JTA COO Jeffrey Smith(center) discusses changes being made to their Connexion Plus program during an authority town meeting at The Legends Center. | Dan Scanlan, Jacksonville Today
Published on January 13, 2026 at 3:48 pm
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The Jacksonville Transportation Authority will continue a door-to-door ride service that transports customers with disabilities, reversing a proposal that received pushback from customers.
Instead, starting on Feb. 1, Connexion Plus passengers will see a fare hike that will be based on miles traveled, plus a new limit of 40 trips per month. The new paratransit fare structure, which the city’s transportation agency says is necessary to cover increased costs, will stay in place for a six-month pilot period, then get reviewed by a JTA task force.
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The decision to keep the ride-share program comes after protests heard at last week’s town meetings, where JTA initially proposed ending the single-rider service and continuing only a multi-passenger Connexion service.
“We really spent the entire weekend working to develop a solution, and I think we have a good compromise here for the next six months during this pilot program that we can evaluate,” JTA CEO Nat Ford said during a town hall on Tuesday at The Legends Center in Northwest Jacksonville.
“We heard the stories of our Connexion Plus customers, those who use it directly, but what was really touching was the parents who have children who use Connexion Plus. They may be disabled children who are working at a Publix, or they are working at some fast food facility,” Ford said.
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Connexion Plus is available to people certified as disabled under the Americans with Disabilities Act or Transportation Disadvantaged program. It operates from 5 a.m. to 11 p.m. every day. Customers needing its private ride service can call the JTA at (904) 404-0848 at least two hours before desired pickup time.
A ‘temporary patch’?
Susan Peters, CEO of PossAbilities Plus, which works with community organizations to provide job training for people with special needs, learned that the program was going to be cut last week. With news that it will be retained and revised, she tells Jacksonville Today that Connexion Plus has longstanding issues with on-time performance and quality of service for individuals with disabilities, and the trial program “is a temporary patch in a bigger problem.”
“If they can’t afford it now, they are not going to be able to afford it at that price, and we will be looking at the same problems in six month,” she says. “They have already eliminated some of the jobs of the drivers, so that will be putting a problem in that area with not enough drivers to pick up our individuals. We know that they have not increased the number of the small buses and the drivers to cover that load. And where are the additional funds coming from to keep this going?”
JTA officials say they’ve made improvements to the regular Connexion service, like offering same-day reservations. Those can be made by calling (904) 265-6999, or emailing reservation@jtafla.com. And after passenger complaints about on-time performance and reliability of Connexion service, JTA says on-time performance has risen to 93% in recent years.
Connexion Plus history and changes
JTA started offering Connexion Plus in 2019, offering same-day service. Company officials say the average customer pays less than they would using a private ride-share service like Uber. JTA also offers a Connexion paratransit bus service, whose passengers share rides.
The current Connexion Plus fare structure is $6 for the first 15 miles, then $2 per mile. The new fares as of Feb. 1 jump to $10 for the first 8 miles, then $3.50 for each additional mile. The new fare structure has a maximum of 40 trips per month, versus unlimited, JTA says.
While some Connexion Plus customers use it for combined trips of 100 miles per month, JTA officials say 96% of existing Connexion Plus riders took fewer than 40 trips per month.
JTA says cost is the main reason for initially planning to cancel Connexion Plus. The program is projected to cost about $8 million this year, up from $6.3 million in 2025. The agency subsidizes about 75% of it, and will continue to do so at that level, it said.
The demand for single daily trips has far outgrown expectations, Ford said.
Connexion Plus is a same-day rideshare service offered by JTA, but run by a third-party company, UZURV. | JTA
The Connexion Plus fare change comes just under a month after the JTA board of directors approved temporarily lower fares for bus rides at the same time. Fixed-route buses will drop from $1.75 per trip to $1; express fares will go from $2.75 to $1.50; and the NAVI autonomous shuttles on Downtown’s Bay Street will be free again.
As the new Connexion Plus fares go into effect, a task force made up of JTA board members will review its passenger and mileage numbers, along with the rest of the system, Ford said.
“Fill up the vehicles with our citizens using JTA, and we will be able to be in the black,” Ford said. “We will examine this over the next six months, and if we see that it is unfortunately not going in the right direction, we will make adjustments.”
