{"id":804680,"date":"2026-05-18T08:36:49","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T08:36:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/804680\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T08:36:49","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T08:36:49","slug":"five-points-businesses-say-ironman-road-closures-hurt-access-customers-city-promises-better-communication","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/804680\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Points businesses say IRONMAN road closures hurt access, customers; city promises better communication"},"content":{"rendered":"

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. <\/strong> \u2013 Jacksonville\u2019s first-ever IRONMAN<\/a> brought nearly 2,000 competitors to a route spanning parts of Duval and St. Johns counties this weekend, drawing crowds downtown, and prompting widespread complaints about traffic, road closures and access issues in neighborhoods like Riverside\u2019s Five Points.<\/p>\n

Business owners and employees along Park Street told News4JAX they supported hosting a major event but felt overlooked by the closure plan, saying customers canceled appointments, workers arrived late and parking became difficult for staff and visitors.<\/p>\n

\u201cA couple of our customers had to cancel their appointments because the traffic was so crammed up, so they couldn\u2019t make it,\u201d said Gozde Duyar, a guest relations specialist and piercing artist at Cleopatra Ink Tattoo & Piercing.<\/p>\n

Taylor Johnson, an employee in the Five Points area, said the closures made basic access challenging for workers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI normally am able to just park across the street. We had to hunt down parking and on top of that, there were a lot of police officers blocking everything off,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n

Johnson added that some customers and employees were forced to park farther away.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know a lot of people didn\u2019t like it because they had to park really far away\u2026 it\u2019s a little unsafe to have to walk so far,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n

On social media, residents and business advocates voiced similar frustrations and urged more advance notice and clearer detour routes.<\/p>\n

One Riverside resident, Amy, wrote on Facebook: \u201cIncredible event, poorly planned and advertised\u2026 I couldn\u2019t get in or out of my house\u2026 no signage, no warning\u2026 there had to be some way they could have made sure everyone who lives in Riverside knew this was going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another poster, Staci, said employees in the Five Points area were \u201c45 minutes to an hour late for work,\u201d adding that delays affected businesses during a typically busy weekend period.<\/p>\n

Johnson said more consistent communication \u2014 especially targeted outreach to businesses and residents inside the closure zone \u2014 would help if the event returns.<\/p>\n

\u201cI definitely would have communicated more with the community\u2026 The businesses weren\u2019t really alerted about anything either. And there wasn\u2019t really clear direction on detours either,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n

Trinity Eldridge, who also works in Five Points, suggested simple measures such as posted flyers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like if they had a couple of flyers posted in the Five Points area\u2026 I think a little bit more of a warning would have been helpful,\u201d Eldridge said.<\/p>\n

Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan, spoke to News4JAX on Saturday at the finish line, acknowledged frustrations about traffic and said city leaders will work to improve communication.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know some people have been a little upset about some of the traffic issues,\u201d Deegan said. \u201cEvents like this are always going to be a little disruptive for one day. But the return on investment we get for that is tremendous\u2026 we\u2019ll try our best to make sure we\u2019re communicating.\u201d<\/p>\n

News4JAX has contacted the city and the Jacksonville Sheriff\u2019s Office seeking a fuller traffic report and any changes officials plan to make for future large-scale events.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 Jacksonville\u2019s first-ever IRONMAN brought nearly 2,000 competitors to a route spanning parts of Duval and…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":804681,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,8314,167545,3188,723,182481,7310,27607,14638,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-804680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-america","tag-duval-county","tag-five-points","tag-fl","tag-florida","tag-ironman","tag-jacksonville","tag-riverside","tag-st-johns-county","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116594674421203005","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=804680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/804681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=804680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=804680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=804680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}