Downtown's Liberty Street road diet project underway

[thelakelander]

A long proposed Downtown Investment Authority (DIA) infrastructure initiative is now underway.

Read More: https://www.thejaxsonmag.com/article/downtowns-liberty-street-road-diet-project-underway/

[Charles Hunter]

What physical changes to Liberty Street does the project entail? Are the plans available?

[tufsu1]

This is a simple restriping project. It will include two travel lanes, bike lanes on each side, and on-street parking. The initial striping should be finished very soon.

It is an important demonstration, as it will hopefully show that many road diet projects can be undertaken quickly and at low cost.

There are longer term plans to reconstruct the sidewalks and enhance the streetscape.

[fsu813]

This is a simple restriping project. It will include two travel lanes, bike lanes on each side, and on-street parking. The initial striping should be finished very soon.

It is an important demonstration, as it will hopefully show that many road diet projects can be undertaken quickly and at low cost.

There are longer term plans to reconstruct the sidewalks and enhance the streetscape.

I recall this being proposed 2+ years ago, is that correct?

[marcuscnelson]

Aw, looks like they have the bike lanes set up wrong. Modern best practice is to put the bike lane next to the sidewalk and have a buffer between them and the parking which goes next to the travel lane. Instead they're putting the bike lane between the parking and the travel lane, which feels way less safe so people don't use it. On a bike you'd be wedged between faster, heavier moving cars and parked cars whose doors could open at any moment. Doing a road diet at all is good, but the implementation is a bit of a miss.

[Charles Hunter]

This is a simple restriping project. It will include two travel lanes, bike lanes on each side, and on-street parking. The initial striping should be finished very soon.

It is an important demonstration, as it will hopefully show that many road diet projects can be undertaken quickly and at low cost.

There are longer term plans to reconstruct the sidewalks and enhance the streetscape.

They aren't even going to resurface before they restripe? So there will be the highly ineffective 'black out' over the old stripes? If this is a demonstration, at least do it right.

[jcjohnpaint]

Lake, What are your thoughts on the DIA master plan?

[thelakelander]

What physical changes to Liberty Street does the project entail? Are the plans available?

Don't have the plans but here's a picture from yesterday:



Appears to be parallel parking on the southbound side of the street and 7-foot-wide buffered bicycle lanes. There's some wasted space with this concept. Not sure what the reasoning was behind the selected typical section.

[Steve]

Couldn't they have squeezed in parking on both sides? I see some extra ROW on the southbound side; if we shoved the parking at the curb, narrowed the bike lanes a little, doesn't that give you the 6ft that you need for parking on the NB side?

[thelakelander]

You need more than six feet for parallel parking. You also need to accommodate for car door openings, when placing bicycle lanes adjacent to parallel parking. I worked with FDOT, City of Orlando and Downtown Orlando on a similar road diet project. Some unseen things that popped up on that four-lane undivided street (SR 526/Robinson Street) included:

1. Travel lanes were 10-feet wide but in reality about a foot of curb and gutter had been paved over.

2. The paved over part of the curb had gutters. So really, travel lanes were closer to 9-feet wide than 10-feet.

3. Lynx buses used the corridor, so there were bus stops needed to be upgraded to be ADA accessible and travel lanes needed to be wide enough to accommodate the bus route.

4. Robinson Street is a FDOT maintained roadway. So everything had to meet FDOT design criteria for that specific context classification (I believe the CC was a mix of C5 and C4).

In the end, the solution was a cycle track for a portion and a shared use path for a different segment. Going the cycle track route allowed us to save some space without moving existing curbs and gutters.

[thelakelander]

Lake, What are your thoughts on the DIA master plan?

My thoughts on a master plan remain the same as they have always been. We don't have what "I" would describe as being a master plan.



For example, IMO a plan should identify specific uses for publicly owned parcels. If we're going to move the convention center....then why, where and when? That should be in a plan to provide the public and development community a road map of how the long term downtown vision would be implemented incrementally. If we want walkable streets that are cohesive at the pedestrian scale, then there should be some hierarchy (i.e. retail vs. service streets/corridors) and complimentary Form-based policies to guide infill development. This "plan" should also be updated ever five to ten years or so, as projects are implemented and new ones pop up and/or are refined.

I know there are those around that get caught up on the "downtown master plan" terminology semantics. I actually don't care whether we call what I'm describing a master plan, road map, CRA plan or whatever. At the end of the day, from previous experience and observation over the decades from a variety of other communities, the plans that serve as road maps for private and public investment end up being implemented closer to the end vision, more so than those that don't.

[Charles Hunter]

What physical changes to Liberty Street does the project entail? Are the plans available?

Don't have the plans but here's a picture from yesterday:



Appears to be parallel parking on the southbound side of the street and 7-foot-wide buffered bicycle lanes. There's some wasted space with this concept. Not sure what the reasoning was behind the selected typical section.

Why does Jacksonville have to do things on the cheap? A COJ Resurfacing*, where they spread a layer of pavement on the existing surface, wouldn't have added that much to the cost of a project being billed as a test or demonstration of this cross-section. I would not be at all surprised if lane-keeping software in many cars will get confused over the reflective black lines and the white and yellow lines.

* I contrast this with FDOT "mill and resurface" where they take off the old pavement down to the base and replace it with fresh pavement before adding the stripes. This gets rid of potholes and other imperfections in the old surface.  A friend who works at FDOT says the call what the COJ does as "painting" the road.

[tufsu1]

^ I have no problem with doing this project "on the cheap" - it is important to show that road diets can be done low cost - unlike Laura Street and Riverplace Blvd.

As to milling and resurfacing, that was done on Liberty Street just last year. They unfortunately put the 4-lane striping back as it was then as some wanted to see what traffic would be like when the Hart Bridge ramps reopened. Thankfully they only painted the lines so they were easier to remove.

Note the project isn't finished yet, so I will reserve final judgement.

[acme54321]

What physical changes to Liberty Street does the project entail? Are the plans available?

Don't have the plans but here's a picture from yesterday:



Appears to be parallel parking on the southbound side of the street and 7-foot-wide buffered bicycle lanes. There's some wasted space with this concept. Not sure what the reasoning was behind the selected typical section.

Why does Jacksonville have to do things on the cheap? A COJ Resurfacing*, where they spread a layer of pavement on the existing surface, wouldn't have added that much to the cost of a project being billed as a test or demonstration of this cross-section. I would not be at all surprised if lane-keeping software in many cars will get confused over the reflective black lines and the white and yellow lines.

* I contrast this with FDOT "mill and resurface" where they take off the old pavement down to the base and replace it with fresh pavement before adding the stripes. This gets rid of potholes and other imperfections in the old surface.  A friend who works at FDOT says the call what the COJ does as "painting" the road.

Why would they resurface this road?  Just look at the pictures, it's practically brand new.

And FWIW COJ is milling roads before repaving.  At least the ones in my area Ive seen.

[Charles Hunter]

^ First, I didn't realize Liberty had been resurfaced recently. So, re-resurfacing would be a waste of time and resources. But that just leads to another question - why wasn't the new lane configuration implemented with the resurfacing?

My concern is that the 'blackout' paint is often highly reflective, especially in dark and wet conditions. In a few months, after the new markings begin to fade and accumulate road dirt, the painted-over stripes can be more visible than the 'real' stripes.

I am glad the City is milling off the old pavement now. A few years ago, in a neighborhood where I used to live, all the City did was spread a new layer of paving over the existing pavement.

Bottom line, I am glad the City is doing this, and hope it is successful in encouraging cycling and making it safer.