Despite potential, Jacksonville still struggles to embrace green travel options

[thelakelander]

Jacksonville has the makings of a great biking city â€" flat streets, year-round warm weather and 150 miles of bicycle trails. But despite the city’s efforts to enhance conditions for two-wheel traffic, its bikability is rated among the worst in the nation.

Jacksonville’s dominant car culture, lack of bicycle infrastructure and connectivity between routes and lack of awareness of biking laws among bicyclists and motorists have suppressed its budding biking community. Bicycle advocates like Jeff Hohlstein, president of the North Florida Bicycle Club, said employers should care.

Full article:  http://jacksonville.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/stories/2010/05/31/focus1.html?b=1275278400^3427581

[thelakelander]

Quote from Article

“Without that passion in the mayor’s office, it’s going to take a coalition with a strong passion. With that, the city will get a master plan that will start with education of bicyclists, pedestrians and law enforcement. It will focus on better land use and building codes, require new structures to have bicycle racks and accommodations such as showers and encourage businesses to do what they need to get involved in the green bikes.”

Green bike projects have been launched in several cities, usually through a public-private partnership. The program usually works by distributing green bikes through employers to their staff in an effort to reduce commuter traffic by car. Employees sign up for the bikes and employers track who has them.

Bicycle enthusiasts think there is more work that needs to be done before such an initiative could be successful.

To our cyclist out there, the mobility plan currently being evaluated by the city includes a lot of the initiatives mentioned in this quote.  Its much more complex and comprehensive than throwing money at where future bike route connections should go.  Plus, whether the Mayor supports them or not may not be as big of an issue as many believe.  Senate Bill 360 is pushing for a lot of these things and if the plan is to meet the desired goal, they will have to be included in some form or fashion.  My advice is to get educated on this thing because it could possibly be the stepping stone in moving Jax forward sooner rather than later.

[JC]

Does anyone know the average commute to work for a person working in j-ville?

[thelakelander]

An article from a couple of years ago.....

Drive times, bad times

A Times-Union analysis shows three Northeast Florida counties had commute times that ranked among the 10 highest in the state.

Clay
Commute: 33.4 min
Statewide rank: 1

Putnam
Commute: 30.6 min
Statewide rank: 4

Nassau
Commute: 28.2 min
Statewide rank: 8

St. Johns
Commute: 25 min
Statewide rank: 19

Duval
Commute: 23.1 min
Statewide rank: 25

Flagler
Commute: 22.9 min
Statewide rank: 27

Source: Census Bureau 2006 American Community Survey

http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/102507/met_211753842.shtml

[tufsu1]

Does anyone know the average commute to work for a person working in j-ville?

the average for our area (and most of the metro areas around the country for that matter) is about 25 minutes

[BridgeTroll]

At an nationwide average drive-time of about 24.3 minutes, Americans now spend more than 100 hours a year commuting to work, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey. Yes, that's more than the average two weeks of vacation time (80 hours) taken by many workers during a year.

http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/censusandstatistics/a/commutetimes.htm

[BridgeTroll]

My bad...

Page down to Jacksonville...

http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/GCTTable?_bm=y&-state=gct&-ds_name=ACS_2007_1YR_G00_&-_box_head_nbr=GCT0801&-mt_name=&-_caller=geoselect&-geo_id=&-format=US-35&-_lang=en

[jbroadglide]

According to JCCI's most recent Quality of Life report, 67% of Duval County commuters have a commute of 25 minutes or less.
http://www.jcci.org/jcciwebsite/documents/09%20QOL%20Summary%20Document.pdf

[tufsu1]

yes...Duval commutes are generally shorter than those for Clay, St. Johns, Nassau, and Baker...the census # from BridgeTroll put it all together for the metro area

[JC]

How long would that take on a bike?

[finehoe]

A cyclist wore a helmet camera for a year, and recorded many drivers almost hitting him, and in at least one case, actually hitting him:  http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2010/05/27/dnt.bike.helmet.cam.cbc?hpt=T2

[north miami]

At an nationwide average drive-time of about 24.3 minutes, Americans now spend more than 100 hours a year commuting to work, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey. Yes, that's more than the average two weeks of vacation time (80 hours) taken by many workers during a year.

http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/censusandstatistics/a/commutetimes.htm

Poor folk who "commute" from McClenny or St.Augustine to Jax...............that means two + hours a day,a full work day in hours per week,tearing up vehicle wear & tear,consuming fuel and exposing to greater risk of accident/ bodily harm.

[midnightblackrx]

My commute by car takes 15 minutes.  By bike it would take an hour at least. That would be 500 hours a year wasted commuting rather than just 125 hours wasted by car.

[finehoe]

^^Or 375 less hours you have to go to the gym.

[kellypope]

If the ride is more than 7 miles, I'm on a bike. If I can take a bus beyond 7 miles, I will. So far this summer I've only been heckled by a teenage pimplefiend boy who was also on a bike. But I have been tapped by a car into oncoming traffic, which was absolutely not fun. I commute from the Loretto/Julington Creek area mostly, and am going to art walk tonight on the bike. Because bus schedules don't run as late as I'd like, I'll be riding 5 miles from downtown to stay with a friend. Just running errands today I've ridden 14.5 miles. I didn't need to, but I've lost some weight in the 2ish weeks I've been doing this.