City looking at more two-way streets downtown

[stjr]

As an aside to this article, it looks like Monroe will not be reopening in front of the Courthouse.  How will this effect the site's development?  I guess dropping someone off in "front of the courthouse" won't be happening?  How about handicapped drop-offs?  Bus/public transit drop-offs?  It will be a full block walk to the center of the building from Julia or Pearl. Or from Adams and Clay to what will be the front door at the previous Monroe and Clay.  Will the back door on Duval become the main entry point?  That would be a wonderful failure of architecture.  Just another reason why the courthouse design was a poor choice.

City looking at more two-way streets downtown
Source URL: http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2010-09-22/story/city-looking-more-two-way-streets-downtown

By Matt Galnor

Jacksonville’s push for a more pedestrian-friendly downtown could result in two major one-way corridors opening for traffic in both directions through the teeth of the core city.

The city is finalizing details to pay just under $200,000 to a local engineering firm for a study on converting four streets to two-way traffic and scrapping plans to reopen Monroe Street once the new Duval County Courthouse is finished.

The city expects the results by the end of the year and could end up making all of the changes, just a few or none at all, said Ron Barton, executive director of the Jacksonville Economic Development Commission.

The courthouse, scheduled to open in summer 2012, will transform the west end of downtown, Barton said, and the city needs to get its traffic grid in the best position to capitalize on it.

“It’s a wasteland in today’s environment,” Barton said.

Downtowns across the country have converted streets to two-way to slow down traffic, get people to pay attention to storefronts on both sides of the street and encourage people to walk around.

“It just creates an environment where people want to linger more,” said Terry Lorince,  executive director of Downtown Vision, an organization founded in 2000 by downtown property owners.

The study, to be performed by King Engineering, will look at:

n Converting north-south corridors Pearl and Julia streets to two-way between State and Bay streets, though a three-block stretch of Pearl is already two-way.

n Switching Adams Street, now one-way westbound, to two-way between Jefferson and Main streets.

n Changing Monroe Street, now one-way eastbound, to two-way between Pearl and Main streets.

n Keeping Monroe closed from Broad Street to Pearl Street in front of the new courthouse, rather than jogging Monroe around the building.

Although the latest ordinance on the courthouse budget in 2007 does not address Monroe Street, the previous bill requires it to reopen once the courthouse opens.

Because the courthouse now sits in the middle of what used to be Monroe, the street would have to be rerouted in front of the building and almost on top of Adams. Monroe has been closed since construction began in spring 2009.

“It will have been closed for three years and certainly our circulation pattern in downtown hasn’t fallen apart because of it,” Barton said.

When Wachovia left the Ed Ball Building about four years ago, Big Pete’s Pizzeria on Pearl Street lost 120 customers a day, owner Nathan Siva said.

Three nearby restaurants have closed, leaving Big Pete’s on an island in a barren section of downtown.

“There is no other reason why they should come all the way down this way,” Siva said.

Half of Siva’s customers drive to his business. More foot-traffic and other businesses that give people a reason to come downtown could help, Siva said.

The study comes after a preliminary analysis, also by King, that looked at ways to make Adams Street more pedestrian friendly. That first look, which cost $28,000, was used to see if it could be feasible and whether further study would be worth it.

Mayor’s office spokeswoman Misty Skipper said the city has contracted the study because it does not have the expertise or the manpower.

The city has converted some small stretches to two-way in recent years: Water Street between Laura and Newnan streets just east of the Jacksonville Landing and Laura between Monroe and Duval by the new Main Library.

A remaining four-block stretch of Laura between Monroe and Water will be converted to two-way as part of a $2.7 million streetscaping project that began this year.

The Laura Street project includes widening the sidewalks, adding a tree canopy and adding decorative cross walks â€" which likely wouldn’t be part of the early phases on these newer two-way streets, Barton said.

Siva said he’d like to see how Laura Street works for businesses and increasing traffic before the city just changes things on his side of downtown.

“If it doesn’t do any good over there,” Siva said, “there’s no point in spending more money if it’s not going to help.”

[uptowngirl]

Main ST needs to be two-way.

[Lunican]

We said Monroe would be remain closed years ago.

[thelakelander]

Why spend millions to reconstruct it so close to Adams?  Save that money and spend it making the proposed green between Adams and the main entry front worth visiting.

[acme54321]

Main ST needs to be two-way.

ding ding ding

[thelakelander]

^FDOT road.  Going two-way on that one is a much more difficult process because that road is not the city's.

[stjr]

Why spend millions to reconstruct it so close to Adams?  Save that money and spend it making the proposed green between Adams and the main entry front worth visiting.

Rather than rebuild Monroe, what about a circular drive, arcing between Pearl and Julia, with the "top" of the arc at the main entrance?  This should leave most of the green space intact in the interior of the curve, between the driveway and Adams.

My real point wasn't that I was unhappy about Monroe closing so much as, that this is still being dealt with shows, once again, the failure of the City to properly PLAN anything from the get-go.  I also wanted to point out, again, the weaknesses of this building's design.  And, I see no answers to how "drop offs"/access for the handicapped will be accommodated.

