Jackson Jambalaya

The Bold New City!!

Waste of Money!!

It would be great if they would do something about all of the panhandling downtown during business hours. I can't walk anywhere without getting stopped an average of four times by panhandlers. It's gotten much worse in the last year or so. Yesterday a methhead got mouthy with me because I didn't give him what he deemed as enough money.

Not only a waste of money but the round about on Capitol St must have designed by someone on crack.

Ben's Boondoggle!!

Great! Out of town cops can now chase fleeing felons from Jackson on Capitol Street BOTH WAYS now!!!!

1:23 You lie! St Andrew's made a wonderful video about downtown living and such events simply do not occur here.

Signed,

Pollyanna

People on this thread: those with literally nothing else to do but to go online and trash a city that they most likely do not live in.

Whoever taught you guys how to type did the world a disservice.

I'm old enough to remember when Capitol Street was changed to one-way. It was the result of a study by the Mississippi Research and Development Center, a part of the Institutions of Higher Learning. The study showed Capitol was not wide enough for two-way traffic with parking at the curbs. And the turns were much more complicated with left turns having to cross oncoming traffic. Turn lights were not in use at the time, but the study showed if they were used traffic would be slowed significantly. and the round-about is just plain dumb.

It is NOT us who is trashing the city, we are only reflecting on a city that has been trashed.
Putting loopty-loops on Capital St. makes about as much sense as square wheels on a bread truck.

2:32. I agree with you. If folks here don't like Jackson, then they can stay away.

Signed,

A Madison Resident

@2:32

Unfortunately I have to come to this shit hole to put food on the table for my family as well as put food on the table for god knows who that refuses to get off their ass and work. I'm tired of panhandlers harassing me every time I turn the corner. It is excessive and out of control. Why is that so hard to understand?

I like the idea of square wheels on a bread truck. Let's get a grant.

2:32 Don't blame the mirror if you're ugly.


And those roundabouts are idiotic. I had to use one or two of them at Christmas time and they really slow down traffic.

Bumpkin at 4:27. Look around the country. They are SUPPOSED to slow traffic down. Duh. So fun to get comments for 1950ish people that don't get out much.

Who says Mississippi is not becoming more liberal. We are now letting Capitol Street go both ways.

Bad use of limited money. Fix a few water lines..

I knew it. It starts by allowing gay marriage. Now even the streets go both ways.

They are SUPPOSED to slow traffic down.

Good LORD you are such a BROKEN record. It isn't that we don't get out BEN, it is that after all these years you are the only one who pisses into the wind.

Ben who 6:32?? 5:00 here. Who is Ben? Two way streets aren't new. Just new to you necks. WTF. Splain please?

I am not a Jackson Basher; quite the opposite. Capitol St. is awful and causes a multitude of problems. I know it is the worst main street of any town or city anywhere.

So to you people who hate traffic circles, I have a question: what are your thoughts of the traffic circles by Renaissance in Madison County or by the airport in Rankin County? Do you foam at the mouth about them too? Or do "Republican" counties get a pass?

7:44 pm The beauty of downtown Jackson compared to other capitol cities struck me immediately when I moved here.

Apparently, you haven't been to Columbia or Raleigh or Springfield or Tallahassee or St Paul or even Baton Rouge ( and that's just to name a few) that don't hold a candle to Jackson.

You are likely miserable and find something wrong with wherever you are !

But, if you are so unhappy, put out your resume or start your own business! No one is making you work in Jackson! Since you imagine yourself to be so smart and so special, surely you could be happier in Little Rock!

And, there you'll find much much more fodder for your complaints!

The 'traffic circle' (actually they're roundabouts) on Highland Colony can be a nightmare. You either have people sitting forever (having no clue when to enter) or people entering the inside lane intending to exit an outside lane. And to make it worse, anxiety is hightened by the frequent appearance of a cop sitting there waiting to ticket people for not understanding the damned thing.

And, no, the intent is NOT to slow down traffic. The intent is to move traffic without the aid and expense of traffic signals.

The problem with the roundabouts is they are too small, just like the one in front of the airport. They only work when they are of a certain size, like the one by Renaissance or over by Jackson State.

