arguably makes the most sense for a shuttle down Bay Street when parking at the stadium is reduced. Council member Jimmy Peluso told Action News Jax he was told by JTA that it will continue not to run on game days until at least 2031. Not only is the shuttle not scheduled for games, but it won\u2019t run on weekends to ferry folks to special events, causing frustration with fans and politicians alike.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat sucks,\u201d said Jags fan Brennan Richardson. \u201cThat\u2019s not good\u2026.especially when you have a lot of Jags fans, you know, it gets really crowded down here.\u201d <\/p>\n

Council Member Jimmy Peluso was also upset to learn about the decision, saying he felt lied to by JTA CEO Nat Ford. <\/p>\n

\u201cI spoke with Mr. Ford a couple months ago,\u201d Peluso told Action News Jax, \u201cand I specifically asked the question, \u2018will this be happening on game day\u2019\u2026.and he says, \u2018absolutely we will.\u2019\u2026 so, to not have it on a day where we could actually maybe show a decent ROI, we\u2019re not going to use it. Come on. What are we doing?”<\/p>\n

In a statement to Action News Jax Thursday, the City of Jacksonville said the decision not to run NAVI during Jags games was partly its own.<\/p>\n

\u201cDue to construction around the stadium, it is at the City of Jacksonville and JSO\u2019s request that NAVI is not running during Jaguars home games this season. We are exploring alternative NAVI route options with JTA that could allow for efficient transportation to and from the stadium during future game days. All the partners involved are looking forward to a safe and pleasant fan experience this season.\u201d<\/p>\n

An engineer who worked closely with the project told Action News Jax the U-turn in front of the stadium is a major risk and the special traffic patterns for all the extra cars would likely confuse the technology. <\/p>\n

In fact, only Action News Jax discovered the shuttle has already had one fender-bender with a rider on board. The transit van jumped the curb and hit a light pole. Internal reports show it had been switched back and forth between autonomous and manual modes and a driver was at the helm at the time. Records also show that while the driver got fired, police were never called, though it knocked a mirror off and dinged city property. <\/p>\n

\u201cOh, that\u2019s not great,\u201d said Banks, who drives a Tesla and understands how AVs are supposed to work. \u201cFrom an autonomous driving perspective,\u201d she said, \u201cwe have the full self-driving in (our car) and it\u2019s not full self-driving. You still have to pay attention, and there are certain instances where it will see something and like on a, like, brake, and you feel that resistance\u2026 So I\u2019m assuming they have that same problem.”<\/p>\n

JTA responded to Action News Jax\u2019s question regarding the crash, saying that it was due to an error on the driver\u2019s part.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are confident in the safety of our NAVI service. Of all the NAVI trips taken and over 6,000 riders we\u2019ve served since the June 30 launch, there has been one incident which resulted from human error.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are thrilled with Jaguar fans\u2019 excitement and interest in taking NAVI to games,\u201d wrote JTA. \u201dThis year, the best way for fans to get to EverBank Stadium quickly, easily and affordably continues to be the JTA\u2019s GameDay Xpress.”<\/p>\n

>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

[DOWNLOAD: <\/b>Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/b><\/a>]<\/b><\/p>\n

[SIGN UP: <\/b>Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/b><\/a>] <\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 JTA\u2019s semi-autonomous shuttle has been touted as the transportation of the future, but Action News…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":201197,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[50444,13027,12189,13030,5229,102417,13816,2385,101229,93621,111290,3188,723,9649,1910,46580,7310,107901,18708,425,5502,28496,7829,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-201196","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-action_jack","9":"tag-action_jacks","10":"tag-action_news","11":"tag-action_news_jacks","12":"tag-america","13":"tag-bay_street","14":"tag-ben_becker","15":"tag-day","16":"tag-emily_turner","17":"tag-everbank_stadium","18":"tag-express","19":"tag-fl","20":"tag-florida","21":"tag-ford","22":"tag-game","23":"tag-jacks","24":"tag-jacksonville","25":"tag-jaguar","26":"tag-jta","27":"tag-local","28":"tag-navy","29":"tag-tanika_hughes","30":"tag-tesla","31":"tag-united-states","32":"tag-united-states-of-america","33":"tag-unitedstates","34":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","35":"tag-us","36":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115149453185206568","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}