JTA's St. Johns River Ferry Ridership Increasing
The Jacksonville Transportation Authority (JTA) published April 2017 ridership figures that reveal a positive trend in ridership growth for the St. Johns River Ferry. The St. Johns River Ferry had the best two-month period in the last 17 years in March and April.
“The Authority recently launched a new ridership campaign called TryTransit,” said Nathaniel Ford Sr., JTA’s chief executive officer. “The Initiative is designed to encourage choice riders to try a mode of public transit for the first time and current customers to ride more frequently.”
March 31, 2017 marked the one-year anniversary since the JTA assumed ownership and operations of the St. Johns River Ferry. The ferry provided 48,718 trips in March 2017 and 48,923 trips in April 2017, the highest since JTA assumed operations.
In the past year, JTA completed a number of visual improvements to the Fort George and Mayport Village landings, including enhanced landscaping, fresh paint and upgrades to temporary bathrooms and sidewalks. The Authority also integrated the MyJTA mobile ticketing application to allow ferry customers to purchase daily fare (pedestrian, motorcycles, cars/vans/trucks, vehicles over 20 feet and buses/RVs) with the convenience of their mobile device.
The St. Johns River Ferry connects the north and south ends of Florida State Road A1A with daily service between Mayport Village and Ft. George Island across the St. Johns River. It operates Monday through Friday from 6 a.m. to 7:15 p.m. and weekends from 7 a.m. to 8:45 p.m. The 0.9 mile voyage departs every half hour.