Downtown traffic is going to be a cluster.

8:05. The intent downtown IS to slow traffic. I was one of the designers of the project. Safety issues are also prevelant.

You locals do need to get out more, as stated earlier. These projects are not new, just new here. Welcome to 2015, oh ye of ignorance.

April 11, 2015 at 8:33 AM
You are a traffic engineer? What is your advice for young people wanting to be a traffic engineer? Should they quit school at the 8th or 9th grade level?

Thank you 9:15, for resting 8:33's case. Good work!!

Yes, yes, yes the idea is to slow traffic as part of Boondoggle Ben's pipedream that doing so will create a walking shopping area downtown. Bring the folks, bring the kiddies and bring the attitude to shop downtown for the same overpriced gee gaws, trinkets and meals already available at countless other locations in the metro area.

Ben Allen, president of Downtown Jackson Partners, said at the press conference that he has seen figures showing that, with all the residential development downtown in the form of loft apartments and condos, that in 10 years there could be as many as 25,000 people living downtown, tripling traffic on Pearl Street and Pascagoula Street.
-- Mississippi Business Journal
-- March 3, 2008

8:05 am Pay no attention to the clueless.

We both know they are just not smart enough to figure out how to navigate a roundabout.

They have a hard enough time coping with the familiar and expected!

Anything "new" to them , be it an idea or an innovation or anything that represents change, is very frightening and their emotional response is anger.

Anyone notice that after the Elite there are no lights? Street is pitch black for a few blocks.

Not for long 12:05. Decorative lights on the books awaiting agreements from the city and Entergy.

Albeit a bodacious argument, and a colossal recession, 10:44, I think someday those figures will be attained. Please follow the past 10 years in the following cities: Little Rock, Baton Rouge, Chattanooga, Memphis which are sister cities of yours. They attained measurable and explosive downtown residential growth. I believe Jackson is primed for the same, in spite of those that are totally clueless to historic downtown growth indicators, and the small minded arguments they spawn. Take heart. It WILL happen.

@ 9:15 AM...I don't think that your employer would support you posting on this site, and certainly not calling someone ignorant for making a comment. Designers working on public projects should grow thick skin. For the Capitol Street project, some of the criticism is certainly deserved.

2:16 surely you meant me at 8:33. I could care less that you do not want my measured comments, much unlike some of the mental midgets here doing same.

2:14 if you were paid for thinking give back the money. you know nothing.

To the Rankin/Madison roundabout poster... All roundabouts in the area are horrible and ill designed. Roundabouts are supposed to be so big that there is a steady flow. Think Paris, Cairo, Turkey.
To the engineer. I'm sorry but I have yet to see anything like this in these other cities. They may slow traffic in Memphis; but they didn't do it with god-awful girl scout cookie sized circles in the middle of an intersection. To even call these roundabouts are an offense to roundabouts.
And who is your inspector? The brickwork is uneven, the curbs are not uniform and some of the medians are crooked.
This is not a good design, and it will be studied at MSU as a what not to do case study.

This so-called DC Engineer is an ignorant wannabe. A roudabout was never designed to slow traffic. They existed in England and other countries dacades ago as an aid to moving traffic along in an (supposedly) orderly flow without every intersection quadrant having to have expensive lights or four way stop signs. Had nothing to do with slowing down traffic.

Sit off to the side of the one on Highland Colony at Old Agency for thirty minutes and tell me how effective these things are in redneck land.

This is going to revitalize the ambulance chasing business!

The entire project is an enormous boondoogle. And whoever said it was designed by idiots on crack is correct. And that stupid video by that big church downtown is a bunch of hooey. The panhandlers run downtown.

2:37 is dead on re: mental (and rural) midgets. You can take a person out of the country, but you can't take the redneck out of the person. OMG Jackson is thriving!!!

OMG Jackson is thriving!!!

OMG Where?

4:56 I am a 260k/year consultant "wanna be". Read that again and get egg from small minded, ignorant face. I know KNOW of what I speak. You have nothing but ignorant opinions, as does 6:21. Thank you.

