Suburban Jacksonville: Julington Creek Plantation

[thelakelander]

That's definitely not a safe or kiddie friendly intersection.  It's a shame that we've let things get so bad in Jacksonville that people actually consider crossings like that safe and family friendly.  Nevertheless, I assume most of the people in JCP drive anyway.  This could be seen at the parks where the parking lots were packed.

[fsquid]

It's 4 lanes with a cross walk and a light.  Growing up in Urban Memphis, I crossed roads like that all the time. 

You are correct that some parents don't even bike or walk to the park with their kids which is sad, but it's a free country.  It's not like there aren't 4 parks in the area all connected by wide sidewalks that are used.

[thelakelander]

Memphis is like Jacksonville.  Outside of downtown and a few urban neighborhoods, its not pedestrian friendly.

You are correct that some parents don't even bike or walk to the park with their kids which is sad, but it's a free country.  It's not like there aren't 4 parks in the area all connected by wide sidewalks that are used.

I don't blame them.  The area isn't designed in a manner that promotes walkability.  However, its clear that wasn't the intention of the county, the development team, and the people who live there could care less about it.

[simms3]

The thing about JCP is that it is still within 15 miles of downtown (with a direct 6-lane route, SR-13).  Compared to most larger metro areas and certainly compared to the extreme sprawl of Atlanta, that is pretty good.  I'll bet you there are brick versions of JCP 50 miles outside of Atlanta's CBD in any given direction with no direct access to the CBD except for a 2-4 lane arterial (serving 5 JCPs) to the nearest 20 lane highway.

Jacksonville is SPRAWLY and its core is sadly not developing like other cities right now, but it's relatively confined compared to say Atlanta (densifying core, but metro sprawls 50 miles in every direction), Charlotte (sprawls almost as much as Atl with 1/3 the population), Nashville, Boston (yes Boston outside of the City is soooo sparse), Chicago, Dallas, Houston, LA, San Diego, San Francisco (forced to be sparse overall by geography, imagine commuting into the City via car from Walnut Creek or Fremont!), etc etc.

[I-10east]

Boy, you can tell who's in the biased urban-fantasy land bubble; Any other environment outside of it is deemed 'unsafe' like you're crossing the freaking Atlanta Motor Speedway during race time or something. It's just a typical neighborhood that you can find all over the country, nothing 'unsafe' about it at all. How come you don't see Julington Creek pedestrian/bicyclists deaths on the news constantly? Exactly

[Tacachale]

Boy, you can tell who's in the biased urban-fantasy land bubble; Any other environment outside of it is deemed 'unsafe' like you're crossing the freaking Atlanta Motor Speedway during race time or something. It's just a typical neighborhood that you can find all over the country, nothing 'unsafe' about it at all. How come you don't see Julington Creek pedestrian/bicyclists deaths on the news constantly? Exactly

Uh, because people aren't walking or biking in any great number? At any rate, there are plenty of auto accidents in Julington Creek that hit the news, including some pretty tragic ones involving bikes and pedestrians, these are some from the last 2 years I found in a 2 minute search.

http://jacksonville.com/news/crime/2012-08-07/story/19-year-old-identified-fatal-jacksonville-crash-sunday
http://jacksonville.com/opinion/editorials/2011-06-04/story/reader-feedback-open-season-pedestrians
http://jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/072608/ner_309381055.shtml
http://staugustine.com/news/local-news/2011-03-25/suv-strikes-child-dog-julington-creek#.UGYH9CLbjjM
http://staugustine.com/news/police/2011-02-10/police-report-february-9-2011#.UGYK6yLbjjM
http://www.news4jax.com/news/24088771/detail.html

[fsquid]

What a horrible person I was biking with my six and two year old to Brickstone for a pizza tonight.  We werr putting our life at risk!  It is no way urban, but ifyou want to walk or bike, you can.  Easily.  When you come to an intersection wait until that white thing tells you to walk

[Tacachale]

It's not a matter of being horrible (and you're clearly not). It's a matter of choice, though a choice heavily influenced by what one perceives as "safe" and "family friendly".

[fsquid]

I see flat sidewalks, which I enjoy more than my uphill ride from the pub in Charlotte!

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

I see flat sidewalks, which I enjoy more than my uphill ride from the pub in Charlotte!

Obviously you forgot to consider the ride home when purchasing in Charlotte.  Think about it, if you had only had a downhill coast from the pub....  you might still be there.

