Popular Jacksonville Neighborhood Retail Districts

Here is a look at traffic counts for thoroughfares serving urban Jacksonville’s popular pedestrian friendly retail and dining districts.

28,000 - Riverside Avenue (Brooklyn)

13,000 - San Marco Boulevard / Atlantic Boulevard (San Marco Square)

12,000 - Park Street (Five Points)

10,800 - Main Street (Main & 8th) (Springfield)

9,700 - St. Johns Avenue (Shoppes of Avondale)

Downtown Northbank’s Busiest Streets

These downtown streets are not recognized as prime retail corridors. In many cases, they are outright overlooked in terms of their potential. Nevertheless, these streets currently accommodate the levels of vehicular traffic and exposure associated with many of the vibrant retail districts across the state and in other parts of the city. With proper visioning and traffic calming, the corridors below could become viable retail streets within the central business district.

28,000 - Water Street (west of Laura Street)

25,500 - State Street

24,000 - Union Street

12,000 - Bay Street (west of Ocean Street)

10,500 - Main Street

8,700 - Ocean Street

8,000 - Jefferson Street

7,300 - Forsyth Street

6,800 - Broad Street

5,500 - Adams Street

Conclusion

King Street - Charleston, SC

The numbers indicate that visibility and traffic count can be positive contributions to the development of vibrant walkable retail streets.

The downtown examples suggest that Jacksonville has failed to take advantage of busiest streets. For those that are concerned about safety when mixing pedestrians and vehicular traffic in urbanized settings, examples presented show various traffic calming strategies implemented to overcome such potential challenges. As illustrated in the Downtown Jacksonville Northbank photographs, these are strategies that have yet to have been explored or implemented locally.

This visual editorial should show that clustering retail along streets with higher traffic counts throughout downtown is an affordable revitalization opportunity.

*Editorial by Ennis Davis, AICP. Contact Ennis at edavis@moderncities.com *