Guest Series: Carmen Godwin

[CityLife]

Fantastic piece.

Hopefully RAP can harness its political capital and get the city/JTA to consider some transit options for R/A and the Urban Core. With all of the businesses in R/A, San Marco, DT, and Riverside Avenue its the perfect opportunity to see a "public-private partnership" at work.

And much respect to Carmen for going car free.

[thelakelander]

Here are a few images of bikeway infrastructure I've come across in other cities:

Washington, DC - Residential streets have been converted to one way corridors to accommodate additional on-street parking and safer bicycle routes (routes typically parallel commercial corridors with heavy automobile traffic).


St. Petersburg, FL - Roadway lanes have been removed along this corridor to provide stronger connectivity between downtown and the Pinellas Trail (rails to trails corridor).  I'd like to see something like this happen in our downtown.  After all, it's not like we have a rush hour.



Deland, FL - Squeezing in an 8' wide bikeway along the ROW of an inner city residential street.



Long Beach, CA - Separated bicycle lanes, traffic signals for bikes to cross busy arterial roadways, and a bike station at their intermodal center.







Tampa - Reducing roadway lane widths to create space for bicycles.





Detroit - a multiuse path for bikes and pedestrians while leaving ROW for future LRT/Streetcar.

[Bativac]

To keep the thread on track

I have been riding my bike two-three times a week for quite awhile... but since Carmen has started this endeavour, I have been starting to ride more often-especially in the evening hours.  I actually just bought a new bike that is more accomodating to daily use.

It's made me realize though, how difficult it is to ride a bike without dedicated lanes and a driving population that is EXTREMELY hostile towards cyclists.  At the Monday Night game a few weeks ago, actually had a guy almost run into me(b/c he didn't look before he turned, as I clearly had right of way and he had a stop sign to inconveniently adhere to) and then start yelling at me for being a menance to society.  Also had an old man yell at me for being a hoodlum terrorizing motorists on Grand Ave while riding to my dad's house.  Notwithstanding the fact that I was riding as close to the shoulder as is humanly possible and have the right to use the thoroughfare, nor that I hardly look like a hoodlum coming to rob the vulnerable residents of Ortega.

^This is why it will be important for the city to implement context sensitive streets and complete streets policies for future roadway design.  They should also be implemented with routine roadway resurfacing and reconstruction projects.  Working downtown, you realize the lack of respect drivers have for pedestrians as well.  On several occasions, I've held people back from being mowed over by drivers making right turns while pedestrians are crossing the street.  I've had to explain to people that this is Jacksonville, just because the walk now light is on, its still a bad ideal to assume the drivers are going to allow you to cross.

This is a huge problem in Jax - most people are openly hostile to pedestrians and bicyclists. I've ridden in parts of town that have "bike lanes" and decided it's just safer on the sidewalk (or in my wife's truck with the bikes in the back). I've never lived or ridden my bike anyplace else where people in cars would actually throw stuff at you, speed up to try to intimidate you, yell at you from their windows, etc.

Just one of those things that makes Jacksonville "unique" I guess.

[fieldafm]

There are some bicycle/pedestrian projects in the Mobility Plan, and I am really getting on board with your context sensitive streets push... that, plus the land use modifications to match up with Mobility all really go hand in hand with each other.

What really strikes me about the Dequindre Cut is that this can be easily replicated in Jacksonville. By connecting the S Line rail-to-trail with the Hogans Creek Greenway, which can be extended further down as a low impact multi-use trail on city owned land South of the Matthews Bridge connector along the creek basin that could eventually be tied into the Riverwalk(whic then connects to the wide sidewalks along Main Street Bridge and then along the bike lanes on Hendricks) and a restriping of Monroe to create a bike lane connecting this path to the Core of the city(along what could be the two main pedestrian-centric arteries of downtown-Monroe and Laura).  You could connect Durkeeville, Springfield, Downtown, San Marco and Riverside together in an actual network dedicated for pedestrians and cyclists.  Any day of the week, you can see people running and biking along these areas... but they are still isolated from each other.  Why not connect the dots?

Although some(without doing the research) would say that this vision would be a large capital improvement project.. it really isn't.  Funding is there for a lot of it, existing infrastructure is there for other parts of it and the rest can come from restriping(there is work slated to be done near Confederate on state roadways) and private sources. 

When you just simply look at a map, and do some digging in the capital improvement budget... it isn't hard to see how this can happen.

[Abhishek]

Here are a few images of bikeway infrastructure I've come across in other cities:

Washington, DC - Residential streets have been converted to one way corridors to accommodate additional on-street parking and safer bicycle routes (routes typically parallel commercial corridors with heavy automobile traffic).

Bicycling facilities such as these are actually quite dangerous. The bike lane is inside the 'door zone'...so when a motorist opens the door from within, the bicyclist stands to collide with it. We have this problem along Hendricks in San Marco (across Jack Rabbits).

I have tried living car free for about a year (2008 - 2009) and had to find more 'normal' (internal combustion propelled) methods of transportation to keep my sanity. I was living in Southside back then. There is a long way to go before the motorists will change their outlook towards cyclists. In my experience, the ones that are particularly abusive are a minority but enough in numbers to dissuade anyone.

To promote alternate means of transportation, Jacksonville needs a change in its culture and outlook towards transportation. This does not happen overnight and requires careful, intelligent and long term planning.

