JTA Seeks $100 Million for JTB Interchange After Just Spending $14 Million

[thelakelander]

$100 million will buy you a ton of rail.  Not saying that improvements aren't needed but any idea how much this project will profit per year?

Road improvements planned for Butler at I-95 in Jacksonville

By Larry Hannan
Motorists have gotten used to traffic congestion, sudden lane shifts and accidents at the intersection of Butler Boulevard and Interstate 95. But the Jacksonville Transportation Authority has  a plan to make the intersection run better.


“This project should ease congestion and make it much easier to get from one road onto the other,” said Hamid Tabassian,  manager of highway design for JTA. “It should also decrease the number of crashes in the area.”


The plan involves multiple flyovers from I-95 onto Butler â€" and about $100 million that JTA doesn’t yet have. That makes it impossible to know when construction might begin.


JTA plans to look to the state and federal governments and might have to build the project in multiple phases if it can’t get all the funding at once, spokeswoman Wendy Morrow said.

full article: http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2010-05-17/story/road-improvements-planned-butler-i-95-jacksonville

[thelakelander]

If interested, here is the meeting information:

HEAR THE PLAN

The Jacksonville Transportation Authority will hold a public meeting from 4:30 to 7 p.m. on Thursday to discuss its planned improvements in the area around Butler Boulevard and Interstate 95. This meeting will be at the Best Western Southpoint, 4660 Salisbury Road.

A video presentation will begin at 4:30 with JTA staff available to answer questions. A formal presentation and question-and-answer session will start at 6 p.m.

Designs and plans for the project will be available for viewing at the meeting. They will also be available to anyone who wishes to see them at the JTA main office on 100 Myrtle Ave., until May 31.
Plans and information on these improvements can also be accessed at www.butler95.com.

[Mattius92]

THANK THE LORD, OH JESUS THIS IS A MIRACLE!!

Yeah well this is great news for the piece o' crap that they consider a interchange.

WOO HOO, its time for a party.

[stjr]

The State and JTA cry the blues over money but cough up $14 million in "interim" improvement money for JTB/I-95.  

Now, they begin looking for another $100 million to fix the JTB/I-95 mess JTA engineers created originally with the dumb and dumber "Is it an expressway or isn't it?" designed JTB.  What did they think they would get when they put traffic lights at the interchange of two "expressways"?  Now, we will pay with another over $100 million.  Meanwhile, the rest of the city crumbles and there is no money for JTA bus shelters without grovelling for ads or for street cars at a fraction of the cost?

"JTA" - "Junking Taxpayer Assets".

Road improvements planned for Butler at I-95 in Jacksonville
Source URL: http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2010-05-17/story/road-improvements-planned-butler-i-95-jacksonville

By Larry Hannan

Motorists have gotten used to traffic congestion, sudden lane shifts and accidents at the intersection of Butler Boulevard and Interstate 95. But the Jacksonville Transportation Authority has  a plan to make the intersection run better.

“This project should ease congestion and make it much easier to get from one road onto the other,” said Hamid Tabassian,  manager of highway design for JTA. “It should also decrease the number of crashes in the area.”

The plan involves multiple flyovers from I-95 onto Butler â€" and about $100 million that JTA doesn’t yet have. That makes it impossible to know when construction might begin.

JTA plans to look to the state and federal governments and might have to build the project in multiple phases if it can’t get all the funding at once, spokeswoman Wendy Morrow said.

Right now, cars going westbound on Butler must shift to the right-hand lane at the last minute in order to access I-95 northbound. The right-hand lane isn’t available until after cars go over the overpass above Belfort Road.

Motorists also have to battle traffic to get off of I-95 onto Belfort or Salisbury roads, and congestion is a daily issue.

“I think it’s recognized as one of the most congested and difficult intersections in the Jacksonville area,” Morrow said.

And one of the most dangerous: From 2004 to 2008 there were 448 crashes, an average of about 90 a year, around the intersection, Tabassian said, almost always in the most congested areas.

About 115 of those accidents occurred where cars are trying to get off of I-95 southbound onto Butler with another 45 occurring at Butler and Philips Highway and 37 occurring at Butler and Bonneval Road.

The part that JTA wants to build first is a flyover exit to allow drivers on I-95 southbound to access Butler eastbound. That will deposit motorists onto Butler east of Salisbury Road and be separate from the existing exit lane that will still allow people to turn onto Butler in both directions.

Motorists on that lane will primarily be getting onto nearby roads like Salisbury Road, and not taking Butler to the St. Johns Town Center or the beach, Tabassian said.

JTA also wants to build a new lane and flyover for people going westbound on Butler who want to get onto I-95 north.

At the moment, westbound Butler traffic trying to get onto I-95 northbound needs to merge into a lane with cars merging onto Butler from Salisbury Road. Motorists on Butler only have about 100 yards to complete this merge before reaching the I-95 exit. Under JTA’s plan there will be two separate lanes, one on Butler and one on Salisbury.

If JTA cannot get enough money for everything it will try to proceed with these two sections of the project first and do the rest later.

Other portions of the project include widening sections of Philips Highway, Bonneval Road and Butler Boulevard, a new flyover ramp for people going northbound on I-95 that will take them to Butler eastbound and a new loop ramp for people driving westbound on Butler who want to access I-95 southbound.

This project is separate from the current $14 million construction that is adding new turn lanes and extending some existing lanes from I-95 to Butler and vice versa.

Tabassian said the current construction project is classified as an interim improvement, with the future project being a more comprehensive solution.

About 140,000 motorists use this section of I-95 everyday, and about 90.000 motorists use Butler.

