The Knucklehead of the Day award

Goes to the Florida Department of Transportation or DOT. They get today's award for their design of woefully inadequate interchange in the Jacknsoville Florida area that cost taxpayers 107 million. The DOT both underestimated traffic by at least 20%, they also built a bottleneck where six lanes narrow to three in less than a mile causing a unsafe situation. Typical Florida, you have to be a masochist to live here. For their incompetence, DOT is today's Knucklehead of the day.

Open Post- Mudville Gazette

Traffic forecasts used in designing a $107 million interchange in southeast Jacksonville greatly underestimated how many cars would travel Interstate 295 through Mandarin, and the erroneous prediction has caused gridlock for drivers during the evening rush hour, according to transportation officials and documents.

The state Department of Transportation recently opened the new interchange that connects Interstate 95 and Interstate 295 with the Florida 9A beltway. Just west of the interchange, drivers on I-295 heading toward the Buckman Bridge find themselves jockeying for position as six lanes of highway quickly narrow to three lanes in a span of less than 1 mile.

The traffic jams caused by the bottleneck have left drivers like Ferne O'Quinn asking about the DOT's design: "What were they thinking?"

"It's pretty scary and hazardous and unsafe," she said. "No matter what they need to spend to get it fixed, they need to get it fixed."

DOT engineers say they think they've found a short-term solution.

In the current configuration, three lanes of southbound Florida 9A connect with I-295 at the interchange and continue toward the Buckman Bridge. Those three lanes are joined by two lanes of traffic for drivers exiting from I-95 southbound to I-295, and another lane of traffic exiting from I-95 northbound.

The DOT's proposal would take the three lanes of Florida 9A traffic and narrow them using paint and signs to two lanes as drivers head through the big interchange. Those two lanes would join the three lanes for drivers exiting from I-95. From there, motorists would still face mergers, but it would be from a five-lane highway down to a three-lane highway. As a result, drivers would face fewer lane changes and slowdowns.

The DOT and the Federal Highway Administration did computer simulations that found the proposed change would result in an average speed of 45 miles per hour for drivers in rush hour, compared to speeds of less than 15 mph under the current setup.

"Computer simulations are computer simulations, but it shows significant improvement," said DOT project engineer Dennis Lord. "You never know until you get out in real life and test it."
He said the DOT is awaiting the Federal Highway Administration's approval, which could come as soon as this week, before proceeding with changing the lanes.

The new triple-deck interchange, which opened this summer, gives a long-awaited connection between I-295 and Florida 9A. Those two highways will form a continuous loop around Jacksonville when a section between Beach Boulevard and Butler Boulevard is finished next year.

The Federal Highway Administration approved construction of the interchange, including the lane configuration on I-295, after the DOT submitted a report in January 1994 that included predictions of future traffic.

For the section of I-295 between the interchange and St. Augustine Road, the report predicted that 69,000 to 89,000 vehicles a day would be on the highway in 2000. In fact, it turned out that 104,000 vehicles a day used that section of I-295 in 2000, according to state traffic counts. By last year, the number had risen to 112,000 a day.

Lord said the original traffic projections became outdated because of the rapid growth in southern Duval County and the suburbs of Clay and St. Johns counties. Many people living in those bedroom communities use I-295 on their daily commutes. The higher volume of traffic makes it much harder for drivers to merge because there are fewer openings between cars.

"That's the crux of the problem right there is all that traffic merging from six lanes back to three lanes," Lord said. "If the traffic projections had come out more accurately, we feel like it would have worked."