Is it time to replace Metropolitan Park?

[peestandingup]

I was at Rockville. It was fine and fun

Rockville went on the same time as Cole Pepper's BBQ event at the Jaguar facilities. I definitely heard the F-bombs a number of times, and there were kids at this family event. Not family entertainment when you have to explain what the "singer" is spewing.....

Then do what parents do & explain to them its bad words they're not supposed to say.

You can't censor the world, especially when you're out in public.

[mtraininjax]

You can't censor the world, especially when you're out in public.

I never said censor the world, if you re-read my prior post, I suggested that Rockville belongs at a different venue, perhaps one such as the Fairgrounds, where it had been in the past.

I agree with the St. Nicholas residents with regard to Rockville, it is not a family friendly show, so why subject people around it to the vulgarity? You should not have to flee your house from obscenities being blasted across the river into your living room. Rockville, in its form last year, does not belong in Met Park.

they dont have to hear the word in movies, music or school.

Love the Sarcasm Stephen, its Monday, remember, and parents do a better job of qualifying the content on shows watched or the movies. Parents are not naive, but they don't need to hear it 10x in a minute when they are at a park or at a local event. If it were acceptable, why not drop the F bomb at the city meetings you attend? I'd love to view the public records of your rants using profanity. You'll be popular!

[thelakelander]

I'm a fly on the wall but why the Fairgrounds instead of Metropolitan Park?  So the Eastside can be impacted by what some in the St. Nicholas complain about? 

[Tacachale]

I'm a fly on the wall but why the Fairgrounds instead of Metropolitan Park?  So the Eastside can be impacted by what some in the St. Nicholas complain about?

The eastside, apparently isnt entitled to TUFSU's right to silence.

If you think about it, special noise zones should be set up (and put under a glass dome, where applicable) in areas which are well......more suitable for the impacts of noise.

We will have to ignore the highways, roads, trains and boats coursing through the entire city, but if you pretend not to hear it, its almost exactly the same thing.

I was going to say that. The Fairgrounds is closer to a residential area than Metro Park. As in, it's basically across the street, rather than across a major river.

Are we actually worried about the volume of the sound, or just the volume of the complaints?

[fieldafm]

Warped Tour has been held at the Fairgrounds in the past, not Welcome to Rockville. 

What is being ignored by some posters, is that the last Welcome to Rockville event had a max sound measurement of 70 dBA which was under the legal limit set forth in the existing ordinance... so, in fact the concert was within the legal guidelines.

While we are banning things, a horn from a train woke me up at 4AM this morning (true story).  I usually get up at 5AM, however b/c of the train horn... I woke up early and couldnt go back to sleep, therfore losing an hour of precious rest.  My productivity has been vastly compromised which in turn affects my ability to earn an honest living and thereby feed my family.  I demand COJ ban train horns and compensate me for this egregious violation of my rights b/c trains obviously aren't family friendly.

I also want the upcoming Country Superfest scrutinized with a fine toothed comb decibal meter b/c singing about marital struggles in country music songs is also not family friendly and I will not stand for it!  My children should only know that a marriage functions with excellence 100% of the time.  What kind of family values are we teaching our children if we tell them that sometimes, mommy and daddy have to work on their relationship?!? 


The City is spending a little over $100k to study stage and speaker configurations that would minimize noise impacts at MetroPark.  Seems prudent that Council should wait on those findings before doing anything.

[Tacachale]

^Well said, Field.

[MEGATRON]

Locomotives are exempted from the existing noise ordinance.  Railroads evidently have a stronger lobbying force than Rock 105.

[tufsu1]

While we are banning things, a horn from a train woke me up at 4AM this morning (true story).  I usually get up at 5AM, however b/c of the train horn... I woke up early and couldnt go back to sleep, therfore losing an hour of precious rest.  My productivity has been vastly compromised which in turn affects my ability to earn an honest living and thereby feed my family.  I demand COJ ban train horns and compensate me for this egregious violation of my rights b/c trains obviously aren't family friendly.

don't joke,...this is a problem in many communities and they work with the freight railroads on mitigation measures....in fact, several neighborhoods in south Florida are now concerned about the increased horns from the All Aboard Florida trains...they are pushing their communities to install gates at all crossings so the horn blowing can be minimized.

[fieldafm]

Obviously you missed the sarcasm.

I hear train horns at all hours of the day and night (sometimes, if the wind is right they shake my bedroom windows). I hear the horn raising the Ortega River Bridge all the time.  When the fireworks go off like they did Friday and Saturday, my dog got scared.  Niether of these things are worth complaining about and getting politicians to ban them.

At the last Welcome to Rockville concert, the person measuring sound levels noted that ambient noise from nearby birds actually registered higher decibel levels than the concert across the river.  His words, not mine.

Yet, one concert is grounds for a HUGE resource like Metro Park to be left to sit dormant?  When will we learn that it's probably better to stop ignoring what we already have instead of talking about Aquariams and a boat that is on the verge of becoming an artificial reef (which may actually get more use as a reef)?

[Dog Walker]

In the late '90's, the last time the noise from the Park was an issue, I stood on the bulkhead on the riverbank in St. Nicholas and measured 92dba from the sound of the music coming from the football stadium.  That level over a period of time will cause damage to your ears.  You could not carry on a conversation with someone standing next to you.

I measured over 75dba in a neighbor's bedroom.  That's louder than an average city street with traffic going by.

Conditions were perfect for sound propagation; there were low clouds, a light wind from the West and no ripples on the water.

Sound walls don't work over that distance either.  They only throw a sound shadow a fairly small multiple of their height.  A 20' high sound wall only protects about 200 feet beyond it.

The residents of San Marco and St. Nicholas are not asking for silence.  They are just asking not to be unable to talk or hear their television sets inside their own homes for hours on end.  Just the right to "quiet enjoyment" of their residences like everybody else.

[fieldafm]

That's fine... so then what is the problem with these measured figures?

What is being ignored by some posters, is that the last Welcome to Rockville event had a max sound measurement of 70 dBA which was under the legal limit set forth in the existing ordinance... so, in fact the concert was within the legal guidelines.

At the last Welcome to Rockville concert, the person measuring sound levels noted that ambient noise from nearby birds actually registered higher decibel levels than the concert across the river.  His words, not mine.

Seems like at any given time, birds being birds in nearby trees were louder than the concert across the river.  A concert in which the promoter reconfigured the stage and brought in some sound attenuatoin measures.

Sounds like there maybe a workable solution somewhere in there where the venue can finally be used to its potential instead of Jacksonville missing the cash machines going instead to St Augustine, Tampa and West Palm Beach instead? 

[Dog Walker]

I'll bet a good acoustic engineer could come up with a speaker configuration that would eliminate the problem of sound projecting across the river without reducing the concert experience.  But then each act would have to agree to use that particular sound system rather than using their own.  Would they agree to do that?

I'm sure there is a good solution that would not involve everyone in the audience wearing radio headphones.  Although I'd travel to see such a concert; everyone gyrating and waving in total silence.   

[sheclown]

I think hypocrisy is by far more obscene than some effin' cuss word.

[sheclown]

It was a great time for downtown:

Get real Jacksonville.

[Tacachale]

A modern amphitheater would definitely be able to control sound projection better than the open bandshell that's there now. That's something that should have been built in the 90s and we should look into again. In the meantime, though, we shouldn't invent ways to *not* have events in Jacksonville just to appease a few. Determine reasonable measures for sound levels and time, stand by them and then step back.