[thelakelander]

What really strikes me about the Dequindre Cut is that this can be easily replicated in Jacksonville.

Yes, the Dequindre Cut example is what should be done with the S-Line all the way up to Gateway Mall.


City owned S-Line ROW in New Town.

[thelakelander]

Bicycling facilities such as these are actually quite dangerous. The bike lane is inside the 'door zone'...so when a motorist opens the door from within, the bicyclist stands to collide with it. We have this problem along Hendricks in San Marco (across Jack Rabbits).

I believe the Hendricks bike lanes are 4' wide.  The optimal preferred width for a bike lane is 6'.  In many areas, in our urban core, it is possible to add bike lanes while also setting aside space for 'door zones'.   Door zones were not accounted for with Hendricks because there was no policy in place to design that facility in a context sensitive manner where bike and pedestrian modes are treated equally to the automobile/truck mode.  If that were the case, that strip would not have a suicide (continuous center turn) lane.  Instead that additional 12' would be given to improving the design conditions/widths of the bike/ped modes.   

[Tacachale]

The JTA gave us a test, a trial run, to see if we could increase ridership, and we failed â€" our community just didn’t support it.

Would like to add to this... unfortunately JTA did not give this trial a fair playing field that would be useful in attracting choice riders.  The reasons have been discussed ad nauseum here, but I refuse to go so far as to say that the community WOULD not support the trolley... if the trolley was a halfway VIABLE alternative.

I could walk to destinations (3-4 miles) quicker than taking the trolley off-peak hours and Saturdays. 

And it is no small coincidence that 3 of the 5 highest ridership days the route ever had was connected to EVENING hour Art Walk events. 

I think the efforts did in fact work in limited capacities, but those limited successes further proved the need to make the service more convenient to choice riders in order to grow the route... instead of vice versa.  Furthermore, the success of MetroJax's Pub Crawls further prove this point.

I refuse to give up advancing the conversation b/c of the death of the Riverside Trolley.  IMO, it's death adds fuel to the fire.

For whatever reason people would rather focus on instances where things didn't work out and then just abandon projects entirely, rather than studying instances where it worked and finding ways to emulate the success. They'd rather not even look at elements of the current system that work reasonably well; it either works perfectly the first time or it's scrapped.

[thelakelander]

^I still say the key to mass transit in Riverside is not to treat the community as an isolated place when it comes to planning.  We've been doing that in downtown for decades and we see how well that has worked out.  Yes, the neighborhood has 15,000 residents or so, but what about if by streamlining existing transit operations, we could increase the market served to over 100,000 residents? 

This can be done by treating Riverside as one of many destinations along a transit spine stretching into downtown.  Where ever it ends, funnel all Westside bus routes into it, instead of having them all go into downtown.  This will do a few things simultaneously:

1. Relieve Riverside's growing parking congestion situation.

2. Reduce the frequency of bus routes on an entire side of town.

3. Streamlining bus operations creates addition funds for annual maintenance of this transit spine.

4. Transit spine creates economic infill development opportunities in Five Points, Brooklyn, LaVilla, and Downtown.  This will relieve the pressure of large scale infill development targeting limited commercial sites in Riverside, since the area would still be served by development in Brooklyn and the Five Points urban transition zone.

5. Transit line feeds riders into the skyway, which would serve as an integrated downtown circulator.

6. Transit capital costs are shared by a larger segment of the community, allowing a place like Riverside to focus on

[Dashing Dan]

Carmen needs to start wearing a helmet.

[kwalker]

Carmen, what a great article.  You are an inspiration to everyone in your community.  Congrats on becoming a role model that people can look up to....I knew back in junior high that one day you would do big things. 

[JeffreyS]

Carmen I wouldn't accept JTA's faux trolley as a test of good transit at it's very best it is a gimmick. I don't mind gimmicks they can be fun but should not be taken seriously in any relation to fixed transit. Perhaps as a test for expanded bus service they may have some use.

[NoCarMan]

Thanks for all of the support!

Yes, I should wear a helmet. The streets are not safe for cyclists. In fact, I often cringe as cars ride by at night just hoping the driver isn't texting or searching for Back in Black on their ipod. Jacksonville needs to do a better job in making the streets safer and with our transit system. More people need to get involved and become active in the process in order to make those things a reality.

I do want to say that although we have pushed hard for JTA to get creative with increasing discretionary ridership, and I have been critical at times about the lack of commitment there, their focus should be on making transit reliable and timely for those who rely upon it. Discretionary ridership should be secondary and so I sometimes feel guilty for trying to pull resources away from those who truly need better service.

As for the transit spine, what is the likelihood that that will happen given the current politics and organizations involved. What would it take to make it a reality?

[dougskiles]

As for the transit spine, what is the likelihood that that will happen given the current politics and organizations involved. What would it take to make it a reality?

Perhaps this would be a good time for TransformJax to give us an update.  I understand that a streetcar is next on their radar.

[north miami]

Recently I listened in complete attention to an Orange Park resident describe,in complete mile by mile detail,multi mile Clay County US 17,220,Doctor Lake Route.In my friend's case,use primarily 'recreational/health' application yet profound.

yes Carmen- helmut,suit of armor,plates of righteousness,hedge of thorns,Dark Helmut,whatever, stay safe......we need you.

weather condition wise,we reside..........and ride.........in the very best region North America offers.

think I will take a lap through Boone's Park......

onward