Lighting Laura Street Plan Moves Forward

[Charles Hunter]

What sort of protection is there around the base to keep errant vehicles from getting up close and personal with General Andy?

[hanjin1]

when i ran by it i didn't see anything that would protect it except the 6-8 foot tall cement block it's sitting on. it is quite unreal to see it sitting there in the middle of layra street

[JaxNative68]

C'mon man!  "Old Hickory" doesn't need any protection.

[subro]

It is only a matter of time until someone gets a high heel stuck in one of these grooves and snaps an ankle…

http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2010-12-09/story/city-says-laura-street-roundabout-will-be-smoother-not-smooth

City says Laura Street roundabout will be smoother, but not smooth
How much it will cost, and who is responsible, are questions still unanswered
Posted: December 9, 2010 - 12:42pm

By Timothy J. Gibbons

Drivers irritated by the rough stone bricks recently installed near The Jacksonville Landing on Laura Street will get a bit of a break next year â€" but not because of their complaints, and not as big of a change as some seek.

Problems with the material holding the stones in place has the city’s Public Works Department planning to dig up and re-lay them early next year, which should create a marginally smoother surface, similar to the one installed at other Laura Street intersections.

“It’s even rougher than it’s supposed to be,” Jennifer Savage, a spokeswoman for the department, said about the roundabout, which is designed to slow down drivers.

“The other intersections that have the cobblestones have a different grout. They’re bumper than most people are used to, but the Laura Street roundabout is even more bumpy.”

The city just recently began studying who is responsible for the problem and figuring out how much it will cost to fix. Answers are expected by the end of the year.

The department noticed there was a problem with the grout soon after the stones were installed: During rainstorms shortly after that part of the project was completed, the sandy material began to wash away.
The contractor doing the work switched to a different, more concrete-like grout for the other intersections while officials monitored the roundabout to see if the situation worsened, Savage said.

It did.

Now, the stones in the roundabout sit unevenly, creating the overly rough surface which has led to a torrent of driver complaints.

“I hate them,” said Monique Hawkins, a driver who said going over the stones had her fearing for her rear axle. “I understand what they’re trying to do, but they’re just too rough.”

What the city is trying to do is slow down drivers, creating a more pedestrian-friendly space in front of the Landing and at the intersections further up the street. Both the statue-dominated roundabout and the stones â€" properly known as Belgium block, although often incorrectly referred to as cobblestones â€" are designed as traffic-calming methods.

“It not only accommodates the aesthetic look, but accomplishes what was intended functionally,” said Paul Crawford, deputy executive director at the Jacksonville Economic Development Commission, which owns the project.

“Just from standing out there and watching, we can see people put on their brakes approaching the roundabout and going through.”

Although the grout needs to be replaced, public works officials said, the uneven stones are not a hazard for drivers.

“It’s not a public safety issue,” Savage said. “It’s still safe for cars to travel over it. It’s an aesthetic and engineering problem.”

The problem is confined to the material holding the stones in place, Savage said, with the stones themselves being the ones mandated by the city.

It’s unclear exactly what led to the problem with the grout, said Bill Joyce, chief of engineering in public works. Over the next several weeks, the department will examine whether the engineer who crafted the specifications made a mistake, the contractor installed the wrong material or if the city messed up in some fashion.

Determining who’s at fault will factor into who will pay for the repairs, which would come on top of the $2.7 million already budgeted for the total revamping of Laura Street. The contract for the work does not break out the cost of the roundabout itself, but installing the stones at all of the intersections â€" about 15,000 square feet total â€" was expected to cost just over $250,000.

Making the change will add more time to the project, which was originally set to be completed Dec. 15 before two earlier change orders pushed that date back to March.

A further extension of the project, particularly in an area that had seemed finished, worries some nearby merchants, who were hard hit by the closure of the street when the work began.

“We lost business and it still hasn’t come back,” said Bonnie Maynard, manager of Coastal Cookies, inside the Landing.

While Janice Lowe, general manager of the Landing, said she’s confident the city will try to minimize the pain, she admitted “dreading” seeing workers block off the road again.

“It was devastating,” she said about the initial construction. “The impact was devastating.”

timothy.gibbons@jacksonville.com(904) 359-4103

[Coolyfett]

Lol @ "studying who is the cause of problem" Lol that needs to be studied?

[Bativac]

Will this be anything like the grating on the Mathews Bridge that took awhile to fix? Wasn't that a situation where they had to rip it up and re-do it?

Jacksonville: Land of the Do-Overs.

[kells904]

Can they do ANYTHING right?

[Dapperdan]

Lol @ "studying who is the cause of problem" Lol that needs to be studied?

Yeah, aren't the same contractors just down the street a couple of blocks? lol. Dam right the contrators better fix their mistake.

[tufsu1]

It may not be the contractor's fault...as has been noted, different grout was used on the roundabout than those at the Bay & Forsyth intersections....it may have been in the specs and changed once they realized the problem.

[Ocklawaha]

I love it! They wanted traffic calming and sure as hell got it! Wonder if we could get some of that grout for the streetcar tracks... hee hee. "Sure Bud, you CAN drive on th-rattle-the-rattle-them-RATTLE-BANG!"  In streetcar terms it's called passive lane management.

OCKLAWAHA

[acme54321]

It may not be the contractor's fault...as has been noted, different grout was used on the roundabout than those at the Bay & Forsyth intersections....it may have been in the specs and changed once they realized the problem.

Just saw a news report that it was changed mid-project when they noticed the problem.  They also said that the roundabout was made to spec, I imagine this will come down on the engineering firm.

[wsansewjs]

The city need some c***-slapping to the face.

-Josh

[mtraininjax]

I love it, slow people down. If you want a racetrack, go to Union or State street.

[tufsu1]

slowing vehicles down is fine....having the cobblestones breaking already because of the poor mortar is not.