Kings Road Enhancement Project: Before & After

[Metro Jacksonville]

Kings Road Enhancement Project: Before & After



Metro Jacksonville takes a look at the results of a $2.3 million JTA pedestrian improvement project at Edward Waters College.

Full Article
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2011-feb-kings-road-enhancement-project-before-after

[Noone]

Nice update. I'm curious as to the plants and what is the best and cheapest tree shade canopy. Are those crepe myrtles?

[simms3]

Looks good.  No sidewalks -----> sidewalks in front of a college.  Sounds logical.

[fsujax]

yes, they are crape myrtles, probably will look better in summer when they are blooming.

[Captain Zissou]

It looks great, but quite expensive.  I realize this is a college campus, but if the city is picking up the tab, are brick fences really necessary? Wouldn't bollards and some shade trees accomplish the same thing??  One positive thing to note...  The city looks like it is finally realizing that to create a pedestrian environment, you have to separate it from the automobile oriented street.  This is the first time I have seen any effort towards that in Jax.  

Did I miss it, or did they (JTA) not add any parallel or angle parking??  I guess they figured they had 5 feet of space to work with, so it was either sidewalk and separation, or parking.  I'm fine with their choice, but both would be nice!!

[Ocklawaha]

Looks kind of natural doesn't it?

OCKLAWAHA

[urbanlibertarian]

^^Isn't Kings Ave in San Marco (South Jacksonville at the time of that photo)?  Was there ever a streetcar line on Kings Rd. near EWC?

[Captain Zissou]

Kings Ave is in San Marco, but I do think Kings Road had streetcar as well.  If we added King Street to the mix, then we could create the Three Kings Streetcar Company.

[dougskiles]

I'm looking at a 1926 map of the City of South Jacksonville.  There was no Kings Avenue south of the river back then.  There was a Kings Road but it was short and not the main road on the east side of the RR tracks.  The main road was Atlantic Avenue.  Perhaps when I-95 was constructed, they combined the roads - and the names?

[Ocklawaha]

The streetcar photo is near the northwest end of the line on Kings Road, near EWC. The South Jacksonville Municipal Railways (not JT CO as in the photo) never operated on Kings Avenue. The SJMUNI ran from the ACOSTA BRIDGE east on Prudential Drive then South on Hendricks and on into San Jose "far out in the country...(?)" A second short line ran from NW San Marco Square east onto Atlantic to Beach Road.

One cannot get too hung up on place names or titles when jumping from about 1912 when this photo was taken to 2011.

"HOOKER - A special cowboy, able to gallop into a herd of Longhorns and rope out or "hook," a problematic, sick or wild animal."

See what I mean?

OCKLAWAHA

[stjr]

I wonder what the modern traffic counts on Kings Road are?  Maybe traffic has actually dropped over the years since it was originally four-laned at EWC and they could consider going back to two lanes and adding in angled or parallel parking.  I realize this is a very long shot no matter what but it doesn't hurt to suggest it. If EWC was interested, they could probably get it pushed through eventually. 

The other option would be a pedestrian bridge over Kings.  Not a typical DOT monster but more like a graceful arching bridge connecting the campus green/plazas on either side of Kings.  I have been on several college campuses with "connecting" pedestrian bridges over arterial roads running through the campus.

[thelakelander]

The traffic count is still above what would be desired for a lane diet.  However, my suggestion would be to have the road turned over to the city and through traffic directed to MLK Parkway.  After all, it was constructed originally as a bypass.  Why not let it do its job?  Do this and then the lanes could be taken out and replaced with bike lanes and parallel parking.

[Charles Hunter]

But would the City want to take on maintenance of another few miles of road? 

[thelakelander]

Depends on how much the city cares about the health of that community and safety of EWC students.  In Orlando, they felt it was important for the health of College Park to take control over what was formally SR 424 (same width as Kings).  After 10 years, its a pretty walkable and vibrant commercial strip.  In Lakeland, they felt it was important for the health of downtown to take control over Bus. US 92/98 (Main/Lemon-3 lane one way pair).  A decade later, they have things that we wish were in downtown Jacksonville along them.  So, its all about priorities.  With that said, what happens on the Northside has historically not been a high priority of the community at large.

Btw, Stjr, the AADT (Annual Average Daily Traffic) for Kings was 15,100 in 2009.

[stjr]

^Thanks, Lake.  How low would it have to be to be on a "diet"?