More and better bike lanes

[Driven1]

If we'd like to shed our backwards, redneck image as just your typical southern, Lynard-Skynard city, I think we have a wonderful opportunity to capitalize on the current (and I think ongoing) energy crisis.  Even though the sprawl here is terrible, it would be great to be at the forefront and start building more bike lanes.  I think this should start from the CBD and work out first to the immediate suburbs of Riverside, Avondale, Murray Hill, Springfield, St Nicholas and San Marco.  From there, we could expand further.

This, hand in hand with mass transit solutions such as commuter rail, would help us start to shed our backwater image.

[David]

If we'd like to shed our backwards, redneck image as just your typical southern, Lynard-Skynard city, I think we have a wonderful opportunity to capitalize on the current (and I think ongoing) energy crisis.  Even though the sprawl here is terrible, it would be great to be at the forefront and start building more bike lanes.  I think this should start from the CBD and work out first to the immediate suburbs of Riverside, Avondale, Murray Hill, Springfield, St Nicholas and San Marco.  From there, we could expand further.

This, hand in hand with mass transit solutions such as commuter rail, would help us start to shed our backwater image.

Naw, we'd just be a backwater city with rail and bike lanes then.

Seriously though, you think it's backwater now? try 20 years ago. The backwater image really is a matter of perception, and where you visit in town. If you show people around Oceanway & the Westside, they might gather that from their visit. Either way, you've got a good point. The real problem is convincing the city to actually back any of these projects.

[second_pancake]

If we'd like to shed our backwards, redneck image as just your typical southern, Lynard-Skynard city, I think we have a wonderful opportunity to capitalize on the current (and I think ongoing) energy crisis.  Even though the sprawl here is terrible, it would be great to be at the forefront and start building more bike lanes.  I think this should start from the CBD and work out first to the immediate suburbs of Riverside, Avondale, Murray Hill, Springfield, St Nicholas and San Marco.  From there, we could expand further.

This, hand in hand with mass transit solutions such as commuter rail, would help us start to shed our backwater image.

The CBD is not downtown.  I hate to break this to the folks that are working so hard in trying to bring more business and housing into that area, and I really want to see that happen, but the sad truth is that the business district (where the majority of people with corporate jobs that drive the gas-guzzling SUVs) is the Southside.  And while there have been bike lanes built here (because of FL state law that dictates a bike lane be input with every new city-owned road built or having major changes made to it), they are mostly lanes to nowhere and are inadequately maintained.

I don't think it takes a genius to figure out the best place to begin (or finish in this case) alternative transportation options is the area where people live, work and shop.  There needs to be direct and safe connection of the bike lanes from major subdivisions/intersections to shopping, grocery stores and the like.  Furthermore, the destinations need to abide by the zoning regulations and provide the proper means of parking a bicycle, with the city's enforcement via fines.

Bike lanes downtown and to the "immediate suburbs" would be great, but the people that live there and work downtown are few and far between. Build a bike lane that connects through the entire business area of the Southside into downtown and the immediate suburbs and then you'll have something. 

[thelakelander]

I seriously doubt it.  Despite its fall from prominence, the urban core is still our densest location for employment.  You could fit a couple of Northbanks, Southbanks, Brooklyns and Springfields, etc. into the vast amount of area that takes up the Southside.  For example, using JTB as a measuring stick, all of downtown (both banks) could fit between Belford Road and Southside Blvd. 

[thelakelander]

No doubt.  There's also a lot of land in between.  A couple of downtowns could fit in the area that makes up Baymeadows, Southpoint, Gate Parkway and Deerwood Park.  Its hard to have a dense point of employment when most of the corporate offices are no taller than three stories and have surface parking lots that cover three times the amount of land area as the office building footprints do.  Don't believe me, just take a look at an aerial on Google Maps.

[Lunican]

From http://www.metrojacksonville.com/content/view/757/

[thelakelander]

yeah, it looks like it would be pretty weighted for southside.

