Construction on SR 9B Continues to Advance

[Metro Jacksonville]

Construction on SR 9B Continues to Advance



Jacksonville's latest expressway construction project continues to move towards completion.  Today, Metro Jacksonville shares an update on the status of State Road 9B which will eventually become Interstate 795.

Full Article
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2012-jul-construction-on-sr-9b-continues-to-advance

[Doctor_K]

But God forbid we spend that $173 million on any kind of rail, or even upgrading/expanding/revamping our bus fleet.

[Ocklawaha]

I feel the same way Doctor_K, 32 years of pushing rail and blasting JTA has only resulted in the Executive Director being fired. On
the other hand I see the reasons behind this road.

Ever hear those Clay County boys and girls complaining about poor access to Duval? In Clay the Ortega River/McGirts Creek force all traffic into a narrow corridor without much room for expansion. St John's is one of the richest counties in the entire USA and 'we' are growing at a rapid pace...AND following our long term development plans. While the road is completely redundant, it won't be within a short span of years. Getting this road in place now, rather then later, will save St. Johns from another 'Blanding/Collins/I-295 disaster.

Lastly the roadway will be used to pull most of the heavy southbound truck traffic off of the I-95/295 interchange, something that should assist with the heavy flows through that interchange during the rush hours.

Would I have built it? Not unless I could swing it over the St. Johns River somewhere between Bald Eagle Road or Town Center Blvd.

[cline]

So this colossal waste of money appears to be progressing quickly.  Nice.

St John's is one of the richest counties in the entire USA

  Define "one of", it's not in the top 25.  I'm pretty sure its not in the top 50 either.

St. Johns has I95 as an artery into Jax, Clay has Blanding.  Two completely different facilities.

[tufsu1]

I am so excited that we are building another highway in northeast Florida.....and now FDOT has revived the Future Corridors program to study more....imagine the glory of building these all over the state!

[cline]

^Who needs the environment and greenspace when you can have more roads?  FDOT must be proud.

[Bike Jax]

Im convinced that FDOT planners & engineers are making up shit to do now so they can have a job. What if they put all that energy and money into fixing the shit they have built for the past 50 years and making it more bicycle - pedestrian friendly.

[tufsu1]

^ well that would take a new directive from the top

[L.P. Hovercraft]

Im convinced that FDOT planners & engineers are making up shit to do now so they can have a job. What if they put all that energy and money into fixing the shit they have built for the past 50 years and making it more bicycle - pedestrian friendly.

Why bite the hand (or in this case, the government funded teat) that feeds you?

Talk about job security--if this thing was planned back in the gas-crunch 1970's and just getting built now, what infernal plans are the FDOT cooking up today for their future heirs in 2050?

[fsquid]

So this colossal waste of money appears to be progressing quickly.  Nice.

St John's is one of the richest counties in the entire USA

  Define "one of", it's not in the top 25.  I'm pretty sure its not in the top 50 either.

St. Johns has I95 as an artery into Jax, Clay has Blanding.  Two completely different facilities.

64th out of 3,033, so top 2% according to Forbes in 2010.

[Dapperdan]

Im convinced that FDOT planners & engineers are making up shit to do now so they can have a job. What if they put all that energy and money into fixing the shit they have built for the past 50 years and making it more bicycle - pedestrian friendly.

Talk about job security--if this thing was planned back in the gas-crunch 1970's and just getting built now, what infernal plans are the FDOT cooking up today for their future heirs in 2050?

I think that would be BRT.

[Jason]

So this colossal waste of money appears to be progressing quickly.  Nice.

As we all know, Jax wastes no time when building roads.  All of the newest interchange projects were completed on or ahead of schedule.

Jax has a fantastic highway system for a city our size, although, I don't see 9B as a big enhancement.  IMO, it should have ran due south into Nocatee and connected with the Nocatee expressway.

[fieldafm]

Phase 2, which backers hope will open large tracks of land to commercial and industrial development

No suprise who owns that land (Flagler).

When someone says that governmet subsidizes sprawl... this is the perfect example:  Building an expensive stretch of road not to relieve traffic, but so that land owned by extremely powerful developers can be more attractive to be redeveloped for commercial use.

Now that the road is being built (at no cost to the landowners) to subsidize this development... how long do you think it's going to take for the same landowners to start campaigning for impact fees being too costly to their redevelopment efforts?

See how eloquantly that works?

[copperfiend]

The cost to the landowners are probably the political donations they make to the parties in power and in the form of lobbyists in Tallahassee.

[cline]

Like I've said before, the developers (lobbyist, builders et. al.) in this state own our elected officials.  They basically get whatever the hell they want.  The Outer Beltway is the embodiment of this.  It will do nothing to ease congestion however, it will make a couple of landowners very wealthy.  Just take a look at the large tracts of land the OB cuts through and who owns them.  Unfortunately us taxpayers will be left to pay for the impacts of their development while the landowners bathe in cash.