Trolley time.

If all your bruises are healed from the Bury Your Bike festival this weekend, but your rims are still bent from that pothole you failed to see as you tried to escape from a zombie cyclist, and you just HAVE to have a Burrito for lunch today, what are you going to do?

Starting today you can take the Riverside Trolley for free from the Five Points area to downtown for lunch. The trolley runs from 10:30am to 2:30pm (first trolley leaving Riverside is at 10:44am). After May 16th the ride will cost you 50 cents each way.

For more information, including terminal stops, click here.

Why don't they have a route map?

As our friends at MetroJacksonville remind us, this isn't real public transit. Don't settle for this, Riverside! You can have more. This city needs more and deserves more. But show your support, nonetheless. There is no excuse for you to drive for that Burrito, ya hear? I'll be out on my red bike patrolling...

Ralphie is growing up.

Ralphie is on its way from being an ugly duckling to being a beautiful swan...or at least an 800% less awkward-looking house.

703 Ralph Street looked like this when RADO acquired it:















It has looked like this for months:
















Now it looks like this!















It is an adorable house inside, with a neat carport and backyard--it's finally starting to look it. $135K with assistance for qualified buyers.

Come see us at the Earth Day fair!

RADO will have a table at JEA's Earth Day celebration this Saturday at the Landing from 10am to 4pm. Stop by to learn more about our exciting Green on Green development (which keeps getting greener as we wait for the city to finish it's hair-raising re-zoning process).

Note: the site for Green on Green is still under construction. Click through above to send us your contact information, or download a pdf of the current house plans we'll be building on the site. Stay tuned for more information as we pin down the details of the development's sustainable features.

Good clean thanks!

We had a wonderful turnout for Sunday's cleanup. A group of kids joined us along the way, and helped to collect 35 bags of trash from the blocks around Ralph and West Streets.














We were also joined by the Watershed Action Volunteers, who followed us and marked storm drains to raise awareness about river pollution.














Winn-Dixie kindly donated food for the cookout we had afterwards, and altogether we had a great time.

Chris Carter reported Monday, in an email with the subject line "Pride",

It was so cool to walk the neighborhood last night, with no trash to trip over.

We at RADO would like to say thank you to everyone who pitched in. Our work is not finished. We still have a lot to do to keep this area safe and clean for everyone, but we're off to an excellent, enthusiastic start.

Good news in the housing market? Only in Riverside.

Check us out on the front page of the Florida Times-Union, or on jacksonville.com! Our newest buyer, Jenny Morgan, and her perfect new home on Myra Street make for a pleasant change of pace from recent housing news.

Neighborhood Watch cleanup and cookout.

Sunday March 30th, starting at 3pm, we're cleaning up the Ralph-Ernest-Acosta corner of the neighborhood! We'll meet at 703 Ralph Street to distribute gloves and plastic bags, then follow a route through the surrounding blocks to hit a few hot spots (places where trash is dumped).

After we're done we'll get together for a cookout at 2630 Gilmore Street, sponsored by Winn-Dixie. This should start at 5:30pm. We'll have a sign-up for anyone interested in joining the watch group who hasn't done so yet.

The group that RADO's office is closest to covers primarily the northwest corner of Riverside, from Stockton to King/James Streets and from College to Gilmore Street. There are otehr groups in the Avondale area, that cover small, walkable clusters of blocks. Keeping groups about this size seems to work, so for other areas of the neighborhood we'd like to help other groups form. Basically, if you don't happen to live in this focus area, you are still more than welcome to join the group. We'll just eventually try to rustle up enough interest in your own block cluster to make a more effective group there. (hint: once we find a feisty enough LEADER...)

See you Sunday!

Walking for safety.

Chris Carter, by far the most enthusiastic member of our Neighborhood Watch, just sent out some walking routes, one of which is posted below. The folks who've been getting together each month mostly live in the same section of Riverside and the routes he drew up are to help us keep an eye on things.

If you're interested in joining this group, or one of the others that's formed in the Riverside and Avondale areas, please let me know.


Chris says:

Each route is approximately 1.8 miles, which I set with the idea of using the route as an exercise walk. I have always read that a good walk should be at least two miles. Now, you will notice that the route covers the RADO building, as well as the homes of our active watch group members.