How important to your metro/city are highways?

[simms3]

So, I know this is on some people's minds because there is sort of a debate on this in another topic. Many argue highways are bad, and I am not talking intercity/interstate highways connecting states and metro areas, unless that is the only main highway in the city (I'm thinking along the lines of Orlando), so for anyone in Orlando, use this poll to argue where your city would be today without I-4. In cities like Jax, Tampa, MIA, eliminate beltways, parkways, expressways, highways connecting sprawl areas to main highways (in Jax's case, JTB, which connects the beaches to 95).

Ya'll know where I am going. Would your city encompass a more dense and gridded city center with apartments and subways, would there even be a city at all, etc.

Jacksonville, being older than other FL cities and more gridded, would probably be denser with public transportation utilized everywhere, but the city and metro would not be nearly as big (maybe 700K or 800K?)

Just my guess.

[Florida]

Just curious... when all of these discussions surface comparing FL cities, are you being all inclusive of the cities in Florida, or is this another big city/metro only thing? Just wondering before I mess anything up.

[FLAplaya]

looking at my area of FL. We only have a few major highways that connect anything here (I-10, hwy98, 85, 87,20, 331, 79). Because of Eglin AFB and other military installations, as well as, state forest that cover everything here, you wont see anything larger than a 6 lane highway in the area (from P-cola to Panama City). There is also very limited amounts of "freeways" and overpasses that are actually in the cities themselves so hopefully this would mean that MASS TRANSIT WOULD BE A TOP PRIORITY for future development....one could only hope...

[simms3]

Alirght, this is really for anything near a highway/major (pensacola, Tally, Ocala, etc.) For smaller metros, consider arterial roads and boulevards as highways, because really, they are like highways with lights and intersections. Sorry about possible exclusion, just the thought of this came randomly from the other highway thread.

[Florida]

^Cool.

Historically, in the days before the major roads, Tallahassee was Florida's most populous community. The roads drained us! But the city itself is still rather dense, although our county and metro are not as dense compared to other large Florida metros, it is by North Florida standards. For that reason I think we probably would have continued to develop without the major interstate running north of the city. The original plan was for the road to run thru the heart of the downtown... along Gaines Street... fortunately that's not the case.

The interstate led to the moderate sprawl we see today, which took away from the vibrance of the downtown which we are now working to revitalize. Still the interstate is an important growth area... we, locally, see significant hotel growth along our I-10 corridor... I heard it rumored that Tallahassee has more hotels fronting I-10 than any other city the road runs through. Just word of mouth... not actual data. We've also got a cool lookin high-rise building off of I-10 that looks like a Duracell Battery which is cool. Overall, I love the interstate... its one of my favorite roads!

[simms3]

Taurean,

I have seen that building you are talking about, and when I first saw it, I was like that cant be an office building in the suburbs of Tally, since when did they build up out of town, but yea, it took me by surprise, and it looks rather nice too!

[Florida]

Taurean,

I have seen that building you are talking about, and when I first saw it, I was like that cant be an office building in the suburbs of Tally, since when did they build up out of town, but yea, it took me by surprise, and it looks rather nice too!

Believe it or not that building has been there since the 1970s. It used to be a HQ for an banking/insurance company.