Jacksonville: One of America's Least Walkable Cities

[Scrub Palmetto]

Forgive me for reading between the lines here, but maybe a city whose Main Street has a "fast lane" deserves a 'blame the automobile' mentality.

[thelakelander]

IMO it would be a complete waste of money to build sidewalks in deep suburban areas, for the sake of boosting up a walkscore right now (Southside Blvd etc); Maybe way in the future would be a better time. You might see an occasional jogger on a new hypothetical Southside Blvd sidewalk, that's about it. IMO the slacking areas around the core with foot traffic should be a top priority.

I happen to own a condo right off Southside and I totally disagree. When I bike from there, it involves me first putting it in the back of the truck and driving to a safer area of town to bike.  Sorry, I don't trust that white shoulder line to protect me from 45mph drivers texting, talking on their phones and putting make-up on.

There are thousands of multifamily units on Southside and there's a rapidly growing population that walks to nearby retail and places of employment.  Next time you're down, check out the area around Southside (south of the I-95 flyover) and Philips (near Avenues) where there are no sidewalks or crosswalks along wide highways lined with more retail square footage than downtown Jax could ever dream about realistically having. Goat's paths everywhere.  Totally unacceptable for a city the size of Jacksonville in the 21st century.


You literally have to get in your car to drive from BOA's complex to adjacent restaurants, groceries, residences, and retail because there are no sidewalks or crosswalks.


Oh, and this beauty that FDOT is currently spending millions to repave. No sidewalks, no crosswalks and too many roadway lanes to logically count. I guess it's against the law to consider walking from Avenues Mall to Walmart or Latitude 30 across the street.

With all of that said, Southside would greatly benefit from a separated multi-use path running the length of the street, at least from Philips to Beach Boulevard.  Given the highway's width, the number of residential units and the amount of retail/office space, it would get more use than you can imagine for a suburban area.

[thelakelander]

IMO it would be a complete waste of money to build sidewalks in deep suburban areas, for the sake of boosting up a walkscore right now (Southside Blvd etc); Maybe way in the future would be a better time. You might see an occasional jogger on a new hypothetical Southside Blvd sidewalk, that's about it. IMO the slacking areas around the core with foot traffic should be a top priority.

I missed the part I just highlighted in bold above.  It's not an either/or situation. Southside is a FDOT facility.  Most FDOT roads in the urban core already have sidewalks.  Upgrading missing links in the urban core primarily falls on COJ and their roadways. With that said, money for improving both with bike/ped facilities was included in the mobility plan.  Now that we're finally collecting mobility fees, there should be funds in a couple of years to make some decent improvements citywide.

[Scrub Palmetto]

Lake, over the past few months I've been slowly creating a map of the sidewalks of Jacksonville, completing (so far) the area bounded by the river and the old East Florida Railroad to the north/east and 103rd St and I-295 to the south/west (this includes Riverside, Avondale, Murray Hill, Woodstock, Lakeshore, etc.) I'll make a large post about it with lots of screenshots within the next week.

Despite showing only a portion of the city, the map really highlights how incomplete streets aren't just in Jacksonville's post-WWII rings of development, as large swaths of the core are severely lacking a complete or even useful network of pedestrian paths well into 100 years of their existence. Even as a native I was pretty surprised by the results. There is NO way that that has a negligible effect on the rate of automobile-pedestrian incidents, or the general culture of pedestrians fending for themselves and thwarting the rules, as the infrastructure is a huge let-down to anyone who tries to follow them anyway. That culture has generations and decades behind it, and the high pedestrian fatality rate is not just people being stupid -- pedestrians nor drivers -- as you can expect that to contribute to a relatively flat rate countrywide. The design and completeness of the pedestrian network plays a huge part, and Jax's is a mess.

* I can say from experience that design affects behavior. I walk everywhere, and I'm someone who likes to follow rules. But I find that the more incomplete or more car-centric an area I'm walking, the more I'm compelled to 'make my own path' even when I don't necessarily have to, as the area just doesn't feel designed with my needs in mind to begin with. Sidewalks and crossings truly feel like an afterthought in certain roadway designs. This is especially obvious during road construction, when the sidewalks are the first things closed, but car traffic is kept flowing at almost all costs, complete with warnings and detours. Pedestrians are left in the dark, with no signs directing them around or warning them of the closure ahead. Most opt to just cut through the construction zone, and how anyone can expect otherwise is a mystery to me. This has been a big problem in parts of KC lately.

