Is it possible to connect the Avenues Walk bridge to Greenland Rd?

[Megabox]

This would be an improvement. I recently saw an ambulance with the lights flashing waiting at the Greenland Rd railroad crossing while a train was coming.

[thelakelander]

How would you propose getting it to Greenland Road? It would seem that a pretty expensive bridge would be needed to cross over the I-95/I-295 ramps.

[Megabox]

How would you propose getting it to Greenland Road? It would seem that a pretty expensive bridge would be needed to cross over the I-95/I-295 ramps.

Well, yes, if they have to cross over the interstate, that would be a problem.

Someone on another forum said that maybe an interchange connecting Greenland Rd to I-95 / I-295 would be good, but that would be too close to both the I-95 / I-295 connector and the Old St. Augustine Rd interchange.

If a bridge has to be built, it would be better to just bridge over the Greenland Rd railroad crossing.

[thelakelander]

Given the proximity to US 1 and the I-295 ramps, someone would have to come up with a cool $50-$100 million to reconstruct that interchange. Not sure that Greenland Road will rank high when in competition with more congested roads for funding. If the desire is for another way out, maybe there's an opportunity to connect to Old St. Augustine Road west of I-95?

[jaxlongtimer]

I just looked at Google map's aerial photo.  This might be doable if a roadway came out of Avenues Walk and ran along the west side of the FEC line to Greenland Road.  This assumes there is enough width under the I-295 overpass over the FEC tracks to include a roadway or that such overpass could feasibly be widened to accommodate going over both a road and the railroad.

[acme54321]

The easiest thing would be to put an overpass over the FEC on Greenland Rd.

Or just wait for the train.

[Megabox]

It is bad when ambulances have to wait to get to people because of a train.

[Jax_Developer]

Venture to the Prudential Dr train crossing if you want to scratch your head Megabox. I can almost guarantee that people have died in ambulances over the years waiting at that train crossing...

[thelakelander]

I just looked at Google map's aerial photo.  This might be doable if a roadway came out of Avenues Walk and ran along the west side of the FEC line to Greenland Road.  This assumes there is enough width under the I-295 overpass over the FEC tracks to include a roadway or that such overpass could feasibly be widened to accommodate going over both a road and the railroad.

Is that FEC property under the I-295 bridge? COJ would have to pay 100%, convince FEC to sell ROW for a road that could restrict their core business capacity and pull FDOT into the discussion. That's a lot for a road with little traffic like Greenland Road. Ultimately, some personal responsibility should factor in this. Don't purchase property that requires you to cross railroad tracks at grade if you hate waiting for trains.

[Megabox]

I just read in the Avenues Walk 2008 plans. There were originally plans to have a connection to Greenland Rd, but it didn't happen.

https://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2008-sep-the-evolution-of-avenues-walk

Avenues Walk will have two access points to Philips Highway, one to Southside Blvd and another to Greenland Road.

[thelakelander]

^Yes, that was a master plan that was more visionary than real. It died with the real estate crash. Now it appears they've sold off the land to suburban apartment and townhouse developments that kill the potential connectivity envisioned back then.

Crazy thing is that project (a suburban power center, multifamily residential and restaurants/hotels around a retention pond (umm lake) probably had more density than what JTA has been studying recently:

[Megabox]

I just know that when the railroad crossing on Greenland Rd was closed earlier this year for maintenance, traffic was terrible going the other way because everyone had to turn around when they got to the crossing and there is only one other way out of the area. It was especially bad when the schools on the road were letting out.

[thelakelander]

It was terrible. I got caught in it one day. Most of the delay involved the elementary school. That work should have been coordinated during a weekend or summer break.

[Megabox]

It so happens that yesterday morning I had a Lyft driver who was driving me to work. He got to the railroad crossing on Greenland Rd from Philips Hwy. The lights started flashing and the bells started dinging as soon as he got to the crossing and he sped through the crossing before the bars got down. I was not comfortable with this.