Florida Department of Transportation officials will outline for Manatee County commissioners their plan for a $1.5 million study of the Cortez Bridge that would begin in fiscal 2012-13.
The Cortez Bridge spans Sarasota Bay on Cortez Road/State Road 689 and links Bradenton Beach to Cortez. The drawbridge was built in 1956 and has been rehabbed over the years.
During a meeting April 12 at the county administrative center, DOT representatives will provide county commissioners with the rationale for conducting a project development and environment or PD&E study. Such a study would determine the future of the Cortez Bridge, including a possible recommendation for its replacement.
Some county commissioners, as well as Island mayors, have questioned the need for a study, maintaining that a low-rise drawbridge is the only option for the location.
Background material for the meeting states that a PD&E study on the Cortez Bridge in 1989 resulted in the recommendation that a replacement bridge be built — a four-lane, high, fixed-span bridge — to accommodate traffic that would increase with the planned widening of Cortez Road as far east as 26th Street.
That study is outdated, according to the DOT. The federal agency overseeing such a project in 1988 would have been the Federal Highway Administration but is now the U.S. Coast Guard, for example.
Additionally, in material presented to the county, the long-range transportation plan for the area has changed, as have concerns for endangered species and historical structures. For example, the Cortez fishing village didn’t become a National Historic District until 1995, seven years after the PD&E study.
The DOT also will address with the commission the proposed $4.4 million rehab of the bridge scheduled to take place in fiscal 2013-14. The project would involve repairing the deteriorated seawall and support pilings, as well as steel and machinery work, painting and fixes to the bridgetender house.
The DOT presentation on April 12 was tentatively set to begin at 10:30 a.m. in the administrative building, 1112 Manatee Ave., Bradenton.