A grossly overpaid consultant considering the work product.

"Unfortunately I have to come to this shit hole to put food on the table." Are there no jobs in Rankin and Madison?

The amount of money a man is able to rip off a government body for has absolutely no correlation with his ability to perform a useful function.

What sort of stupid appeal-fallacy is that? I make 260k (a lie) a year telling people what they want to hear so I must have opinions that supercede, in validity, those of the rest of you.

You remain in a factless vacuum if you still believe roundabouts exist to slow down traffic or that ones the size of a master bedroom can ever be considered efficient, especially in a mid-town war zone.

Now, get back to your cappuccino with Ben and order some bidness cards with bullet points.

Posts from a lonely man, at 1:24 in the morning. Sad.

1:24 AM I will be in Jackson this Friday and will be happy to discuss with you. Game?? Or scared.....We can record it and post our conversation.

DC Traffic Engineer at 2:14 - you comment about the EXPLOSIVE growth in other cities and you mention Chattanooga. Well... I grew up in Chattanooga, graduated from UTC and go back regularly to visit. In fact I was there in February - my wife is also from Chattanooga. Chattanooga has many things that going for it that Jackson will never have and the biggest thing was and is competent elected city and county officials. The primary reason downtown Chattanooga made the resurgence was Mayor Bob Corker, now Senator Corker (TN). How do you think he got to be Seantor! Jackson cannot even fix their basic plumbing infrastructure. Resurgence? - you need to stop smoking the pipe dream substance you apparently turn to before traffic design sessions.

I live in Jackson. Yes, I should have my head examined.

Don't forget Chattanooga Mayor (and developer) John Kinsey, who with Henry Turley, masterminded Mud Island in Memphis.

We have ZERO help I our state legislators regarding leadership, when in fact, the Jackson delegation is useless.

Yet another nail in the coffin for downtown. Nothing is ever happening there. No one will invest in that hell hole.

http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/news/2015/apr/14/proposed-capitol-street-lofts-get-tax-credits/

Please note the comments FROM A NATIONAL DEVELOPER regarding the efforts to 2 way the street.

Tax credits = Developer welfare

GAME OVER

Despite strong opposition from city of Jackson officials, the Mississippi Environmental Quality Board voted unanimously to award a permit to the West Rankin Utility Authority (WRUA) allowing it to construct a new wastewater treatment plant for its 100,000 customers in Rankin County.

Madison County will be next.

4:10 - you are correct - Game Over. The hits will just keep coming. Sharks are circling and there is blood in the water.

However, not all Capitol Street occupants are as optimistic about the ongoing changes.

Lina Lynn, the owner of the Japanese eatery Wasabi a few blocks west, said the nearly two years’ worth of construction has caused her business to lose a substantial number of customers and she doesn’t think they’ll be coming back.

“I wish it’d never started,” Lynn said, noting she would have preferred the city invest in tourism and other efforts.

I've been there several times recently. Place has been dead. Food is too good, service is too good, and place is too clean for it to be doing so poorly. I don't know how much longer it can make it.

7:39. The city invested $710,000 and received $9,000,000 in infrastructure improvements. Pipes, sewerage, cyber, resurfacing etc. Pretty good trade. Progress is a bitch (see High Street or Fortification)

DC Traffic Engineer... You can actually drive down Fortification and High St. BOOM. Drops the mic.

While you're at it... Find the crappy roundabouts in Chattanooga
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Chattanooga,+TN/@35.043278,-85.2997814,3970m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x886060408a83e785:0x2471261f898728aa

Late coming to this party, but the round-about on Highland Colony at Renaissance needs to be marked on the pavement. If you are headed south at north round-about entrance, the signage says to only use the middle lane which means you must circle past the south Highland Colony exit and then cross over outer lane and on-coming from yield land to get to the I55S exit. (figure that out you $260K DC Traffic engineer. Perhaps you suggested this signage. If it was clearly painted on the lanes which ones go to Ridgeland East and which one goes to I55S and which to take going to Highland Colony South, then there would not be a problem. It isn't "rednecks" it is improper instructions by the signs.

Well capitol street is open and is great!