There’s No Longer Any ‘Old’ in St. Augustine Road Exit Signs

By DAN SCANLAN

It’s out with the “Old” and in with . . . well, nothing, when it comes to some St. Augustine Road signs along Interstate 295 in Mandarin.

State transportation officials promised to get with the program earlier this year and make sure all the signs directing drivers off Interstate 295 and onto St. Augustine Road would say exactly that, which is the city’s designation for the roadway that runs from San Marco to Bayard, with a slight break in the middle.

But while two of the exit signs on the interstate had their “Old” covered up, eight more Florida Department of Transportation signs were still “Old” as far as their road designation until this week.

Transportation department spokesman Mike Goldman apologized and said the rest of the signs were finally changed as part of the current repaving job on the interstate.

“The signs are being taken care of in phases. We have two that need to be replaced as part of the resurfacing project and others need to be covered up,” Goldman said.

“St. Augustine Road” is the city’s correct road designation, according to the city’s Street and Drainage Department’s street registry, whether it is the segment that runs from San Marco to San Jose Boulevard near The Bolles School, or the southern leg that veers off San Jose just south of Sunbeam Road and ends in Bayard. The Department of Transportation added the “Old” to the southern leg to separate it from the northern leg when I-295 was built in the 1970s.

The state agreed to remove the “Old” from its maps and existing state road signs on I-295, its ramps and approaches, in 2000. Public pressure from people who had “Old St. Augustine Road” on their letterhead and signs forced the state to reverse that decision in 2002.

However, the “Old” on the ground-mounted signs pointing drivers to Mandarin’s first or last interstate exit (depending which direction they’re driving) was finally covered up with green plates earlier this year. Two overhead exit signs at the St. Augustine Road exit ramps, signs just before the ramps end on the road and four others on St. Augustine Road’s approach to the interstate still had “Old” on them until last week.dan.scanlan@jacksonville.com,(904) 359- 4549