As you watch this tiny railway go through it's daily paces in the UK, think about our own Blanding Boulevard mess. Could this idea be "The little train that could?" There is NO ROOM for more bus lanes, not much room for Light Rail, buses put you back in the same old traffic. But if we wanted to make a tiny footprint in the Ortega River wetlands, or skirt the same, or trestle them, one could cut a tiny railroad from Blanding at the Ortega River/McGirts Creek cross to the east side of the waterway just north of Ortega Hills canal, and terminate at Yukon/Tillie Fowler Park, across from NAS JAX. This would give an optional park n ride route to about 1/2 of that Blanding traffic, and give Jacksonville a piece of railroading found only in one other place in the World. Can you spell TOURIST ATTRACTION +??http://www.youtube.com/v/VkoSZuk2Vzc&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0x2b405b&color2=0x6b8ab6"></param><param%20name="allowFullScreen"%20value="true"></param><param%20[flash=200,200]name="allowscriptaccess"%20value="always"></param><embed%20src=
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OCKLAWAHA
Those are BEAUTIFUL engines! What are they, 1/4 scale? Do you know their history?
Cute & appropos for tourism. Non functional for any sort of traffic relief or serious transit.
Similar to the narrow gauge I rode at the Dole Plantation on Oahu.
(http://www.urban75.org/photos/kent/images/romney-hythe-02.jpg)
Quote from: spuwho on February 02, 2010, 08:45:52 PM
Cute & appropos for tourism. Non functional for any sort of traffic relief or serious transit.
Similar to the narrow gauge I rode at the Dole Plantation on Oahu.
(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_1DJYJashoT0/Sg9QSXXxaSI/AAAAAAAACfI/rdp-G-UfNfM/s400/romneyhd.jpg)
(http://www.bike99.com/images/1003.jpg)
SPUWHO, Sorry to meet this way but you'd be VERY wrong about this not working for transit or traffic relief. Fact is the RH&D has a thriving Commuter Business Northbound in the morning and southbound in the evening. The speeds are fairly fast, and probably beat the hell out of the country roads that wander down to the lighthouse. The little railway charges along behind a million seaside cottages and some estate homes, and in the morning those folks prefer to take the little train. The RH&D even tags a lounge car on the rear of some of those trains and YES Martha, They DO SELL spirits! In WWII they actually had troop trains, and one completely armored train with anti-aircraft battery's onboard, all the better to shoot the Jerry's out of the sky before they got over the Isles.
Of course we COULD do light rail on this corridor (Blanding) but it would be isolated from any other LRT project, and the CSX/JTA would have a station at the Yorktown Gate at NAS. So the streetcar/LRT would run the same route and folks would transfer to the Navy bus, or to the Commuter Rail at Yukon. I started thinking of the old British system called LIGHT RAILWAYS and had the Epiphany.
Work for transit and highway traffic relief? Darn tootin'!OCKLAWAHA
There is no viable "solution" to the demise of the Blanding Corridor/Arterial system.
i'd rather cut my arteries than drive the blanding corridor.
As one who drives the Blanding Corridor daily, I find southside blcd to be worse at times.
Blanding is all about the timing. I can leave my house in Middleburg @ 6:20AM and make it to JTB/Gate Parkway by 7AM unless there is a wreck.
Getting home, so long as I leave by 4:30PM, I get home within 45 minutes as well.
If I go to the OP Mall, I take neighborhoods if traffic sucks, but thankfully, I never have to visit that place anymore.
Duval and Clay still refuse to work together, and then add the FDOT making stupid decisions, it compounds the traffic more.
I like it.. If it would bring ANY relief to Blanding , I say go 4 it !
My only major complaint about Blanding is the way Orange Park Malls exit (Blanding side) is set up. That's my only nightmare type scenario, esp if you're waiting for that right turn with cars in front of you. I try to avoid that exit, and take the slightly better Wells Rd exit. Yeah, Blanding is a lil' congested; Welcome to big city traffic guys. IMO Blanding's "parking lot, L.A. style commute time" is highly overblown. I wiz through Blanding's congestion with relative ease, because I know how to drive, and I don't stay in one lane the whole time like alotta folks do (and no I don't cut people off, and I use my turn signal). Blanding Blvd in an urban layout would really be a disaster, because suddenly those traffic lights with pretty good distances between each other becomes alot closer causing even more congestion, and not to mention pedestrian traffic. Currently the bus is Blanding's/OPM's only transit option; Not such an awful option that everyone is making it out to be, and yes I've ridden it before.