Main St Bridge Ramp from Independent Drive Closing April 15th

[Steve]

Looks like they didn't wait to award that demo contract!

I mean it's the right thing to do; I'm just surprised it needed to be done now and would love to see a rendering of the finished product for Bike/ped access.

[thelakelander]

There likely won't be any. Pedestrians will walk down Main and circle back on Bay and Laura to then access the riverfront. Hopefully whatever the Landing site consulting teams come up with include a solution to connect riverwalk users with the Main Street Bridge.

[Tacachale]

Demo Lenny gonna demo.

[Peter Griffin]

Nice. Hopefully this opens up even more opportunity for the Landing site to be developed (eventually)

Unless they do something like the corkscrew near the Acosta, it'd be tough to get pedestrians up to grade over there without a similarly sized structure going up. Plus, there's bridge access just a block over, so the removal of the pedestrian ramp isn't as deleterious as I thought it would be.

[Josh]

Is the plan to just have the pedestrian pathway on the bridge end where the ramp met the bridge? That seems dangerous, because unknowing pedestrians will be tempted to cross over the traffic names to the other side as opposed to going back. So is the pedestrian path going to be closed at the start of the southbank?

edit: Sounds like the plan is to close the entire pathway "during construction." Is the bridge going to remain "under construction" until after the ramp comes down for the years it takes the city to figure out what to do?

[Steve]

I said this in a different thread but it is typical of our downtown development process. To be clear - it's the right move to tear out the ramp. But, as written the plan cuts off Ped/Bike access to the bridge from the most common route Peds/Bikes take to cross the bridge. I'm sure it could be restored as part of a larger plan for the riverfront and maybe that will happen. But to that point, why not wait on the demo until we have a concrete plan for the site? There are three national design firms bidding on the space - surely they can imagine the space without the ramp.

Sort of underscores the piecemeal process of how we're tackling the development.

[Charles Hunter]

The sidewalk on the west side of the bridge continues past the Wells Fargo Building to Bay Street.

[thelakelander]

I said this in a different thread but it is typical of our downtown development process. To be clear - it's the right move to tear out the ramp. But, as written the plan cuts off Ped/Bike access to the bridge from the most common route Peds/Bikes take to cross the bridge. I'm sure it could be restored as part of a larger plan for the riverfront and maybe that will happen. But to that point, why not wait on the demo until we have a concrete plan for the site? There are three national design firms bidding on the space - surely they can imagine the space without the ramp.

Sort of underscores the piecemeal process of how we're tackling the development.

I recall this being a part of the Alvin Brown administration's plans for the Landing site, in partnership with Sleiman.



Perhaps the hope or thought several years ago was that we'd be further along with that site's redevelopment?

[Peter Griffin]

edit: Sounds like the plan is to close the entire pathway "during construction." Is the bridge going to remain "under construction" until after the ramp comes down for the years it takes the city to figure out what to do?

I just pulled the contract estimate. There's Pedestrian LCD's planned, which indicates a temporary pedestrian traffic configuration, indicating that pedestrian access will likely be maintained during construction. I don't have access to the TCP, but presume there will be one closed lane, pedestrian traffic maintained within the closed lane separated from vehicular traffic via temporary traffic barrier, then new pedestrian-friendly bridge barriers constructed where the ramp used to come onto the bridge. It would make the most sense that the typical section of sidewalk would be maintained.

Don't be so doom-and-gloom, this is an FDOT project, not a COJ one.

[thelakelander]

^I believe it's already been explained. The SB sidewalk will be closed during the ramp demolition project. The NB sidewalk on the bridge will remain open during the construction process.

[Peter Griffin]

^I believe it's already been explained. The SB sidewalk will be closed during the ramp demolition project. The NB sidewalk on the bridge will remain open during the construction process.

Do you have access to the plans or the scope? How did you ascertain that information?

[fieldafm]

^I believe it's already been explained. The SB sidewalk will be closed during the ramp demolition project. The NB sidewalk on the bridge will remain open during the construction process.

Do you have access to the plans or the scope? How did you ascertain that information?

[Peter Griffin]

^I believe it's already been explained. The SB sidewalk will be closed during the ramp demolition project. The NB sidewalk on the bridge will remain open during the construction process.

Do you have access to the plans or the scope? How did you ascertain that information?

[IMAGE]

That appears to only show the vehicular detour, not the pedestrian detour. Without access to the contract plans, specifically the temporary traffic control plans, I don't know that any of us can say with any certainty whether or not the western sidewalk on the Main Street Bridge will be closed. Based on the estimate I pulled, there ARE pedestrian LCD's programmed, which to me indicates a pedestrian detour on that side of the bridge, leading me to believe that pedestrian access will be maintained.

[thelakelander]

^I believe it's already been explained. The SB sidewalk will be closed during the ramp demolition project. The NB sidewalk on the bridge will remain open during the construction process.

Do you have access to the plans or the scope? How did you ascertain that information?

It's in the Jax Daily Record article:

The bridge's west pedestrian sidewalk will be closed during construction and users will be detoured to the east access, according to FDOT.

https://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/article/southbound-main-street-bridge-ramp-closing-permanently