J Magazine Winter 2019

A few bright spots:
• Forsyth Street in front of the 11 E. Forsyth
St. is well lit.
• Some areas of Bay Street are well lit, but
not the block near Jefferson Street.
• The sidewalk in front of Farah & Farah
on Forsyth Street has lights attached to the
side of the building, which avoids the tree
canopy problem. In addition, decorative
lights in the trees creates a lived-in effect.
Readers sound off
I asked members of the Times-Union’s
Email Group for their evaluations of lighting
Downtown.
Businessman Robert Frary wrote that he
often runs Downtown before sunrise, watching
the city transition from dark to dawn to
daylight.
Before daylight he sticks to the riverwalks,
then Water, Bay, Forsyth, Broad and
Liberty streets. He avoids the Hemming Park
area. With poor lighting, it didn’t seem “a
happy place,” he wrote.
By the way, he almost never sees a police
cruiser on his sunrise runs.
He said the new grassy area along the
riverfront on Bay Street, where the old city
hall and courthouse used to be, is dimly lit.
If this is going to be an Innovation Corridor,
the city can start by turning on the lights.
Fern Malowitz wrote that if Downtown
is a real neighborhood, then lighting is vital.
“If we have adequate street lighting we
might feel more confident to stroll around
our neighborhood. I am often up quite
early in the mornings. I’d rather walk in my
neighborhood than drive to the gym, but if I
cannot see the road why take the risk?”
Bonnie Hayflick wrote that there can’t be
too much lighting Downtown. The sidewalk
along Bay Street near Maxwell House is
uncomfortably dark, she wrote.
Solutions
The city and JEA have been replacing old
lights with new LED versions and adding
new lights. A JEA spokeswoman said the
new lights will last longer and are brighter,
but you will be hard-pressed to see the
difference.
In early 2016, JEA began converting all
existing streetlights Downtown to LEDs. At
last count in September, 8,584 streetlights
had been converted, and there are 2,009 left.
This project should be completed by April,
2020.
Also, 176 new streetlights have been installed
(169 decorative acorn lights and seven
cobra head lights). There are 22 locations
remaining. This project should be complete
by the end of this calendar year.
Downtown Vision has a major lighting
project along Laura Street for the holidays
that will continue year-round. Trees are lit
with lights that both illuminate and decorate,
said Jake Gordon, CEO of Downtown
Vision. That project will cost more than
$90,000 annually.
Retail nodes Downtown — Laura-Hogan
and the Elbow — need to be well lit all the
way to major parking areas.
Lighting design needs to be improved.
Teardrop lights that focus downward do a
better job for walkers and bicyclists.
Where there are trees, lights need to be
placed low enough that the limbs don’t
block them.
Lights placed along the sides of buildings
or even near the pavement are ideal.
It’s really just common sense. You don’t
need to be a lighting engineer to tell if it’s
dark or not.
Until Downtown has good lighting, it will
continue to feel unsafe.
MIKE CLARK is Editorial Page Editor of
The Florida Times-Union and Editor of J. He has
been a reporter and editor for the Jacksonville
newspapers since 1973. He lives in Nocatee.
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J MAGAZINE | WINTER 2019
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