Jacksonville, Florida

Jacksonville, Florida

Geography

According to EHUACOM.COM, Jacksonville is the largest city in the state of Florida, in the United States. The city has 955,000 inhabitants. The agglomeration has 1,638,000 inhabitants (2021).

Introduction

The Dames Point Bridge on the east side of Jacksonville.

According to MCAT-TEST-CENTERS, Jacksonville is located in northeastern Florida, a few miles inland from the Atlantic coast and just south of the Georgia border. The city is located 200 kilometers north of Orlando, 530 kilometers north of Miami and 460 kilometers southeast of Atlanta. The agglomeration measures a maximum of 40 by 40 kilometres. The city has remarkably few suburbs which is because Jacksonville has annexed the surrounding communities, which is relatively rare in the United States. The city is located on the St. John’s River, a wide tidal river. The area is mainly densely wooded and many residential areas are also located in the woods. The beach resorts are located east of the city, about 25 kilometers from the center. Jacksonville is the largest city in Florida, and therefore larger than the more famous city of Miami. The metropolitan area of Miami is (considerably) larger.

Road network

The highway network of Jacksonville.

Jacksonville has two main route Interstates, I-95 that runs north-south through the conurbation and I-10 that comes from the west and ends here. In addition, the road has a ring road, the I-295 which is 98 kilometers long. In addition, there are a number of shorter highways that guarantee a good flow of traffic on the underlying road network. SR-202 connects the city to the coast at Jacksonville Beach. Planned is Interstate 795 and the new First Coast Outer Beltway toll road, the first toll road in the Jacksonville area.

List of highways in Jacksonville

I-95 to the north of Jacksonville.

no. first opening last opening AADT (2020)
Interstate 10 1961 1961 136,000
Interstate 95 1959 196x 167,000
Interstate 295 1970 2009 130,000
Interstate 795 2013 2016 56,000
State Road 5 1941 1978 13,000
State Road 23 2018 2018 20,000
State Road 113 1981 2007 48,000
State Road 115 1953 2013 44,000
State Road 202 1979 1997 123,000
State Road 228 1967 1967 44,000

History

I-10 and I-95 were built primarily in Jacksonville in the 1960s. At that time, Jacksonville was a relatively small city with about 200,000 inhabitants, but grew strongly between 1960 and 1970, partly due to annexations of the surrounding area. Population growth has been stable at around 1.5 to 2 percent per year since the 1980s. The western and southern portion of I-295 around Jacksonville was constructed in the 1970s. The East Ring was initially numbered State Road 9B and was rebranded as a super two in the 1980s.built and widened to a freeway in more recent years between 2006 and 2009, and was renumbered to I-295 in 2011. In the period 2005-2010 a number of improvement projects were carried out in the center and east of Jacksonville. New grade-separated intersections were constructed and interchanges were converted.

Congestion

Jacksonville doesn’t have that many wide highways and the metropolitan area is growing fast. As a result, the number of traffic jams is also increasing, although improvements are being made to the road network. At the moment, especially the area east of Jacksonville is growing rapidly and in a few years the area between Jacksonville and the coast will be completely built up, a similar scenario as happened in Norfolk, Virginia.

Tolls & express lanes

For a long time, Jacksonville had no toll roads, a departure from other major Florida cities, which have many toll roads. In 2018, the first section of State Road 23, also known as the First Coast Expresssway, opened the first general-purpose toll roads in the Jacksonville area. In 2019, express lanes opened on Interstate 295 on the south side of Jacksonville, in 2022 express lanes also opened on I-295 on the east side of Jacksonville.

Jacksonville, Florida