Blue Jacket Park — Attraction in Orlando

Rode around the park on our bikes pulling the baby trailer and stopped at playground and pavilions and it was a nice visit, but being there at night and on bicycles brought up a couple of things.

Even though this park officially closes at 11:00 p.m., it's just not very well lighted at night. That's a problem on the bicycle pathways, where even going at a slow speed is a little bit difficult and that is with multiple headlights.

Also the playground needs a lot more lighting in the evening hours prior to close. They had the ball fields lighted up and there are some lights along the path but just not very many, and there are an awful lot of pretty dark areas where you can't even see people ahead of you until the last minute, and that's riding very slowly.

Second major thing is the width of the pathways which is absolutely not sufficient for both bike and walking traffic, although both are allowed on most paths in the park.

This goes back to a design issue and probably cost issues and here's an example where the engineers needed to speak up and say that we need to do more than simply accommodate both bikes and pedestrians, we need to make paths wide enough so that there is a broad safety margin for both bikes and pedestrians.

We do not ride fast and we do not advocate riding fast. But there are kids who go flying around here on bikes pretty fast, not to mention some electric scooters, etc. We don't think they should be going fast but we do think paths should be wider to increase margin of safety, and if that means there need to be some speed limit signs for the bikes, for example 8 or 10 miles per hour is plenty fast, then that's fine too.

The park is lovely and the restrooms are clean and everything about it is nice and we really enjoy it and also it has great facilities for the neighborhood, but these are the two things we think need improvement: lighting at night, everywhere, and widening of all paths to accommodate both bikes and those on foot. Sprinkle in some speed limit signs for the people on wheels. Make it safer.

Attention civil engineers. Pay...

Its great to see something nice become of the property! 😂 Thirty three years ago on this very day , I graduated bootcamp at the Navy's Recruit Traing Command. Then began Nuclear Power Training on the southern half of the base. Fond memories of exploring the local area, seeing 'The Wall' and 'Heavy Metal' movies at the Theater next to Fashion Square Mall. I was fortunate to have relatives and friends scattered about Florida and my cousin Chuck hooked me up with a great car for-cheap, so I had a means to explore the whole state on weekends and not just be stuck on base with nothing to do. Another benefit of having a car, was that since so many of my classmates didn't, and we were usually at the Nuke School doing homework or studying for a test til 10pm M-Th, and Subway on Colonial Drive was nearby, and if I went to pickup 10 or 15 subs they would buy mine, plus I would score a SubClub stamp for each of them and would obviously fill the card for a free sub quick! After leaving Orlando my next school was in northern NY and no Subway in the area there, so on to CA. There was a Subway nearby and i got couple stamps on the card that I'd started in Orlando. Since we were leaving soon for a 6 month deployment on my ship, i decided to not redeem that sub-card, and see just how many countries with a Subway that I could add a stamp for each to that card, just for a conversation piece. I was able to fill the card and besides Orlando and CA, I added stamps for Hawaii, Japan, Philippines, Hong Kong, and lastly Perth, Australia. Probably 10 years later I ended up being much hungrier than the desire to hold onto that card and got my usual BMT with it. I've seen the Sub cards go from stamps they had to wet to stay on, and had rubber stamps they daubed on an ink pad, and sometimes employees initials, and Sub cards that they swiped...

I've lived in this community going on four years now, while also being an Orlando native. For the past four years this park has been a weekly destination, if not more often, for skateboarding, walking the dog, relaxing, meditating, playing sports, and working out. Among many more such similar activities. It is safe. I have been there star gazing (the very few stars, planets, and moons you can see while in the city) in the early evenings to perhaps an hour or two past dusk with no fear. I have never once seen anyone suspicious or up to nefarious activities. And even most of the locals, who live right there, are bearable. Other than making ridiculous claims about graffiti artists they don't get up and ornery too much with the visitors. Probably one of the best places to watch the sunset or moonrise in the city. Plus its a strong reminder of the old Navy base that once helds...