Public Meeting Planned For Hart Bridge Ramp Removal (Renderings included)

[Snaketoz]

LOL - was anyone really expecting anything different?  The good news, none of this will ever happen.

Construction on the bridge removal will begin this year.

Isn't that an oxymoron?

[Peter Griffin]

LOL - was anyone really expecting anything different?  The good news, none of this will ever happen.

Construction on the bridge removal will begin this year.

Isn't that an oxymoron?

Hahaha, didn't even catch that. Demolition will begin, but that precedes construction of course.

[Ken_FSU]

Anyone attend or see a report from the meeting yesterday?

[Snaketoz]

With the demise of Lot J, how is everyone feeling about the Hart Bridge Ramp Removal now?  It worked out much as I expected.

[marcuscnelson]

With the demise of Lot J, how is everyone feeling about the Hart Bridge Ramp Removal now?  It worked out much as I expected.

Welp.

It would really be good to get an update on the status of Lot J's incentives package. I imagine anything Curry has proposed will face some additional scrutiny considering the JEA fallout and poor track record with previous deals. It would be foolish to implement demo of that bridge now, only to see Lot J die or be indefinitely postponed a few weeks or months later.

[Snaketoz]

Keep the ramps until you see steel being erected in lot J.

Me too.

[WAJAS]

Honestly, just read this whole thread. There seems to be a pattern in Jax of half-doing a project, then wondering why it doesn't work out.

Tearing down the viaduct? Probably a good idea.
Making it into a ground level highway? Wow, a step back.

This should have been a complete streets project. If there's too much traffic expected to go down Gator Bowl/Bay street, then fix the road network on that side of the city. Make Adams and Duval actually usable in the stadium area. Why is Gator Bowl treated as the off ramp into the city in the first place?

[thelakelander]

Definitely agree that Gator Bowl Blvd should have been a Complete Street. Some how we half assed it.

[Ken_FSU]

Flyover ramp has reopened.

Cannot get over how poorly this flyover fits with what the city is trying to do along the riverfront.

And, even after driving it daily for months, the design still feels exceedingly confusing and hostile to drivers.

When driving north into downtown, through traffic on Bay Street is quickly reduced down to a single lane, with the other two lanes being used to actively divert drivers away from the riverfront onto the flyover ramps.

And when driving south out of downtown, you're first routed off Bay Street and around the flyover, and then as you approach the Hart Bridge, there are three separate sets of traffic lights, two of which feel like they are legitimately like 10 feet apart, that are strangely timed and very easy to miss. I've blown through red lights going onto the Hart Bridge multiple times without even realizing it, and have seen a couple of pretty bad accidents already at both the roundabout going around the flyover and at the entrance to the Bridge.

So depressing that we can't even get a road right.

We should have finished the ramp removal project and fully routed an unobstructed Bay Street from the Hart Bridge all the way down to the CBD.

Without driving it yourself it's hard to describe, but the ramp just kills the sightlines between stadium district and Northbank and handicaps everything we're trying to do with the MOSH as well.

Genuinely hope someone doesn't get killed trying to figure out how to navigate what should be a simple, straight road.

[marcuscnelson]

What a shame. It'll always be silly that we spent all this time and money reconstructing the ramp and relocating the road around it instead of just demolishing the remaining bridges. It doesn't even make sense with the city's current long term plans, because they'd probably need to remove the ramps anyway if they want to build a convention center at the jail in "a few years." And I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of traffic lights end up relocated anyway in order to properly connect to the Four Seasons or Lot J.

It really does seem that BUILD grant was almost uniquely poorly thought out, between both the ramp project and "innovation corridor" plan. I kind of wonder if the city would have gotten that grant if it happened a few years later under this administration.

[Captain Zissou]

The three lights in a row by the bridge are very poorly cycled.  There are 2 lights for WJCT, which is extremely unecesarry.  I drive this road everyday and it's maddening.  Reducing west-bound traffic for 50 feet only to then expand it to 4 lanes at APR makes zero sense.  The new MOSH will have the flyover as their front door and anything built on the parcel to the east will be fairly cut off from anything north of Bay.

[acme54321]

I said it from the start that the flyover was ridiculous.  Should have just cut the whole thing short and turned it into a pedestrian bridge or something with a corkscrew behind Intuition.  I'm sure we'll pay $30M to have it all demolished in a few years once Sulzbacher is gone.

[thelakelander]

Could have just left it up there unused until the money came to raze the rest of it too. Really no need to rebuild the ramp.

[pierre]

It is a mess

[Ken_FSU]

Somehow got even worse in the last 48 hours.

Another red light has been added on southbound Bay Street, right at the point where traffic comes out of the wide curve circling the flyover ramps.

I kid you not, the light is totally hidden behind a blind corner and you cannot even see whether the light is green or red until it's almost too late to stop.

Also saw a scenario on my way home where the first traffic signal right as you approach the bridge was wide open and green, and like five car lengths in front of it, the second set of lights was red.  People are trained from years of driving to keep the foot on the gas when they see a green light, but then you're asking them to come to a dead stop 20 feet later.

Even the striping on the actual on-ramp is weird. You bank and merge to the left for about 100 feet, and then you abruptly angle back over to the right.

It's all so baffling that, again, you almost have to drive it yourself to appreciate it.

Someone's gonna get killed out there with some of these lights and merges.