There are few simple answers for solving the traffic problems that beset Anna Maria Island. One idea is to help vehicles get on and off the island more easily.
According to the Florida Department of Transportation, on average, vehicles make 13,800 trips daily on Cortez Road near the bridge linking the mainland to Bradenton Beach, and 14,500 daily trips across Anna Maria Island Bridge, linking Holmes Beach to the mainland.
Area traffic planners and elected officials discussed one idea that could have an impact on traffic at the March 16 meeting of the Island Transportation Planning Organization. They want to reduce the number drawbridges openings.
Jan. 15-May 15, from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m., the Cortez and Anna Maria Island bridges open to boat traffic on the half-hour and hour, on demand from boaters. May 16-Jan. 14, the bridges open for boaters on a 20-minute cycle. Overnight the bridges open on demand for boaters. Local officials want the drawbridges to the mainland to open only twice an hour, year-round.
The staff of the Sarasota/Manatee Metropolitan Planning Organization agreed to work with the DOT and the ITPO to encourage the U.S. Coast Guard to make the change.
“This is the only, only thing that anybody has ever come up with to address the congestion problem out here,” Bradenton Beach Mayor Bill Shearon said. “That’s why it’s a priority.”
Shearon is the ITPO representative to the MPO, a panel of area elected officials that sets priorities for state and federal transportation funding. The ITPO meets before the MPO board to get consensus for the MPO agenda items and to discuss issues.
The MPO supports the proposed change.
The bridges were opened on demand on the 20-minute schedule until about six years ago. After a two-year lobbying effort by the island governments and the MPO, the Coast Guard granted the seasonal schedule, MPO executive director Mike Howe said.
Michael Lieberum, a Coast Guard bridge management specialist in Miami, said in a phone interview that officials would look into any change request.
If a change is warranted, the process could take up to a year. Requests for public comments on bridge-opening times are made in the Federal Register and on the Coast Guard’s Navigation Center website, navcen.uscg.gov. Public hearings and workshops also would be held.
Lieberum said he is familiar with traffic issues on the island, having been involved in the Anna Maria Island Bridge rehabilitation project.
Changing the bridge-opening times may or may not reduce traffic, Lieberum said. Analyzing the DOT data would help the Coast Guard decide.
“We have an operating drawbridge that allows vessels through, and people are trying to get to an island,” he said. “So there is always going to be a conflict of some sort. We just need to balance the needs of both.”