10-95 Merger

[Charles Hunter]

People are always confused and jacking over lanes trying to make that one. Also, the bigger one only has 2 lanes to handle the entire flow off of I-10, which is insufficient, they back up daily and the thing was just built. They replaced an exit with 2 lanes that were already insufficient with a more confusing and slower moving one that also has 2 lanes. If you were going to spend all that money, why not just make it 4 lanes or whatnot so the bottlenecks don't start up?

One reason not to have 4 lanes coming from I-10 to I-95 south is that the Fuller Warren Bridge is only 4 lanes, and there are at least 2 lanes (or will be, I guess) continuing from I-95 on the north, plus the one that gets on at Park merges into all those lanes.  Guess they could have widened the brand new bridge, but at what cost? 

[ricker]

I've read as much of this as I can stand for one night...
Enter these project limits without exceeding speed limit or tailgating and one may notice that, upon completion, all eastbound drivers will soon have more and safer options.

Remain in lane 1 [a.k.a. fast lane/ inside lane / left lane] and you can totally bypass the new downtown West / Riverside/Brooklyn / Forest St interchange and Stockton St. altogether and shoot directly onto I95North without delay.  Not all signage is mounted - not all is complete.  Overhead will soon read 95North  95South  (in that order from left to right).
Lane 2 provides an unfettered interstate rated path onto I95South. also bypassing "local traffic".

Lanes 3-7: local traffic. slow down a wee bit and turn up the volume on your Rush Limbaugh, Clark Howard, NPR, Rock105 what have you and shut the * up with all your griping.  This new design creates 2 division points versus the previous outmoded Y design.  Some are never pleased, however with added collective patience, the new Forest St interchange will do more to ease the confusion for non-locals when accessing this newly rebuilt section of [not really] "DT" while hopefully simultaneously centralizing the Prime Osborn Center/ revived Terminal.

Yes entering the zone from the 17spui/spur could be signed more completely, absolutely.
Immediately north of McDuff, a new succession of overheads could simply denote that Lane 2 is a merge lane which ends at Stockton St. and Lane 1 provides entrance to 95South and ends at Forest.
Much the same as the relocated overhead (further south, thus catching the motorists' attention sooner) warns of Roosevelt N Lane 3 ENDs at Edgewood Ave.

[tufsu1]

People are always confused and jacking over lanes trying to make that one. Also, the bigger one only has 2 lanes to handle the entire flow off of I-10, which is insufficient, they back up daily and the thing was just built. They replaced an exit with 2 lanes that were already insufficient with a more confusing and slower moving one that also has 2 lanes. If you were going to spend all that money, why not just make it 4 lanes or whatnot so the bottlenecks don't start up?

One reason not to have 4 lanes coming from I-10 to I-95 south is that the Fuller Warren Bridge is only 4 lanes, and there are at least 2 lanes (or will be, I guess) continuing from I-95 on the north, plus the one that gets on at Park merges into all those lanes.  Guess they could have widened the brand new bridge, but at what cost? 

EXACTLY Charles...at least one person figured it out!

[thelakelander]

If you were going to spend all that money, why not just make it 4 lanes or whatnot so the bottlenecks don't start up?

Put in four and it will still back up.  Have you checked out the new lanes on I-95 between JTB and Bowden?  Traffic still backs up during rush hour.  The bottleneck on I-95 just shifted north to Bowden/University where the lanes cut down from four to three northbound.  It will get worse as more development occurs on the Southside.  You can't pave your way out of congestion so why bother?  As a fiscal conservative, I would invest in a reliable mass transit alternative and let the bottlenecks happen.

[ChriswUfGator]

I've read as much of this as I can stand for one night...
Enter these project limits without exceeding speed limit or tailgating and one may notice that, upon completion, all eastbound drivers will soon have more and safer options.

Remain in lane 1 [a.k.a. fast lane/ inside lane / left lane] and you can totally bypass the new downtown West / Riverside/Brooklyn / Forest St interchange and Stockton St. altogether and shoot directly onto I95North without delay.  Not all signage is mounted - not all is complete.  Overhead will soon read 95North  95South  (in that order from left to right).
Lane 2 provides an unfettered interstate rated path onto I95South. also bypassing "local traffic".

Lanes 3-7: local traffic. slow down a wee bit and turn up the volume on your Rush Limbaugh, Clark Howard, NPR, Rock105 what have you and shut the * up with all your griping.  This new design creates 2 division points versus the previous outmoded Y design.  Some are never pleased, however with added collective patience, the new Forest St interchange will do more to ease the confusion for non-locals when accessing this newly rebuilt section of [not really] "DT" while hopefully simultaneously centralizing the Prime Osborn Center/ revived Terminal.

Yes entering the zone from the 17spui/spur could be signed more completely, absolutely.
Immediately north of McDuff, a new succession of overheads could simply denote that Lane 2 is a merge lane which ends at Stockton St. and Lane 1 provides entrance to 95South and ends at Forest.
Much the same as the relocated overhead (further south, thus catching the motorists' attention sooner) warns of Roosevelt N Lane 3 ENDs at Edgewood Ave.

