A New Look for East Bay Street?

[Ocklawaha]

Some one mentioned Jax should get its own identity. Well dont many other cities have street cars and entertainment districts. Jax will always be unique because of its river, layout, and bridges. There's is nothing wrong with copying and idea as long as it works.

Yes other cities do have streetcars to their entertainment districts and downtowns, but we still would not be a copy of ANY PLACE.

Please understand that our own Jacksonville Traction Company was once the largest streetcar system in the State of Florida. The JTCO was also World Famous for lush landscaped medians, and covering the tracks with sod. Though it couldn't be proved, we might well have been the city that invented the landscaped streetcar lines.

Other area which stands out is the equipment itself. If we use a heritage streetcar, they could be modeled after our somwhat unique, Stone and Webster Turtleback Cars (with all modern comforts and appliances inside and out). Overnight we would be the ONLY city running a fleet of these large streetcars (Which BTW, ride better then most any other car I can recall).

From the Trout River to the St. Johns, South far into San Marco, San Jose and St. Nicholas, Southwest to Black Point on the river at the current NAS JAX, neighborhoods from Moncrief to Murray Hill were all covered.

This wouldn't be a copy of anybody's streetcar but our own, and lets put on the heat to make sure we keep it JACKSONVILLE and that it salutes Jacksonville Heritage.


OCKLAWAHA

[Jason]

Can we emulate Las Vegas Blvd on Bay Street? Lets forget the Shipyards and put up some casinos on the land. Also, you could get a company to buy the land the courthouse and jail sit on, use the money to finance the new buildings. Anybody with me?

I've been saying that for years!  Casinos in downtown Jax would work wonders!

[Jason]

Why would we propose a streetcar line on Bay when the skyway is destined for that corridor?  IMO, streetcars should fill in the gaps between skyway stations and connect the historic neighborhoods.  If anything, build the southside sidewalk wide enough to accomodate an eventual expansion of the skyway.  The landscaped median should not get in the way of that.


Also, why not plant Bay trees on Bay street?

[ac]

I've been saying that for years!  Casinos in downtown Jax would work wonders!

It would be an epic battle getting real casinos (not the fake Seminole Hard Rock/Micosukee glorified bingo joints) in FL, let alone downtown Jax.  I think FBC might burn the city down if that were to happen.  

It would be awesome if The Poker Room were to eye someplace downtown, though.  Are they restricted by law to just the current locations?  Would Jacksonville not allow them to operate within the county line?

The Kennel Club should move from McDuff downtown as well.  It's basically off-track betting anyway.  Only OP has live races anymore, right?

[Jason]

I'm pretty sure the Poker Rooms are limited to existing paramutual establishments (ie, dog tracks, hai alai, etc)

And I agree that casinos would be a LONG shot in Jax let alone florida.  Still neat to think about.

[copperfiend]

My post was more tongue in cheek. I would love it but it would never fly in this town. We couldn't even get an ampitheater built downtown.

[reednavy]

Also, why not plant Bay trees on Bay street?

Bay trees around here have been dying from some disease. All the one's I have seen are dead, and that is all over the area.

[stjr]

Why not have our cake and eat it too here?

Eliminate the parallel parking.  That leaves lots of room for bike and trolley lanes.  By the way, don't cars often travel down trolley lanes in many cities?  Couldn't they share the same lane?

After football games, make Bay Street one way as is currently done.  Two or three lanes, depending on the final configuration, would handle the traffic.  90% of Bay Street is headed for the two lanes going up the Main street bridge after the games so that should be adequate.

As to trees, having just visited Savannah, the live oaks would do the trick.   They now have oaks decades old that are turning into magnificent trees lining their downtown streets and making things special and unique.  I have never understood why Jax replants its trees downtown after they reach about 6 inches in diameter.  If Savannah can make larger trees work, so should we.

I would love to see a big chunk of downtown converted into tree covered pedestrian plaza's with only trolleys and bikes mixed in.  Jax would certainly have its signature status.  Much like college campuses all over the country have gone back and done.  Now that's radical street changes!

P.S. I want to reiterate that we should emphasize the trolleys and jettison the Skyway.   It is a blight on downtown and not the panacea people keep making it to be.  Could you see someone in NYC leaving their Fifth or Park Avenue apartment and walking under a monster concrete Skyway support beam and track shoved up against the face of their building?  Really!!!!  If you want residential downtown, that thing needs to go.  See other MJ boards for my previous postings with more comments on this.

[thelakelander]

Why not have our cake and eat it too here?

