Avoid getting stuck at the Main Street Drawbridge

Contrary to popular belief, one that has been popular with me for some time now, the Main Street Bridge does not raise and lower its drawbridge at set intervals. As I sat in line on Main Street, late getting my son to school, I needed to know when and why the bridge goes up and down. This information comes from a dude wearing a utility vest on the Main Street Bridge:

The bridge only raises and lowers at a boaters request or for routine bridge maintenance.

Now you know there’s nothing you can do to avoid being stuck at the drawbridge for 20 minutes, here’s some tips on avoiding this time drain. In most cases the Acosta Bridge will be your savior. Use her wisely and use her often:

If you’re heading South on Main Street keep an eye on the red light at the foot of the bridge. It turns red to stop traffic before the bridge goes up.
If you do see the bridge raising, make a right on any side (legal) street off Main Street. Make a left on Laura and head down to Bay Street. A right on Bay will take you to the Acosta bridge where you can access San Marco or I-95.
Your Northbound options are limited and you have to be either first or quick to avoid the wait
Being first: make a left u-turn onto Prudential Drive exit and make your first right. Follow this road around to the Acosta Bridge.
Being quick: if you see traffic backed up on the bridge you can take either the Fuller Warren or the Acosta depending on your destination.
Avoid the Main Street Bridge altogether by taking I-95 or the Acosta Bridge.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 9th, 2007 at 2:16 pm and is filed under Downtown Jacksonville. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

erick g

Michael, my last sentence read "So letâ€™s turn our attention to the underlying cause of our frustration here: water." Hopefully I wasn't serious, right? I apologize for insinuating what I did with the link I sent.

PCollins

I like stopping for the bridge.

There's really nothing in my world that can't wait 10-20 minutes.

Unless I have to poop.

Michael Howle

Good one Ace. I'm sure the best approach when someone posts a tongue-in-cheek response to one of your comments is to just claim that they lack the cognitive ability to understand you.

What's your next sophisticated argument, "liar, liar, pants on fire?"

(PLEASE NOTE: THE ABOVE COMMENTS CONTAIN SARCASM)

erick g

Really, I'm just going to end it here: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/225383_s...

Johnny

downtownparks, you forgot one other good opportunity to mess with traffic. All of what you said, plus First Baptist having a special service. Then downtown traffic would be awesome. We'd look like NYC for the day. How cool would that be!!??

Michael Howle

I live downtown (Springfield), and I don't think that the Main St. bridge is lifted a disproportionate amount. In fact, I would characterize it as being raised rarely. And no, I am not out there with a clipboard recording lifts. This is just my observation.

In my humble opinion, if you have to wait at the bridge for 20 minutes, and that makes you 20 minutes late for an engagement, especially a judicial hearing, then you should have left the 'ol office/home sooner.

Oh, and I am a proud owner of one of those "unnecessarily cumbersome boats" (a small sailboat).

Many bridge operators, if seeing more than one boat needing to pass, will wait until they are all close enough to pass with just one lift.

claytonbixby

soxfan, sorry but no, boaters do not pay a fee for going through the bridges. Boaters have the right of way when it comes to bridges (boats were around before bridges), so a bridge must open when properly signaled. Now some places do have posted times that the bridge opens. In Miami for example the bridges work on a 1/2 hour schedule. They open on the 1/2 hour, so if you are in a boat you have to wait. But the Main Street bridge is an on demand bridge, so it will open anytime a boat needs it to.

skimbro

There used to be a draw-bridge on I-freaking-95. It's been less than ten years since they fixed that. I think planners at the time were having difficulty with their crystal balls, unimaginatively failing to foresee that there would be a million people in Jacksonville and about that many cars. Or perhaps the people who designed the Main Street Bridge were thinking even more long term, anticipating that it would only be a decade or two of true traffic inconvenience until we all get our jetpacks.

erick g

Thanks, Urban. I was somewhat speaking in jest, except for the part about the water. ;)

We're agreed though. It looks a lot better now than it did pre-Super Bowl.

urbanlibertarian

eric g,
The bridge was opened in about 1925. Bridge technology was more primitive then. And IMHO it's too beautiful to replace now with a new one.

Nate Dizzle

lol downtownparks

erick g

Thanks, Soxfan.

erick g

Either that or get some regulations going on the maximum height of boats and the minimum height of bridges. Hell, since they obviously had foresight to preemptively design hydraulic capabilities within the bridge which allow these cumbersome boats to pass underneath, then I can state with the utmost certainty that they must have KNOWN that the bridge would hang too low and therefore obstruct the passage of the unnecessarily cumbersome boats, thereby make me twenty minutes late for a hearing. So why didn't the deciders go back to the drawing board? Would it not have been more cost effective in the long haul to engineer a taller bridge rather than stick to this archaic prototype of a bridge simply for the sake of regressive, structural tradition. A taller bridge that would have been so ridiculously tall as to, I dare say, allow boats to pass underneath without making me twenty (plus) minutes late to a hearing? Okay, maybe the span isn't wide enough to build a really tall, structurally sound bridge without making me drive across the St. John's River at a seventy degree angle. So let's turn our attention to the underlying cause of our frustration here: water.

soxfan

The bridge goes up at the request of the boaters, but, I believe there is a time limit as to how often it can go up. The boaters do pay a fee for the bridge going up though.. I had to look into this once as my uncle wanted to come down from Mass. on his boat and asked about the bridges and how to get under them...

downtownparks

Imagine if we could get the Main St Bridge up, the Rail Bridge down, with a train going REEEEAAAALLLLYYYY SSLLLLOOOOWWWWW just south of the bridge, and a jaguars game letting out all at the same time... It would be like the perfect storm of suck....

thelakelander

Heading north, I normally make a quick u-turn and exit next to MOSH.

Btw, JTA has looked at this bridge as a potential route for BRT. I wonder what happens to their scheduling if buses get caught by the drawbridge?

adam beaugh

aww, they'll never catch me in my mazda protege!

skink

I can hear Roscoe sputtering now....

Them dang Beaugh Boys did it again!

cue waylon....

"Just a good ol Beaugh, never meaning no harm....

...Someday the river might git em but the law never will."

adam beaugh

or just jump it!

Brendon

correction... "to inform the people of Jacksonville."

Brendon

Another case of the city leaving it up to those who get caught up in downtown traffic messes to inform the city. Rather than just doing it themselves.

Adam (not Beaugh)

that right turn onto Bay st has been a lifesaver many times

erick g

Thanks for this info. I was almost very late for a hearing once because of this and endured a 20+ minute wait. I don't know why it takes this long for a boat to cross, but there has to be some rational explanation for the time needed. If they were doing maintenance then twenty-minutes is a pretty good turnaround. (I admittedly was not thinking reasonable thoughts like this during the torment.) Is there an allotted amount as to how many times each large vessel my pass underneath that bridge, or can they pretty much just float hither and tither, side-to-side to whatever degree it may hump their camel?

Urban Jacksonville

Avoid getting stuck at the Main Street Drawbridge

Urban News

Recent Posts

Archive »

Recent Comments

Contributors