I'm not sure how regularly you drive the route we're talking about, but at the times I'm referring to there is no hope for ever even reaching the speed limit, let alone exceeding it. That's the whole point, traffic comes to a standstill twice a day. Regarding the exit and the number of lanes, the real problem was designing the bridge so it is also used as a jacked-up interchange. The 10/95 merge shouldn't have been made so that you immediately enter into a situation where you are forced to move at least 2-3 lanes to the left within the span of 800 feet to avoid being stuck exiting 95 at San Marco. That's the main problem.

They should have integrated at least a 2-lane flyover that attached to I-95 south before the bridge, and that would have been a relatively simple thing to accomplish. You really want to separate exiting and merging traffic from through traffic as much as possible, and instead the current design forces anybody exiting or merging onto the roadway on both sides to actually cross over several lanes through the middle of the flow of through traffic, and all 3 groups are generally moving at vastly different speeds. It's horribly flawed, and dangerous.

Also, I disagree with the cries of "you can't put in more lanes" as an improvement. The new fuller-warren bridge was a necessity, the old drawbridge was nonsensical on an interstate. But the rest of this interchange has actually made things far worse than they were before all the money was spent on the redesign. They made the curves sharper, and kept the same number of lanes the old roadways had. It's actually a step backwards. I think most people who live in the area and drive it regularly would rather have the old roadway back. The new one is frankly a disaster.

Also, you have to watch out for the "Tufsu 'tude" that engineers and planners always crack out when something they designed is malfunctioning horribly. Whenever they discuss it, they never admit it's because it just plain didn't work, it's always blamed on all of the people who have to use it every day being too stupid and incompetent to realize how brilliant the design is. Except that's not how the world works. If it doesn't work then it doesn't work, and that's the end of the story.

The the problems aren't with the drivers, you can hardly blame people speeding when the whole problem is that instead of moving at the speed limit they're sitting on the interstate at a dead stop with the brakes on. That's the whole problem.

[ChriswUfGator]

If you were going to spend all that money, why not just make it 4 lanes or whatnot so the bottlenecks don't start up?

Put in four and it will still back up.  Have you checked out the new lanes on I-95 between JTB and Bowden?  Traffic still backs up during rush hour.  The bottleneck on I-95 just shifted north to Bowden/University where the lanes cut down from four to three northbound.  It will get worse as more development occurs on the Southside.  You can't pave your way out of congestion so why bother?  As a fiscal conservative, I would invest in a reliable mass transit alternative and let the bottlenecks happen.

The I-95 backup that starts around bowden/university daily is a direct result of whatever idiot made the exit for JTB end in a timed stoplight rather than using a flyover or cloverleaf. As a stopgap measure they added an extra "waiting lane" for people in line to exit, and this made things a little better for the rest of the traffic flow over the past couple months since it's been open.

But this isn't some function of overcrowding or anything like you're making it sound, the I-95 south backups are simply a function of poor road design at 95/JTB, and they all flow upstream from that. In the northbound direction, the bottlenecks start at the beginning of the elevated roadway leading to the fuller warren bridge, which is also a function of poor design.

Everybody is forced to cross over multiple lanes to enter, exit, or just to stay on 95. And at the same time all this is going on, people are forced to cross over the flow of through traffic. There is no segregation of through traffic from traffic merging onto the roadway or exiting the roadway. Additionally, and the design of the new FW bridge is counter-intuitive leading to confusion, and they made a small flyover with sharp turns and too few lanes to handle all the 95/10 traffic, which is the initial cause of the area's backup, much like the southbound backups flow back to the JTB/95 problem.

If you fixed these congestion points, the 95/10 merge and the 95/JTB merge, the entirety of 95 between the airport and 295 would be relatively free-flowing, aside from accidents/blockages. They should have just bit the bullet and sped up the installation of a cloverleaf at JTB and installed the extra "waiting lane" at University instead of JTB. Once completed, southbound would flow smoothly at all times. The backups are caused by the right lane of I-95 S being at a dead stop for miles, which cuts capacity by 1/3'rd.

But FWIW, I think the future is definitely mass-transit. The oil situation and the environmental impacts of the number of cars we use on a daily basis will ultimately require that solution, unless we continue to ignore the problems. But there will come a time when they can no longer be ignored, and since it takes so long to get rail etc. off the ground, now's the time to start. So I'm in total agreement with you on that.

[tufsu1]

No attitude here Chris and I didn't design it....but all projevts have tradeoffs...be it financial, social. Or other.....in essence, we often can't build the ultimate or ideal project

[CS Foltz]

It might just be me............but if we had a "Rail" option, then with sufficient use, traffic conditions could not help but improve..........less vehicles on roads! But JTA would not buy it.............bus is better than rail, right?

