The Southside: Jacksonville's First Edge City

[second_pancake]

I live and work out here.  Actually, you got a picture of the building I work in and the gym I work-out at...alas, no picture of me though.  You must have taken these pics on a weekend.  We high-tail it for downtown when Friday rolls around

You are so right about the area being built for cars.  If I'm not riding my bike to work, I'm walking to work.  I live about 3 miles away (take the 'long' route down Baymeadows to Gate Parkway then to Deerwood when riding), and the sidewalks seem to go nowhere, and the crosswalk signals don't seem to work at all.  If you stand at the corner of Deerwood and Southside and push the crosswalk button, you'll stand there for a good 20 minutes before the light changes to allow you to cross and even then you only have about 5 seconds to make it over 8 lanes of traffic.  This also makes it impossible to safely ride my bike the short way to work as I either have to ride the service road along Southside to the point that it ends then I can jump on the sidewalk, get into the road at Deerwood and wait to cross Southside....another 20 minutes.  My only other option is to take the service road heading south and ride with traffic to make a left turn onto Southside then ride the shoulder.  This works until you get close to Deerwood where everyone creeps over the white line onto the shoulder.  I usually ride my cyclocross bike when riding this route as it allows me to jump off the road into the dirt then onto the sidewalk to keep from getting pinched at the turn.  I actually have made it to work faster this way then when driving my car.

With new roads being built there have been bike lanes added and sidewalks in certain areas, but like I said earlier, they all seem to go nowhere...not unlike Deerwood Park Blvd. itself.  There's no rhyme or reason behind anything, just, ok, we have to put in a new road so be sure to put a bike lane on it and add a sidewalk.  Try walking or running anywhere on Deerwood Park Blvd. itself and you'll find on more than one occasion, the sidewalk completely ends, turns into high-pile turf and then picks up again somewhere on the other side of the road (this happens especially on the Centurian loop).  Think this was all a product of poor planning in the past?  Sorry.  Take a look at the new Nemours building on the corner.  I noticed a few weeks ago they added a sidewalk and I was ecstatic.  No more having to run in the road.  Finally, they made a connection in the sidewalk.  Wrong.  The sidewalk is set back about 4 feet from where the existing sidewalk runs and doesn't even tie into it.  It's like the Nemours exclusive sidewalk or something.  Very strange.

[Steve]

Let me guess - is the sidewalk curvy for the sake of being curvy?  I guess that's something that looked good on a drawing, but it proves that it is there for leisure walkers, and not designed to be functional.

[thelakelander]

From experience in the field, in most cases, the "curvy" aspect is done because it looks good on paper, not because of functional purposes.

[kBasarab]

Sim City was one of the best games.  Though I never got into it as much after SC2000.  I do have 4 around somewhere... hmmm...Might have to install that one again. 

[reednavy]

I have yet to really get good st SC4, its the hardes one yet!