I have always advocated that this building should have been a high-rise on one block like the Federal Courthouse.  This building is a huge (7 city blocks) waste of an important piece of downtown real estate.  Other than the lawyers' offices and the eateries to feed them and their clients, I expect this area to be mostly a downtown dead zone thanks to the City's poor urban planning.  Its biggest asset will be moving office workers from the riverfront area which has higher and better uses to an area that is already mostly dead.  That leaves the consolation that anything the courthouse impacts will  look better by comparison.  But, what could have been?  Look to our long ago past.

[tufsu1]

well....having looked at this RFP very closely, I can say that the City has some good ideas....although I am concerned that the consultant chosen may not think as creatively as others might have.

[CS Foltz]

stjr.......I'm with you on this one!! Just one more example of making a game plan up as you go along! We should not have to spend $200K to generate a "Study" that should have already taken place! I'm guessing JTA will be running a special shuttle for drop offs to the Court House (voter approved for $190/costing $350 Million....still have not figured out how the hell we are supposed to pay for this?) but wait..........you can't drive up to the Court House! I guess we just use the "Guest" entrance!

[Ocklawaha]

As an aside to this article, it looks like Monroe will not be reopening in front of the Courthouse.  How will this effect the site's development?  I guess dropping someone off in "front of the courthouse" won't be happening?  How about handicapped drop-offs?  Bus/public transit drop-offs?  It will be a full block walk to the center of the building from Julia or Pearl. Or from Adams and Clay to what will be the front door at the previous Monroe and Clay.  Will the back door on Duval become the main entry point?  That would be a wonderful failure of architecture.  Just another reason why the courthouse design was a poor choice.

STJR, I told Lake and Company that it wouldn't reopen back when we first posted the plans. I had no inside information but experience told me that would be the case. On a certain April 19, I was in a downtown Post Office in Oklahoma City when someone in a yellow Ryder truck dropped a house on us. Since that day, nobody is building Courthouses or Federal buildings without built in blast absorbing space. Check out the front of the Federal Building downtown and you'll see what I mean about protection from flying Ryder Trucks.

OCKLAWAHA

[tufsu1]

stjr.......I'm with you on this one!! Just one more example of making a game plan up as you go along! We should not have to spend $200K to generate a "Study" that should have already taken place!

sorry CS, but a study is necessary.....at a minimum they have to prove to FDOT that there won't be a significant impact on state roads (State, Union, Main, Ocean, Bay, Forsyth)....also they have to figuir out if/how to retime the signals.

[rainfrog]

As an aside to this article, it looks like Monroe will not be reopening in front of the Courthouse.  How will this effect the site's development?  I guess dropping someone off in "front of the courthouse" won't be happening?  How about handicapped drop-offs?  Bus/public transit drop-offs?  It will be a full block walk to the center of the building from Julia or Pearl. Or from Adams and Clay to what will be the front door at the previous Monroe and Clay.  Will the back door on Duval become the main entry point?  That would be a wonderful failure of architecture.  Just another reason why the courthouse design was a poor choice.

STJR, I told Lake and Company that it wouldn't reopen back when we first posted the plans. I had no inside information but experience told me that would be the case. On a certain April 19, I was in a downtown Post Office in Oklahoma City when someone in a yellow Ryder truck dropped a house on us. Since that day, nobody is building Courthouses or Federal buildings without built in blast absorbing space. Check out the front of the Federal Building downtown and you'll see what I mean about protection from flying Ryder Trucks.

OCKLAWAHA

In addition to security, there is also the neo-traditional concern with having a public building once again look stately and intimidating at whatever costs to practicality. The plucking out of the 20th century modernist tooth and all it stood for has left the blaring gap between the 21st and the 19th, uniting the ideals of these two in a sort of 'form follows absurdity.'

At least we build with elevators and wheel chair ramps now. Think how many people used to have to be carried up a flight of stairs just to get the "stately" courthouses in most of the 3,000+ counties of this country. I know of several courthouses in the Midwest facing the towns from the tops of high bluffs. One in particular, and not even the most extreme example, has its front facade and main entrance about 40-50 vertical feet and 150 horizontal feet from the street it faces, topping off a grand (fancy speak for "grueling"?) staircase going up the hill. Its rear entrance (the now ADA compliant one) faces a street on the hilltop, but that entrance is still a good 120 feet from the nearest drop-off point, because the courthouse sits in the middle of a 400'x600' park.

The great irony of using-one's-legs-or-wheelchair-for-a-block-or-two being something that "comes with the territory" of a dense, urban center is that, these days, suburbanites walk farther from their car to the pair of pants they want to buy at a mall or big box store than anyone is forced to for practically any task in our present day downtown. We've essentially landed ourselves with an Avenues Mall but with courtrooms. I think our suburban populace can handle it. I just wish they could have handled it elsewhere.

[heights unknown]

Make them all two way again, all of them. This can only improve the pedestrian friendly aspect of downtown in addition to making people want to "cruise" around and check things out, park, and maybe get out and walk.

"HU"

[CS Foltz]

Except for entry to the new Court House.............$350 Million and there is no drop off zone? Talk about plannig ahead!

[thelakelander]

Your drop off zone would probably be at Adams and Clay.  The front door really isn't that far from that intersection.  Pearl and Monroe could also be used as one.  That intersection sits between the old post office, city hall annex and new courthouse, making it a more centralized location for the complexes uses.