[themathochist]

The schools "do well" in St. Johns County because the area draws in a homogenous demographic pool that values education and is isolated from the more diverse Duval County School District. There's nothing more to it than simple white flight. "Family-focus" is subjective. Taking me as an example, I don't consider a development with no ability to walk or bike around, no where to walk or bike to, clogged arterials and a 20-minute drive to the nearest hospital to be a very enticing environment to raise a family.

I partly disagree with you with respect to why schools do well. Yes, it is because of how much one values education. However, I would not go as far as to suggest that only one demographic group values education. Stanton College Preparatory, where I went to high school, did well because of the parents who got involved, regardless of ethnicity, income level, etc. not because of the homogeneous demographic. In fact, its existence was in part due to the need to diversify high school student bodies. Northshore Elementary, a school in a fairly poor neighborhood, pulled itself out of the hole largely due to the people who cared about keeping the school from being closed. I've provided examples from both a stellar school, and one that a few years ago was on the brink of closing its doors. The key was the sense of value in education as you pointed out. However, that is these are more exceptions than the general rule in Jacksonville, which is quite opposite when you visit the schools in the JCP area.

As for walking, I can agree that San Jose / State Road 13 is not pedestrian friendly.  Though is there any main artery for which this is the case? Once you get off of the main roads, there are plenty of places to bike and walk. There are lots of parks here, plenty of bike lanes (you can see cyclists pretty much every day). In fact, I see quite a few runners, cyclists, folks walking their dog, etc. on the way to and from work on a daily basis.

As for clogged arterials -- I am having a hard time even naming one place that is not close to some artery that gets clogged with traffic. No matter where you live, you will be close to some main artery filled with traffic -- how else are people going to get around the huge space that is Jacksonville without it taking over an hour? (It already takes about 30 mins to get anywhere even with the big roads.) So what place did you have in mind? I've lived in almost all areas of Jacksonville, and I feel pretty confident there is not one single place that is completely free of traffic problems.

[themathochist]

So do these people:

It doesn't look like a particularly "safe" or "family-focused" environment to me.

You're kidding right? If I'm not mistaken, that's Racetrack -- a pretty busy street (probably second to SR 13, a.k.a. San Jose Blvd). By that logic, Riverside is unsafe because of the I-10 and I-95 interstates, anywhere between the St. Johns and the beaches would be unsafe due to one of Atlantic Blvd, Beach Blvd, Southside Blvd, or A1A... If that were the intersection within a neighborhood, then you would have a point...

[I-10east]

Bottomline is that there is nothing uniquely unsafe about San Jose/SR13 in comparison to many busy 'unsafe' streets in Jax. It is a suburban area, so I wouldn't expect San Jose to be like Newnan. 

[themathochist]

Memphis is like Jacksonville.  Outside of downtown and a few urban neighborhoods, its not pedestrian friendly.

You are correct that some parents don't even bike or walk to the park with their kids which is sad, but it's a free country.  It's not like there aren't 4 parks in the area all connected by wide sidewalks that are used.

I don't blame them.  The area isn't designed in a manner that promotes walkability.  However, its clear that wasn't the intention of the county, the development team, and the people who live there could care less about it.

I think it would be pretty difficult to make most of Jacksonville walk-friendly. The city is the entire county! Even if you magically added in safe sidewalks everywhere, there's no way someone from the Westside is going to go "strolling" out toward the beaches =) But I disagree with you if you mean to say within any given area, there is little room for walking or biking.

As for walking to parks in JCP -- I think you'll find that there are more people at those parks than could possibly fit into all the cars parked there (even with a full parking lot).

[Tacachale]

So do these people:

It doesn't look like a particularly "safe" or "family-focused" environment to me.

You're kidding right? If I'm not mistaken, that's Racetrack -- a pretty busy street (probably second to SR 13, a.k.a. San Jose Blvd). By that logic, Riverside is unsafe because of the I-10 and I-95 interstates, anywhere between the St. Johns and the beaches would be unsafe due to one of Atlantic Blvd, Beach Blvd, Southside Blvd, or A1A... If that were the intersection within a neighborhood, then you would have a point...

Yes, basically all of the roads you describe are very unsafe for pedestrians and bikes, and make the areas they run through that much less safe (though pedestrians aren't allowed on I-10 and I-95). However, clearly some areas are more walkable and bikeable than others. Again, it's all a matter of preference, but I submit the appeal of a neighborhood is heavily reliant on your personal perceptions about such things as "safety" and "family focus".