US-Nigeria Soccer Friendly in Jax Announcement

[Steve]

The flow was different than I had seen previously. Coming from San Marco, it took about 45 minutes from the base of the Main St bridge to get to our seats. Normally, I can do about half that from Riverside.

[urbanlibertarian]

Did JTA have shuttles?  Was reserved parking offered with ticket sales?  Did anyone patronize DT restaurants/bars before or after the event?

[fsquid]

I parked at MOSH and hiked the 2.1 miles to the stadium.  Took 35 minutes from seat to car after the match and then an easy zoom to Euro St in San Marco for an after game bite

[edjax]

Did JTA have shuttles?  Was reserved parking offered with ticket sales?  Did anyone patronize DT restaurants/bars before or after the event?

No JTA shuttles which seemed like a big mistake to me.  Yes there was reserved parking available. And based upon the thousands of people walking down Bay St after the game I am sure the bars there got some business.

[tufsu1]

Actually there were shuttles from the convention center lot.  School buses were rumbling by my house every few minutes starting around 10am.

[edjax]

I checked the JTA website yesterday afternoon and there was no mention on it about shuttle service for the game. Did not see anything in the paper about it either.

[Tacachale]

I'll put it this way: the bike ride from my house to the stadium usually takes at most 15 minutes, even for Jags games (which have more people than this soccer game). In this case, it took us nearly an hour just to get there, let alone to get in our seats.

There was no water taxi, which appeared to confuse a lot of people, a lot of people were walking around Riverplace trying to get across. There was also no Skyway service, which at least would have taken them across the river. To make matters worse, one of the pedestrian lanes on the Main Street Bridge was out, although the word was that it would be open for game time. This meant that all pedestrians and bikers trying to get over the river (going either way) had to take the same narrow pedestrian lane. We had to walk our bikes over. To add insult to injury, the unused water taxis were plainly visible from the bridge.

The police were out directing traffic in what seemed to be a different pattern than they do for Jags games. The cones actually made biking harder and it was much more difficult to move over and take side streets. Rather than dodge cars in the roads, we and many other bikers opted to take the sidewalks, which presents its own problems. If there were shuttles running, I never saw any. This was a major, epic fail on the city's part. Fortunately the event itself was so awesome that it totally negated the horrible transportation.

[InnerCityPressure]

I found the experience no different than a Jags game.  I left Riverside at 5:15, drove through Brooklyn, parked on Monroe in front of the Morocco Temple, walked to the game and was in my seat for kickoff.

[ProjectMaximus]

when did bike taxis stop operating?

The police were out directing traffic in what seemed to be a different pattern than they do for Jags games.

Perhaps because of the other events occurring. Jags games are flow-in, flow-out...but this time they had people leaving the Baseball Grounds and Arena at various intervals as crowds arrived for the soccer match.

[jaxjaguar]

The skyway being down was pretty pathetic. We had to do a crazy loop through traffic to get over the main street bridge since the right side was closed. We stopped at both station on the south bank thinking we'd be smart and ride it over with our bikes... nope. It was still fun. The crowd was great and very energetic, regardless!

[Ajax]

Did JTA have shuttles?  Was reserved parking offered with ticket sales?  Did anyone patronize DT restaurants/bars before or after the event?

We parked in Lot F (beneath the Hart Bridge Overpass) and couldn't head west on Bay Street, so it took us about 30-45 minutes to go counter-clockwise around the stadium.  We got to Burrito Gallery around 9:15 or so and they had a pretty decent crowd.  I was lucky enough to find a spot to park on Adams Street right across from Burro Bar.  Lots of people in line at BG and at the tables out back wearing USMNT gear. 

[fsquid]

hopefully we've done enough to get a qualifier now.

[JaxByDefault]

hopefully we've done enough to get a qualifier now.

A good qualifier. Although the friendlies often out sell many of the qualifiers.

[fsquid]

hopefully we've done enough to get a qualifier now.

A good qualifier. Although the friendlies often out sell many of the qualifiers.

true and they like to play those suckers is colder climates too.

[Steve]

The traffic pattern was different than a jags game, because you had two events letting out as people approached. It wasn't overly bad, but definitely took a little longer.

The Water Taxi hurt, not just from a traffic perspective but an image perspective. The Administration needs to answer for that one IMO. Crazy.