Saturday, October 1, 2005


Study looks at St. Johns transit by hovercraft

Vessel builder pitches the advantages of an Orange Park to downtown route.


By DAVID BAUERLEIN, The Times-Union
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Kurt Peterson maneuvers a 1/35 scale model of a hovercraft he is building at his company's facility in Green Cove Springs. The finished vessel will be 100 feet long and 50 feet wide.
JON M. FLETCHER/The Times-Union
Kurt Peterson looks at the St. Johns River and sees a waterway that could be the equivalent of a highway through Northeast Florida.

Instead of traveling by car on crowded roads, people would board fast-moving hovercraft boats that whiz along on a cushion of air so the bottom of the boat is 2 to 8 feet off the water. A ride from Orange Park to downtown Jacksonville would take about 20 minutes, and it would be smooth enough for someone to drink a cup of coffee without fear of a spill, he said.

"I call them time machines because they're going to save you time," said Peterson, who runs a Green Cove Springs company that builds the watercraft. "They're going to get you from one place to another faster than any other form of transportation. How much is it worth to you to travel in a time machine?"

Regional transportation officials are asking the same question. The Jacksonville Transportation Authority will work with the First Coast Metropolitan Planning Organization on a $150,000 study of how to use the St. Johns River for transit via boats. The study will probably begin in early 2006 and finish by the end of the year, JTA officials said.

The agency previously did a study in 1992 that concluded there would not be enough passengers to justify the expense of setting up and operating river-based transit. The study determined that a 35-mile route on the St. Johns River would attract 229 passengers during rush-hour.

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Kurt Peterson, CEO of Atlas Hovercraft Inc. in Green Cove Springs, with a lightweight carbon fiber propeller from a hovercraft.

 

 

 

 

The upcoming study will see if boats are more viable now, said JTA spokesman Mike Miller.

"We'll be looking at demographic change, we'll be looking at population shifts, we'll be looking at what kind of demand there is for waterborne transportation and how far [along the river] that demand goes," he said.

Jacksonville does have some water-oriented transit. A ferry crosses the St. Johns River in Mayport and water taxis serve downtown. Jacksonville officials have discussed expanding water taxi routes to eco-tourism destinations in the Timucuan Preserve.

Part of the push for looking at a more regional approach to river-based transit has come from Clay County, where suburban growth is putting more pressure on already crowded U.S. 17 and Blanding Boulevard. Clay County Planning Director Thad Crowe said as traffic gets worse, commuters will want other options. He said the idea of using hovercraft boats is intriguing.

"It just sounds so space-age," he said.

Miller said the JTA study will examine hovercrafts, along with other types of boats.

 

Peterson, who founded ATLAS Hovercraft at Reynolds Industrial Park in March, said there is a worldwide market for hovercraft. The military is a big purchaser of such boats, along with police and fire departments who use the boats for search and rescue missions.

Peterson said he envisions the $3 million boats traversing the river, each with room for 60 passengers and equipped with bathrooms, snack bars and outlets for passengers to plug in laptop computers. Hovercrafts have a reputation for raucous noise from their engines, but Peterson said the latest models are quiet enough that passengers wouldn't have to raise their voices to be heard.

He touted hovercraft boats at a regional transportation meeting organized a few weeks ago by U.S. Rep. John Mica, R-Fla. "You never have to fill a pothole in the river," Peterson said.

The upcoming study will see if boats are more viable now, said JTA spokesman Mike Miller.

"We'll be looking at demographic change, we'll be looking at population shifts, we'll be looking at what kind of demand there is for waterborne transportation and how far [along the river] that demand goes," he said.

Jacksonville does have some water-oriented transit. A ferry crosses the St. Johns River in Mayport and water taxis serve downtown. Jacksonville officials have discussed expanding water taxi routes to eco-tourism destinations in the Timucuan Preserve.

Part of the push for looking at a more regional approach to river-based transit has come from Clay County, where suburban growth is putting more pressure on already crowded U.S. 17 and Blanding Boulevard. Clay County Planning Director Thad Crowe said as traffic gets worse, commuters will want other options. He said the idea of using hovercraft boats is intriguing.

"It just sounds so space-age," he said.

Miller said the JTA study will examine hovercrafts, along with other types of boats.

Peterson, who founded ATLAS Hovercraft at Reynolds Industrial Park in March, said there is a worldwide market for hovercraft. The military is a big purchaser of such boats, along with police and fire departments who use the boats for search and rescue missions.

Peterson said he envisions the $3 million boats traversing the river, each with room for 60 passengers and equipped with bathrooms, snack bars and outlets for passengers to plug in laptop computers. Hovercrafts have a reputation for raucous noise from their engines, but Peterson said the latest models are quiet enough that passengers wouldn't have to raise their voices to be heard.

He touted hovercraft boats at a regional transportation meeting organized a few weeks ago by U.S. Rep. John Mica, R-Fla. "You never have to fill a pothole in the river," Peterson said.