J Magazine Winter 2019

To ride in the core city, a cyclist “needs to be annoying and not a lot
of people are willing to do it,” Mayhew said. “On the one-way streets
you have to be brave enough to ride in the traffic lane, in the middle.”
Though legal, cycling on a sidewalk is not advisable, Mayhew said.
Not only are there pedestrians to avoid, sidewalks are often intersected
by driveways in places drivers aren’t expecting cyclists.
“People on the roads yell at you to get on the sidewalk, and people
on the sidewalk tell you to get in the road,” Mayhew said.
There needs to be accommodations made for cyclists – sharrows
(roads shared by vehicles and bikes), bike lanes and preferably bike
paths separated from traffic, he said.
“It all boils down to political will and money,” Mayhew said. “You
can find the money, but will the city do it?”
The answer is yes.
Redevelopment plans for Downtown include making the area
friendlier to walkers and cyclists by converting several one-way streets
to two-ways and adding dedicated bike lanes separated from vehicular
traffic by medians, said Lori Boyer, CEO of the Downtown Investment
Authority.
The projects are in various stages of implementation.
Hogan Street will be converted to a two-way street with a two-way
bike lane, giving cyclists a corridor between a new riverfront park on
the Northbank called Hogan Street Plaza, Hemming Plaza and north
to Florida State College at Jacksonville. It is in the Capital Improvement
Plan for 2021/22.
Liberty Street also will have protected bike lanes.
Dedicated bike lanes are also under consideration for the Bay
Street Innovation Corridor, Laura Street, Church Street and Riverside
Avenue.
Park Street will undergo a road diet from Forest Street to Stonewall
Street, reducing the number of traffic lanes from four to three to slow
down traffic and adding a two-way bicycle track that will go to Interstate
95. That project is funded and in the design phase.
Lee Street will have a dedicated bike lane connecting Park Street
to the Emerald Trail. The project is funded and in the design phase.
“This will build out a network,” Boyer said. “It’s not every street,
but a network every few blocks with clearly dedicated lanes, not just
striped lanes. If you can cut
across Liberty, Hogan and Lee,
that gives you the ability to go all
directions.”
A dedicated bike lane is also
part of the road diet work nearing
completion on Riverplace
Boulevard on the Southbank.
And, Laura Santana, director
of transportation planning, said
the city is considering a road diet
for Prudential Drive from Riverplace
Boulevard to the District
that would include bike lanes.
By the end of 2020, cyclists
and walkers will be able to cross
the Fuller Warren Bridge on a
multi-use bike path that will
connect the Northbank and Southbank Riverwalks. The multi-use
path will continue in front of Nemours Children’s Clinic and eventually
stretch to the District via Nira Street.
Other bicycle-friendly features are part of the city’s Transportation
Mobility Plan, which is expected to go to the City Council in the
spring. The plan includes funding for projects through a mobility fee
paid by developers.
“I get a lot of close calls. In
the mornings, people are going
for donuts. Afternoons are
even worse. Everyone is on
their phone. You really have to
be on your toes.”
TROY MAYHEW, Downtown cyclist
Boyer said she is “aggressively pursuing” a plan to create more
two-way streets in Downtown to slow down traffic and create an ambiance
that is friendlier to residential and retail.
But there will still be a network of one-way streets — Main and
Ocean, Broad and Jefferson, and State and Union — to move traffic
through Downtown.
“But inside that box, we want to have a neighborhood like any
other,” Boyer said. “Every street doesn’t need to be a highway. If we’re
going to have residents out walking, we need to slow down traffic and
provide shade and restaurants. This is not just about traffic, it’s about
economic development.”
Burns said he is looking forward to the day when Downtown has
dedicated bike lanes.
“The Master Plan has great ideas and over 200 projects. The problem
is implementing the plan,” Burns said. “We can’t have a plan that
sits on the shelf, and great projects that don’t get funded. If we just
do one or two a year, it’ll take 100 years to enact the plan. We have to
be committed to building these projects and not just pay lip service.”
But Santana said it’s not enough to build bike friendly infrastructure,
incorporating cycling Downtown will take a cultural shift.
“We have to learn to respect different modes of transportation. We
have to teach drivers to be respectful of vulnerable users like pedestrians
and cyclists. And we have to teach pedestrians and cyclists to be
careful around drivers,” Santana said.
“When you walk around Charleston, if you walk into the street, the
cars just stop, but here they beep at you,” Santana said. “That’s going
to take a long time to change.”
The city has implemented what it calls the 5 E’s: education, encouragement,
enforcement, evaluation and engineering.
The education component created an awareness campaign with
promotional and social media ads to educate people how to safely
walk and cycle. The program also includes free bicycle helmet fittings.
The encouragement component focuses on the reasons like health
for people to walk and bike in the city.
The enforcement component involves Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office
issuing warnings and tickets to reduce negative behavior.
The evaluation component analyzes the statistics of accidents and
fatalities and their causes.
And, the engineering component
is about building the
infrastructure to make walking
and cycling safer.
“Jacksonville can definitely
be a biking city,” Dwyer said.
“The urban core is structured so
it can be bikeable and walkable.
All it would take is a change of
direction in what we fund. We
could be up in the top 10 of bike
friendly cities or places where
you can live without a car.
“If the city signals to people
that we are prioritizing bikers
and walkers, they will come to
expect it,” Dwyer said. “If we
want Downtown to grow and be vibrant, we want to be able to share
this space with people of all ages, races and modes of transportation.
We need to make it a city where children can ride their bikes
Downtown.”
Lilla Ross, a former news editor at the Florida Times-Union,
lives in San Marco.
WINTER 2019 | J MAGAZINE 43