JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 The Duval DOGE committee has a new target in its sights and it\u2019s one Action News Jax has been covering for the last two years \u2014 the Jacksonville Transportation Authority. <\/p>\n
In her \u201cTaken for a Ride?\u201d series<\/b><\/a>, Investigator Emily Turner has dug into questionable spending, expensive corporate travel and salaries, and the embattled autonomous vehicles project. Now, that project is the center of one Jacksonville City Council member\u2019s call for action.<\/p>\n >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <\/b><\/a><\/p>\n Rory Diamond is flat out asking if it\u2019s possible to cancel it \u2014 not just the portion that\u2019s already in service, but the future expansion as well. He said he wants to put JTA\u2019s autonomous vehicles project on the chopping block.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that\u2019s straight in the target of what DOGE is about,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is just looking for boondoggles, killing them off and getting people money back.\u201d <\/p>\n He\u2019s specifically referring to JTA\u2019s NAVI, a project that cost more than $65 million. More than $50 million of that is local. The NAVI carts riders around a three-mile loop downtown on converted semi-autonomous transit vans with a driver behind the wheel. <\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: <\/b>Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/b><\/a>]<\/b><\/p>\n Diamond is concerned NAVI doesn\u2019t have nearly enough riders. Action News Jax reported in September that it has already crashed into a light pole and carried about 6,000 riders total since it started at the end of June.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d like to get some of those questions answered,\u201d Diamond said. \u201cWhat\u2019s going on with the U2C? If it\u2019s not working, if no one\u2019s riding, can we cancel it?\u201d<\/p>\n U2C is short for the Ultimate Urban Circulator \u2014 the name for the overall project that includes the NAVI and the conversion of the Skyway. Action News Jax reached out to JTA and it has not responded.<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: <\/b>Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/b><\/a>] <\/b><\/p>\n Diamond plans to send JTA a list of questions the DOGE team wants answered. He has been a longtime critic of the project, especially phase two: the conversion of the Skyway.<\/p>\n Phase 2 is slated to cost more than $300 million dollars, funded in part by you at the pump in the form of the local gas tax.<\/p>\n As of JTA\u2019s last appearance in front of the City Council, the project had no set price, no scope or design, and no timeline. <\/p>\n Click here<\/b><\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/b><\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 The Duval DOGE committee has a new target in its sights and it\u2019s one Action…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":285892,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[7320,5229,7323,69082,3188,723,7324,7310,13113,7327,20344,147190,147188,147191,7325,10177,7326,147189,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,7322,7321],"class_list":{"0":"post-285891","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-action-news-jax","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-cbs47","11":"tag-duval-doge","12":"tag-fl","13":"tag-florida","14":"tag-fox30","15":"tag-jacksonville","16":"tag-jacksonville-city-council","17":"tag-jacksonville-fl","18":"tag-jacksonville-transportation-authority","19":"tag-jta-navi","20":"tag-jta-skyway","21":"tag-jta-u2c","22":"tag-northeast-florida","23":"tag-rory-diamond","24":"tag-southeast-georgia","25":"tag-ultimate-urban-circulator","26":"tag-united-states","27":"tag-united-states-of-america","28":"tag-unitedstates","29":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","30":"tag-us","31":"tag-usa","32":"tag-wfox","33":"tag-wjax"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115337256244266936","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285891","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=285891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}