Jacksonville Overland Bridge

Started by edwaleni, January 15, 2017, 10:20:55 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

edwaleni

Downtown Jacksonville is currently going through a major reconstruction of I-95 through the city center.

But this is not the bridge over the St John's River (Fuller Warren Bridge) that was completed in the mid-2000's. This is the Overland Bridge.

http://www.i95overlandbridge.com/

Huh? Overland Bridge?

When the interstate highway system came to Jacksonville south of the river in the 1960's, the southside was full of industry. Shipyards, a coal fired powerplant and several factories.  This required I-95 to be elevated south of the river all the way past Atlantic Boulevard (US-90).

This bridge has now gone past its design life and requires replacement.  The video below highlights the scope of the effort.



In the video you will see the large 'brownfield' where the powerplant used to be located. A parking garage and parking lots where the rail yards used to store coal hoppers.







Once complete, the ability of traffic to flow to/from Philips Highway/Atlantic Boulevard/Main Street/Acosta Bridge will improve dramatically. Accidents will drop, decisions to exit or not will improve. The "overland" component will stay in place to facilitate the local streets and businesses that have come about with the removal of the old rail yards.

With the regional investments in other areas of greater Jacksonville, (First Coast Expressway, JTB/I-95, I95/I295 North & Overland Bridge), highway construction expenditures in NE Florida exceeded $1 Billion dollars in 2016 and now represents the largest industry locally.

If some believe this is an overallocation, must remember that NE Florida was one of the first cities in Florida to have expressways that were paid for by residents in the 1950's. Much of I-10 between the city center and Cassat and I-95 from the river north to the MLK existed before the Interstate Highway system was developed. Investment since the 1980's has been minimal after residents rejected toll roads. This round of building (other than the First Coast) is essentially a catch up exercise.





jwolfer

Agreed on the big catch up game in Jacksonville. Still more catchup to do... The east beltwat was built as 4 lanes... It was inadequate the day it opened

LGMS428


edwaleni

Quote from: jwolfer on January 15, 2017, 10:39:05 PM
Agreed on the big catch up game in Jacksonville. Still more catchup to do... The east beltwat was built as 4 lanes... It was inadequate the day it opened

LGMS428

It was built inadequate by design. They always intended to have a demand based toll feature in it. Hence less lanes.

The issue now is that 9B had to be finished first and it was late due to aggregate pricing problems.  Then the toll lane construction was delayed by a lawsuit on the bidding process.

Now the costs to build the toll lanes will go up because in the effort to save money on the 9B flyover, they changed it from a rural style flyover which left room for future expansion into a earthen filled urban style flyover with room for only "1" additional lane on I-295 east.

With the Overland Bridge started "on time" and inadequate capacity now on I-295 between 9B and Beach Boulevard, backups on I-295 from Baymeadows south to sometimes Philips Highway make for some sorrowful morning and afternoon drives.



Opinions expressed here on belong solely to the poster and do not represent or reflect the opinions or beliefs of AARoads, its creators and/or associates.