[thelakelander]

^I have a citywide GIS sidewalk inventory map I made for the planning department back in 2011.  It shows all sidewalks at the time as color coded by existing (green) or proposed (blue). A second map illustrates all gaps in the network in red.  We utilized this information to identify corridors to connect the city's overall sidewalk network via mobility fee funded projects.  I also did one for the city's bike facilities network. The shapefiles are on a disk that I'll have to dig up and convert over to a jpeg graphic to upload.  I'll put it on my list of things to do tomorrow (later today). I also made an attribute table that includes data listing sidewalk coverage (ex. sidewalk on one side of street, sidewalks on both sides, etc.) at the block level.  All I can say is we have a ton of streets and a lot more that are permitted but not yet constructed.  That contract took a few months to finish.

[Scrub Palmetto]

Cool. I figured something like that already existed, but it was a fun project to work on. I just used satellite/aerial and Google Street view imagery and tried to include gaps as small as a few feet, also excluding sidewalks that were overgrown beyond recognition.

[I-10east]

Forgive me for reading between the lines here, but maybe a city whose Main Street has a "fast lane" deserves a 'blame the automobile' mentality.

I referred to the left lane as the fast lane, and the right lane is the slow like many drivers do. Faster traffic normally pass on the left, simple as that; That doesn't mean you have to speed. Not unless that you think that every urban street should be a two-lane road. Hell, why have any streets at all? Just make everything into sidewalks and bike lanes...

[simms3]

Forgive me for reading between the lines here, but maybe a city whose Main Street has a "fast lane" deserves a 'blame the automobile' mentality.

I referred to the fast lane is the left lane, and the slow lane is the right like many drivers do. Faster traffic normally pass on the left, simple as that; That doesn't mean you have to speed. Not unless that you think that every urban street should be a two-lane road. Hell, why have any streets at all? Just make everything into sidewalks and bike lanes...

You just proved everyone's point.  Regardless of left lane/right lane, the fact alone that you have the attitude that the left lane on lil' ol' Main Street is the "fast lane" is very indicative of why Jax/FL is so behind in this arena.  A 4-lane, 2-way URBAN street should not have a "fast lane", whether in practice or figuratively.

Now can we talk about how fortunate you are that you are even allowed to post on MetroJacksonville still?  By definition, you are a complete and total troll.  Now please get a life and move along, elsewhere.

Mods?  Ban.  Now.

[I-10east]

^^Man, you're tripping hard. Keep on hating....

[I-10east]

You just proved everyone's point.  Regardless of left lane/right lane, the fact alone that you have the attitude that the left lane on lil' ol' Main Street is the "fast lane" is very indicative of why Jax/FL is so behind in this arena.  A 4-lane, 2-way URBAN street should not have a "fast lane", whether in practice or figuratively.

Fast lane, left lane; sofa, couch; football, pigskin...Do you have to be THAT anal? Calling for someone's BAN just because you disagree with me? Seriously? You're the true troll...

[I-10east]

^^^I'm not falling for your ticky-tac 'trying to get me all riled up' style trolling. Why do you always got to butt in all of the time?

[I-10east]

^^^Please stop with the condescending 'know it all' stuff Stephen, because I made some valid points on the top post of the earlier page. Notice I didn't argue with Lake at all, because he doesn't provoke arguments; Just like I didn't provoke one. I said that MANY (not all) think that Jax has a 'Home of Pedestrian Death' slogan, and I'm entitled to believe that; The truth hurts.  Scrub Palmetto said an opinion, then I said mine, albeit sarcastically only because you people are taking this 'fast lane/passing lane/left lane' synonyms WAY too anally. Main St is not a NASCAR speedway. I don't even wanna talk about Simms, or even acknowledge him; Hopefully he does the same vice-versa. 

[I-10east]

^^^I can tell how fast you post that it's manufactured negativity. Stay trolling Stephen...

[Lunican]

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - A 35-year-old man was struck crossing San Jose Boulevard near Hartley Road early Tuesday afternoon

The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office said a man in his 30s was struck by a northbound SUV about 2:45 p.m. while crossing the six-lane road outside of a crosswalk just north of Interstate 295.

http://www.news4jax.com/news/pedestrian-hit-by-car-on-san-jose-boulevard/-/475880/23271106/-/11qgdpw/-/index.html

Why did he cross the street 'outside of a crosswalk'? Answer: http://goo.gl/maps/L7dZu

[Lunican]

Here is a spot that could have easily been a crosswalk, but instead they just put up green arrows.  http://goo.gl/maps/1KQul