Beaver Street to be Reconstructed

[Metro Jacksonville]

Beaver Street to be Reconstructed



The controversial Fuller Warren Bridge widening isn't the only urban core roadway project that the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) has their eyes set on. The FDOT is also moving forward with plans to rehabilitate West Beaver Street.

Read More: http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2014-jan-beaver-street-to-be-reconstructed

[Kay]

So the problem with FDOT starts at the very top.  Did they have drawings for the road diet plan?  Can we get them?

Did the City Council since approve the widening as they approved the road diet?

[thelakelander]

I don't have drawings of the old road diet concept. If they still exist, I guess one could make a public records request.  However, I assume it would have been nearly identical to the Hendricks Avenue and Tallulah Avenue road diets. All our old constrained and narrow undivided four-lane roads are about the same width.  This video of a similar scaled road diet in Minneapolis has a pretty decent before and after shot (0:35 and 1:30).

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/O6pA8pwOMts" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/O6pA8pwOMts</a>

[gedo3]

No matter what the topic, I always enjoy the history of our city that has been researched so much!  Thanks for all your efforts!

[Captain Zissou]

On one hand, there is a good deal of freight traffic on Beaver street. On the other hand, dozens of children cross the road from The Hollybrook Apts to West Jax elementary. I would have liked to see a more middle ground solution, but this seems to tip farther towards moving cars and trucks than moving people.

[thelakelander]

It does. The benefit to pedestrians would be sidewalks on both sides of the street and hopefully, safer intersections to cross. Right now, that's not the case.

[Captain Zissou]

Unless they put in cross walks and 4 foot medians at the intersections, it will be very hard for pedestrians to get across. When my mentee was 8, he and all his friends would cross beaver to get to school. 45 feet is a long way for a child to cross without a median, regardless of how wide the sidewalks are on either side.

[thelakelander]

Oh, I agree that it's definitely not ideal conditions for the couple thousand residents and children living in the vicinity of Beaver.

[BoldBoyOfTheSouth]

Can you please provide clarification whether badly needed bike lanes will be added to Beaver Street or being cut out of the plan?

Bike lanes should be required on all road construction & reconstruction in our area.

[BoldBoyOfTheSouth]

I'm excited that over the loan term, a better designed Beaver Street will more easily connect historic Springfield with historic Murray Hill and the greater Riverside/Avondale neighborhoods.

[thelakelander]

Bike lanes were originally a part of the plan. They are no longer a part of the plan. All four existing lanes will be maintained. Sidewalks will be added to both sides of the street (currently there's no sidewalk on the south side).

[Bike Jax]

I was told the reason for not going ahead with the road diet as planned and supported by the numbers from FDOT studies is that Beaver St (AKA US90) is an evacuation route and needed to be kept the way it is to allow for maximum traffic if needed. So roads are planned biased on the need of auto traffic that may or may occur once event 60 to 70 years.

[thelakelander]

Looking at aerials, Broadway Avenue parallels Beaver one block north the entire length of the project. Would it make sense for that to be a biking corridor via some use of signage identifying that it actually exists?

[Bike Jax]

Looking at aerials, Broadway Avenue parallels Beaver one block north the entire length of the project. Would it make sense for that to be a biking corridor via some use of signage identifying that it actually exists?

Beaver was the optimum choice because it connected King & Stockton Streets From Riverside/Avondale to the Famers Market from the west and continued to Myrtle to connect with the S-Line for Springfield Residents.

[suburbanite]

This section of Beaver needed modernization badly, it's about time. There is way too much traffic volume to downgrade to two lanes, it needs four. The few cyclists have other options, the many commercial trucks do not; and there are too few cyclists on this road to justify the cost of eminent domain widening. The crossing at King needs to be addressed to accommodate the children in the area, though I don't recall any pedestrians incidents there.
FYI: My birth certificate lists my parents' address as "Lake City Highway", as Beaver was also referred to in the early '60's.