Eliminate the parallel parking.  That leaves lots of room for bike and trolley lanes.  By the way, don't cars often travel down trolley lanes in many cities?  Couldn't they share the same lane?

By placing streetcar lanes in the same lane as auto traffic, you then immediately double to cost per mile of the streetcar.  You'll need dual streetcar lines, each running in the same direction as the auto traffic sharing the same lane.  With a median, you can have a single track line with occasional passing sidings.  Also, removing all parallel parking would be a negative for businesses along Bay, for those traveling into the area by car (Jax is still an auto oriented sprawler).  Nevertheless, you can accomodate all within the existing 80' corridor:

18' - existing north sidewalk
8' - existing parallel parking adjacent to north sidewalk
11' - westbound through traffic auto lane
18' - median to accomodate future streetcar line and landscaping
11' - eastbound through traffic auto lane
4' - bike lane adjacent to south sidewalk
10' - new south sidewalk
80' - TOTAL WIDTH

[stjr]

Lake, unless the same trolley runs back and forth, I would think that if you want to do any volume, you would need at least two trolleys, running in opposite directions.  This would seem to dictate two tracks.  That would actually allow for multiple trolleys in each direction if the track is long enough and the system needs to be scaled for hoped-for success.  I would expect that it would be far less than double the price as the contractor is only mobilized once and you only have one operating system.  My travels indicate it's common to have dual tracks.  I think it would be nice to have a dual LOOP system through the City.

As to parking, I don't recall any business on Bay between Ocean and Main, just the Modis garage, a JEA substation, and the Chamber.  Besides, if you have the trolley it should supplant most of the need for parking there.

[thelakelander]

Lake, unless the same trolley runs back and forth, I would think that if you want to do any volume, you would need at least two trolleys, running in opposite directions.  This would seem to dictate two tracks.  That would actually allow for multiple trolleys in each direction if the track is long enough and the system needs to be scaled for hoped-for success.  I would expect that it would be far less than double the price as the contractor is only mobilized once and you only have one operating system.  My travels indicate it's common to have dual tracks.  I think it would be nice to have a dual LOOP system through the City.

I'm not crazy about loops in the initial phases, but that's for another post.  There are several examples of streetcar systems that have single lines with occassional passing sidings.  Its not really that complicated and its no different from regular freight lines.  Here are a few examples:

Tacoma Link - Tacoma, WA


TECO Line Streetcar - Tampa, FL (ex. of a passing siding can be seen in front of Channelside)


River Rail Streetcar - Little Rock (single line river crossing - streetcars travel in both directions on same line)


This is really a great way to stretch out a system early on (when your working with limited funds) instead of building capacity that may not be needed for decades.  When the time comes, with an 18' wide median, double track could be added in the future, if necessary.  With this scenerio, you can have an impact covering a much larger area early on, as opposed to sinking all of your funds into a train circling downtown (aka. the skyway).

As to parking, I don't recall any business on Bay between Ocean and Main, just the Modis garage, a JEA substation, and the Chamber.  Besides, if you have the trolley it should supplant most of the need for parking there.

What about Bay between Ocean and Liberty?  This area is also a part of the project.  Existing businesses like Northstar Substation, the architectural firm a few doors down and Farah's Deli would suffer if all short term parking were eliminated on their blocks.

[thelakelander]

Although service is suspended until possibly 2018, the Seattle Waterfront Streetcar is another example of a single line with passing sidings.



a passing siding

[stjr]

Lake, here is your single track, albeit apparently on a one way street, with trees all about.  This is San Jose, California.  Note the apparent absence of street parking.





Here is double track elsewhere on the same system:





And, here is the trolley going down my pedestrian plaza/park.  "Look, Mom! No streets!"



Lastly, its allllllll aboard!

[thelakelander]

I'm not familiar with the built environment, for all we could know, there could be a huge public parking garage within a block of these photos.  However, we all know there are no short term public parking facilities available along East Bay, in the vicinity of the buildings between Ocean and Liberty.  Nevertheless, there is on-street parallel parking in the first photo.


I see a truck and a car parked to the left of the trolley line.  We can basically have the same thing along Bay, if ONE of two parallel parking lanes are eliminated to help accomodate bike lanes and streetcar along that corridor.



Although this traffic corridor is much wider, it relates to the "track in the median" idea with Bay Street.  If the city wants to build a median in Bay, make it wide enough to accomodate rail, like shown in the image above.  We can start of with a single line and passing sidings to help stretch the initial system into neighborhoods outside of downtown.  When the time comes, the median is still wide enough to add continuous dual track, as shown in the image above.

[thelakelander]

Stjr, are they running streetcars and light rail on the same track in San Jose?