by Max Marbut
Staff Writer
What may turn out to be the worst disruption of commuter travel in Jacksonville history will begin with the morning rush hour April 16 and won’t end any time soon.
In order to replace the steel grating on the Mathews Bridge with a lightweight-concrete “exodermic deck,” both eastbound lanes and one westbound lane on the bridge will be closed for the duration of the project.
Florida Department of Transportation spokesman Mike Goldman said the removal of the old steel grating and the installation of the solid road surface is scheduled to take approximately 90 days.
All vehicles leaving Downtown heading eastbound toward Arlington will be detoured to the Hart Bridge. That means if you need to get to the Arlington Expressway or points north of it, you’ll also be commuting via Atlantic and University Boulevards.
The single westbound lane that will remain open during the modification will be reduced in width to 11 feet, which means traffic will be limited to passenger vehicles, with buses and large trucks also using the detour over the Hart Bridge.
According to data provided by the Florida Department of Transportation, more than 72,000 vehicles travel over the Mathews Bridge each day. Add those vehicles to the more than 46,000 that already use the Hart Bridge each day and it doesn’t take a traffic engineer to understand why this project may be of historic magnitude.
FDOT spokesperson Mike Goldman said the disruption is unavoidable due to the nature of the renovation. It was scheduled to take advantage of school being out of session for the summer vacation and he said the impact on school transportation would be less now than at the beginning of the school year. Goldman added the work has to be complete before football season begins because, “we know the Hart Bridge by itself can’t handle the traffic” for a Jaguars game.
He also described it as “one of the most complex projects ever for the FDOT in Jacksonville” and said, “from a traffic management standpoint, it is the most complex challenge we’ve ever had.”
“It’s going to be terrible,” predicted Sgt. Leonard Propper of the Jacksonville Sheriffs Office.
He said the JSO has been working with the FDOT to develop a plan to deal with the situation for months. There will be 30 officers stationed at 25 intersections the JSO has identified as “critical.”
Propper said the officers will be stationed on two shifts from dawn to dusk to direct traffic because, “it will be impossible to retime the lights on Atlantic Boulevard.”
JSO air units will be in the sky to assess traffic backups for the first week of the detour and wreckers will be standing by near the Hart and Mathews bridges in order to expedite removal of vehicles involved in accidents.
“Our top priority is to make this whole thing go as smoothly as possible. We will refine the plan as the situation evolves,” said Propper.
He also said the JSO advises drivers who need to travel between Arlington and Downtown to use the Dames Point Bridge, Zoo Parkway (Heckscher Drive) and North Main Street.
The Jacksonville Transportation Authority has also devoted several months to devising a plan to deal with the disruption.
Five routes including the R1 to South Jacksonville Beach, the R5 to Regency Square-UNF and Murray Hill, the P2 to Townsend Boulevard and Cassat/Edgewood avenues, the J1 to University Park and the S1 to Regency Square and the Avenues Mall will be detoured over the Hart Bridge in both directions. Extra buses will be added to the R5 and S1 routes and a temporary park-and-ride shuttle service will begin from Regency Square to the FCCJ/Rosa Parks transit station Downtown.
In addition, service on the R1 to Florida Community College at Jacksonville’s Kent Campus on Roosevelt Boulevard will be temporarily eliminated during the detour.
According to figures provided by JTA, more than 6,000 riders will be affected each work day by the changes.
Goldman said the FDOT contacted human resources managers at the Downtown businesses with the largest staffs as soon as the project was scheduled to advise them of the impending changes. Goldman said they were urged to consider allowing workers to go on flex-time schedules to reduce the vehicle load during peak travel periods.
“It’s an unfortunate situation but sometimes people have to be inconvenienced for progress,” commented Don Sadler, a spokesperson for AT&T Florida. He said 800 people work in the company’s building Downtown, but he’s not sure how many commute over the Mathews Bridge each day.
“We have to provide our service,” said Sadler. “We just have to depend on our employees to get up a little earlier to get to work.”