[Coolyfett]

Bus is better than rail to those invested...Its interesting the trouble Jax is having since this new junction went up. Traffic & bottle necks is a good thing in my book. yep traffic is great for the economy.

[tufsu1]

Regardless of how you feel on the bus v rail issue, we should all be able to agree that buses can also take cars off the road....even at 50% capacity, they carry 25 people....whichlikely equates to about 20 cars

[CS Foltz]

tufsu.......I agree but only if the bus's are used! I have never seen a bus loaded down at 50%......most I have seen is maybe 12 to 14! Just like the $kyway, was at City Hall last night for a zoning hearing and just happened to come out on the Park side in time to see it leaving the station............unless there were people laying on the floor............2 people on board! Mass Transit here......in town...........bites the big one!

[Charles Hunter]

tufsu.......I agree but only if the bus's are used! I have never seen a bus loaded down at 50%......most I have seen is maybe 12 to 14! Just like the $kyway, was at City Hall last night for a zoning hearing and just happened to come out on the Park side in time to see it leaving the station............unless there were people laying on the floor............2 people on board! Mass Transit here......in town...........bites the big one!

Just the other day, well around 2am, I was on JTB and only saw one other car.  Those people who say JTB has congestion problems must be lying crooks who want to steal our money.


(note - that was sarcasm)

(hey, if stependare can quote himself, so can I ... )

[simms3]

Just the other day, well around 2am, I was on JTB and only saw one other car.  Those people who say JTB has congestion problems must be lying crooks who want to steal our money.

Well in more than one other city I have gotten stuck in bumper to bumper traffic for more than an hour on mutliple occasions in the early morning hours.  We think Jax has congestion problems, and I have seen I-10 backed up in the morning, Blanding backed up continuously (OK that IS a congestion problem), 95S backed up to Baymeadows in the afternoon, and JTB backed up during a 30-45 minute period in morning and afternoon.  So basically I have seen and driven Jax traffic (for 18 years).  Having family in Chicago, Philly, and now living in Atlanta I have also seen REAL traffic and Jax doesn't have it.  Chicago highways are about the same width as our highways and serve 9x as many people.  Philly the same.  Atlanta has 16+ lane highways and they still become parking lots serving 5x as many people.  Every arterial road in Atlanta except for Peachtree (ironically) is like Blanding: continuously clogged.  Rush hours aren't 30 minutes to maybe an hour, they are 2-3 hours, morning and afternoon.  2 a.m. does not equal empty highways and you still run the risk of getting stuck because the city doesn't "go to sleep" by 9 p.m. (like Jax does).

JTB serves a few hundred thousand family oriented people who have a 9-5 schedule.  There are probably what ~120,000 people who work along JTB?  JTB is also fairly wide right now for the population it serves.  The only bottleneck happens around 9A and 95, but not all the lanes are clogged and not all day.  Try a similar office/mall corridor in a larger city (like 285 between 20 and 85 on Atlanta's northside, which serves Vinings/Cumberland area employing ~250,000 and the Perimeter area employing ~250,000 and 4 major highways...20, 75, 400, 85) and you have 10-12 lanes at a standstill for a length of 10-20 miles in each direction for 3-5 hours a day on average with the other hours being 50-60 MPH congestion whereby you may be going the speed limit, but there is a car 15 ft. in front of you, 15 ft. behind you, and cars on either side of you.

Bottom line: people who gripe about Jax traffic being bad seem like they haven't experienced the 40 other metros with worse traffic no matter how large the highways and it reminds me of people who say we actually do have great parks in this city (?) like they haven't been to another city because if they have they would most likely have seen at least 1 or 2 parks there that put any of ours to shame.

Before we invest further on JTB, we need to pull our core in and look at transit alternatives.  We have expanded our highways like crazy in the past decade without giving any legitimate thought to better public transportation (and BRT down Phillips does not count )

[ChriswUfGator]

Well I'm not griping about traffic, I'm griping about bad road design that creates unnecessary congestion. I agree we don't have the traffic counts of any "real" MSA, that's mainly why I think it's so silly that we employ counterintuitive designs which lead to unnecessary congestion. With the smallish amount of traffic we actually have compared to our large amount of road infrastructure, the reality is our congestion points are a function of poor layout/design.

And I meant I-95. The issues are trickier on Blanding and Baymeadows, as there's not a whole lot of expansion room.

[cline]

The I-95 backup that starts around bowden/university daily is a direct result of whatever idiot made the exit for JTB end in a timed stoplight rather than using a flyover or cloverleaf. As a stopgap measure they added an extra "waiting lane" for people in line to exit, and this made things a little better for the rest of the traffic flow over the past couple months since it's been open.

The initial stoplight configuration was basically done to save money and the fact that the traffic wasn't as much of an issue there when it was constructed.  Obviously, it has gotten progressively worse over the years due to the increased growth out towards the southside and the beaches.  There is currently a PD&E being performed to fix the interchange of JTB and 95.  However, the solution will cost, at a minimum 100MM.