In terms of density?  We have around 60,000 workers within Downtown's official boundaries (this includes Riverside Avenue and the Southbank).  Where would you find that many people working within the same amount of land area in the Southside?

[Driven1]

yeah, it looks like it would be pretty weighted for southside.

In terms of density?  We have around 60,000 workers within Downtown's official boundaries (this includes Riverside Avenue and the Southbank).  Where would you find that many people working within the same amount of land area in the Southside?

i don't think you will anywhere on the southside.  i'd be interested in evidence to the contrary. 

[thelakelander]

yeah, it looks like it would be pretty weighted for southside.  Especially it you overlaid the aread over the corporate campuses from baymeadows to bowden.

Do you have a link to some statistics to verify your claim?  It will be interesting to see how close or far off you are.

[second_pancake]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but what you guys are saying is that the best place for bike lanes and infastructure would be downtown because that's where the majority live and work?

Lake, I'm confused.  If (and as the map shows) "a couple of downtowns could fit in the area that makes up Baymeadows, Southpoint, Gate Parkway and Deerwood Park" and you're saying that downtown has the largest density of employment based on footprint, wouldn't that mean that since the southside area (all areas you mentioned) which is larger than downtown, would be MORE in need of bike lanes for the people that work and live here?  I mean, if you're living in an area with a relatively small footprint then things are easily accesible.  By contrast, if you're living in Baymeadows and working in Southpoint or Deerwood Park, through which your main thouroghfare is a 6 lane road, dont' you think the focus for alternative transportation needs to be more readily available to those folks...the Southside folks?

[second_pancake]

Let me state for the record that I lived in Avondale and my office was less than 2 miles from my front door to the front door of my place of employment (in Brooklyn).  I had MANY options for getting to work by bike and ALL were relatively safe.  I could take a very direct route with pretty heavy traffic, but the road had sidewalks alongside the entire way and the roadway itself was wide enough to accomodate both myself and cars without much degree of incident, and the speeds were such that cars could safely stop short if need be.  The same holds true for traveling to the grocery store or downtown (can you say Riverwalk?).

I now live in Baymeadows and work in Deerwood.  I am still close to work, 2.5 miles to be exact, and yet there is NO safe route.  I literally take my life into my hands each day I ride down Baymeadows Rd. with no shoulder, no sidewalk on the correct side of the road, and people whizzing by me at 50+ mph to get to work on time.  Not to mention the idiots screaming out of the Panera Bread parking lot with their coffee and bagels.  I have 3 options and 3 options only, one of which consists of riding in the wrong direction on a narrow sidewalk filled with children waiting for the bus, and the other two riding on roads without bike lanes or shoulders with a drainage grate every 50 feet.

[Driven1]

good point second_...  you are correct now that I think about it.  the options in downtown and surrounding immediate communities are MORE for bike riders currently.  i change my opinion.  i do now think that starting in higher-traffic/higher-density areas OUTSIDE of downtown (baymeadows/southside is one such area), where there is currently NO bike lane is a better idea. 

ps - i live on baymeadows too - but near San Jose -- we have a bike lane down here. 

[Downtown Dweller]

I saw a sign at 7th and Main on my walk today, it was hanging upside down, but read "no bicycle riding on the sidewalk" Which I found rather amusing since there are no bike lines and even walking across a street, in the cross walk, on a green light can get you ht by these idiot drivers in JAX... We have one bike lane I know of in Springfield, it is on 8th and is one block, perhaps two long and then just disappears....

[thelakelander]

I think 8th, from Boulevard to the railroad tracks east of Ionia, has bike lanes in each direction.  Does the Main, between 1st and 4th have bike lanes?

[Driven1]

yes...8th has a bike lane.  Boulevard does too.  i have ridden the Boulevard bike lane quite a few times.  it is nicer now than it was last year.  last year there were some MASSIVE pot holes / sink holes that looked like they could swallow you whole.  yes, i think there is a bike lane/parking on main between 1st and 4th, right?