Riverside Ave near the Cummer WTF?

[jaxlore]

i am down with what ock said and actually i ride on the sidewalk, i dont care how dorky i look my life is worth a bit more then looking cool flyin down the street.

[ChriswUfGator]

In defense of the median, crossing Riverside Avenue at the Cummer museum has always been a traffic accident waiting to happen. Riverside Avenue carries too much car traffic as it is. The number of commuters using Riverside Ave. has increased dramatically in the last five years.  Anyone who wants to bike safely gets off of Riverside Ave. and moves to another part of the grid.

The point of this thing is that the Cummer is an attraction that appeals to many folks including a high proportion of elderly residents and visitors to Jacksonville. School kids come for programs and events are held in the auditorium. The parking is not next to the museum but across the street. Dumb idea but it has been that way for a while. The best plan would be to move the Cummer parking lot somewhere else.  

Meanwhile, it's a safety issue- no driving on medians, slow down or take another route home.

Then they should have spent all the money they just wasted on this little project, to build an elevated walkway over the road to connect the Cummer with its parking lot. Problem solved.

But taking riverside avenue, one of the busiest streets in the city, down to ONE LANE, and adding in a stupid grassy median instead that serves no purpose, is a foolproof way to cause a giant bottleneck.

[jaxlore]

I understand that riverside ave might not be the best ave for a bike lane but what riverside street would be? Even the short cuts that i used to take when i drove to work are full of cars waiting at stop signs now and I can only wonder what will happen when the economy picks up and some of these condos actually fill up. yikes.

[David]

i am down with what ock said and actually i ride on the sidewalk, i dont care how dorky i look my life is worth a bit more then looking cool flyin down the street.

Who says it's about looking cool? I've had more close calls on sidewalks than on the main roads. Cars pull out and stop right infront of you because they're waiting to turn into traffic. As much as people curse bicylist for holding them up on the main roads, they have just as much of a right to be there. As long as that road isn't I-95.

[TPC]

If your on a bike in that area take up the whole lane.

(5)(a)  Any person operating a bicycle upon a roadway at less than the normal speed of traffic at the time and place and under the conditions then existing shall ride as close as practicable to the right-hand curb or edge of the roadway except under any of the following situations:

3.  When reasonably necessary to avoid any condition, including, but not limited to, a fixed or moving object, parked or moving vehicle, bicycle, pedestrian, animal, surface hazard, or substandard-width lane, that makes it unsafe to continue along the right-hand curb or edge. For the purposes of this subsection, a "substandard-width lane" is a lane that is too narrow for a bicycle and another vehicle to travel safely side by side within the lane.

[I-10east]

Yeah, I was riding down there the other night, and I had to turn around in the Cummers's parking lot back towards the Fidelity complex because of the blockcade of construction drums. I was like what the hell? Just like Kernan & Beach, you gotta love the detours, bottenecks, and construction blockcades in this city.

[jaxlore]

sorry david if that came off derogatory, but ive gotten stares when riding on the sidewalk from fellow bikers a few times and on that particular stretch of riverside ave from post down to the bike lane it has always seemed a little safer to do the sidewalk thing. When I ride down oak or forbes there is no "safe" route i usually stay in the road.

[David]

Oh no, I was jacked up on morning coffee when writing that post. No cattiness intended.

I do alternate between the roads and sidewalks when I can, but a lot of the sidewalks are a rough ride, plus there's too much foot traffic at times. I just think people need to remember that bikes can share the road. At least here in the older neighborhoods where the traffic is a bit slower.

[JaxNole]

Here's a thought:

Why not avoid one of the busiest streets in Riverside (i.e., Riverside Ave) and use the many gridded, side streets?

If coming from Downtown, one could use Riverside and turn on to Forest, Edison or Rosselle to continue to Park.  Edison seems to be the safest to Park.  Edison dead ends into College.

Or continue down Rosselle to College and points south and west.  College is two lanes with an extra wide, painted median.

I would not recommend Riverside Park to Park, but that is another option to traveling through the Cummer area.

Riverside Ave is not the only street in the district.

[JaxNole]

Automobiles, bikes and foot traffic?  Has no one ever been to a major city where all modes exist?

Jacksonville is slowly seeing more bike and pedestrian traffic.  Being autocentric has conditioned people not to look for bikes or pedestrians.

Habits take time to change.  Yes, it sucks, but with a little situational awareness and flexibility, it can be done.

When I walk from Ernest to Fidelity during both the morning and evening rushes, I have to cross Park, College or Riverside.  It's dangerous as a pedestrian, but I'm still alive.

[thekillingwax]

It's annoying for me when I go to work, the traffic is always backed up because someone's confused about the new island. I realize the Cummer needed better access to people who park across the street but when I went, the little crosswalk stoplight there that's supposed to be activated by a button never, ever worked. If they had just fixed that, people could've crossed the streets safely.

[JaxNole]

For those of you who abhor the traffic on Riverside Ave, there is a wonderful map courtesy of RAP that identifies alternate roads in the district.

http://www.riversideavondale.org/index.php?s=file_download&id=32

[ChriswUfGator]

For those of you who abhor the traffic on Riverside Ave, there is a wonderful map courtesy of RAP that identifies alternate roads in the district.

http://www.riversideavondale.org/index.php?s=file_download&id=32

I've lived here a decade, I hope I know the roads well enough by now LOL...

Problem is, there are only two roads you can use to get from Downtown into Riverside. Park is one and Riverside Ave. is the other. That street map is nice, but none of the others connect because they're dead-ended by I-95. Riverside and Park are the only ones where they built overpasses so that the streets connect.

[grimss]

Wait till you see what they're doing to the S-curve in the name of "Traffic Calming Measures."  The curb now cuts in at least another 5 feet at the narrowest section; sure to calm traffic, but also sure to kill some cyclists . . .

[JaxNole]

Depending on where you live in Riverside (I live on Ernest), there's another route that seems out of the way, but avoids the congestion on Post, College, Park, King and Riverside.

1.  Take Stockton north
2.  Head east (right) on either Irene or Edison.  If you take Irene, take a right on Edison.
3.  Head east (right) on Forest.
4.  From Forest, head north on Park or Riverside.

It's not scenic, but I like watching the construction progress of The Big I and I'm almost constantly moving instead of idling in stop-and-go traffic.