Dorina Leci,  who owns Joseph’s Italian Cafe on Belfort Road, across the street from St. Luke’s Hospital, said the traffic congestion impacts their businesses during the evening rush hour.

“We have customers come in at 8 p.m. and they tell me they would have come earlier, but they wanted to avoid the traffic,” said Leci.

The situation is noticeable between 4:30 and 6 p.m.

“Something needs to be done out there,” Leci said, “because traffic is pretty bad.”

[thelakelander]

FYI, I just merged these topics together.

[stjr]

FYI, I just merged these topics together.

Thanks, Lake.  We were developing our posts simultaneously, more or less.  Great minds think a like?  

[Keith-N-Jax]

Traffic will always be bad out there during rush hr, and no money,,hmmmm sounds like a jacksonville project

[reednavy]

Traffic will always be bad out there during rush hr, and no money,,hmmmm sounds like a jacksonville project

True, but not as bad when you get rid of that damned traffic light and the weaving associated with the on/off ramps that cause many accidents.

[Mattius92]

Lights are the devil!

[Dog Walker]

JTB serves St. John's County residents who work in Duval.  Let that country pay for it or let the traffic strangle there.  The whole thing was built to put money in the pockets of the Skinners and Hodges anyway.

[Ocklawaha]

"Jacksonville doesn't have enough density to have traffic, we have congestion..."  Mike Miller, JTA BRT Show

As for St Johns residents paying for it? You are kidding right? All of that Town Center, Southpoint, Mayo, Baymeadows, Deerwood, UNF, Southside, Hodges, Kernan and Philips cars look to me like they're from DUUUUUVALLLLL!

Tossing JTA a bone? When JTB went in originally it was a twin of Southside Blvd. A somewhat limited access road laid out with the intent that it could be converted to a full FREEway at some future date. You might recall that the Commodore Point Expressway was originally going to intersect JTB about where 9A does today. JTB was to cross the St Johns River and line up with Timuquana/103rd.. It wasn't JTA that fouled up the plan, rather residents of San Jose, Ortega, and a large developer that killed the Commodore Point. Perhaps the biggest fault of JTA on the Commodore Point was stopping it in the middle of Beach, rather then carrying it another 1/3 mile or so to a full interchange with Southside, and failure to erect street lighting on a FREEway. With the Commodore Point dead, and JTB not moving west of Philips, I don't think the explosive growth could have been foreseen. It never happened on the Commodore Point and there was no reason to think it would happen way out in the sand dunes and "Tiger Hole Swamp" that became the Southpoint - Town Center satellite downtown. The interchange from JTB to 95 northbound is a deathtrap, with the classic criss-cross movement that has caused the NHSA and nearly every Department Of Transportation in the country to stop construction of the classic "clover-leaf" interchanges, some localities even tearing them out as fast as possible in favor of anything from a simple signaled interchange to a complex fly-over. 

My best transit guy guess would be the fly-over's will address the lane crossing points with the first being from JTB WEST to 95 NORTH, which includes a deadly dance with merging traffic off of Salisbury Road. They also must look at the crisscross from 95 NORTH onto JTB EAST, with a host of exiting traffic, hotel access, etc. all doing the same high speed dodge car game.  The other segments, 95 SOUTH to JTB EAST, while crowded, slow and frustrating, just doesn't have the deadly crossings of the other locations, but if JTA found a federal bottomless pit of money, it would benefit from flyovers too.

SEE? I CAN PLAY NICE SOMETIMES!

OCKLAWAHA

[Keith-N-Jax]

Tell you what just put a few tolls out there. There everywhere up here in the north. That will slow  everybody down and decreased accidents. We can use the revenue to pay for the roads and light rail, and if there is any money left we can use it to expand the skyway to the beach, put an aquarium in the SJTC and maybe a marinetime musesum as well. Wow!!!

[Mattius92]

Well unlike the north, poeple are huge against tolls here, but we kinda do need more money for roads and rail.

[stjr]

^Ock, nice defense of JTA but... they are supposed to be expert road builders.  If the roads they build are cluster f**ks, it is their responsibility, plain and simple.  If you are admitting our road system is a mess because JTA works for landowners and developers, I will grant you that.  Same with FDOT as evidenced by 9B and the Outer Beltway.

JTB is local access from I-95 to US 1 because landowners wanted it that way.  Same with the Belfort Road (originally a stop light before the squeezed-in-later overpass) and Salisbury Road crud.  Nothing to do with not cutting through to Timuquana or making a connection to Commodore Xway.  All this aside, the JTB interchange with I-95 has to go down as one of the crappiest pieces of road engineering anywhere and it has nothing to do with the rest of JTB, just another $ky-high-way style product of the JTA.

Don't forget that other little marvel of JTA engineering on JTB when the 4 lane expressway came to an abrupt interruption, converting into a 2 lane, undivided, bridge over the Intracoastal.  How many people were killed on that bridge before on-the-cheap JTA paid up for the second bridge?

Anyone with half a brain could see that an expressway to the beach through thousands of acres of undeveloped land with interchanges as built (and demanded by the "more foresighted?" land owners as a condition to providing the land for the road) would be a developer's dream... except the "experts" at JTA?  Did they lack half a brain or did they build only to suit developers?  Pick your poison.

Next screw-up for JTA: The Intermodal Center.  It is destined to be the mass transit equivalent to this interchange.    And, the JTA hits (on the taxpayers) keep on coming.

Tell you what just put a few tolls out there.

JTB started as a toll road to St. Johns Bluff (originally 10 cents!) and the voters voted them off.

[Keith-N-Jax]

I was just having fun...