The Cortez Bridge is the topic du jour — again.
People will again have an opportunity to comment and view a video on the newest Florida Department of Transportation alternatives for the future of the bridge at an open house 5-7 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 9, at St. Bernard Catholic Church, 248 S. Harbor Drive, Holmes Beach.
DOT project manager Tony Sherrard said another review of the options is being held “because it’s been some time since the last meeting.”
After this round of public comment is reviewed, the DOT will announce one or two options to a public hearing in early 2017, Sherrard said.
Under consideration by the DOT are four options — a no build/repair option that would extend the life of the bridge for 10 additional years to 2035, a fixed-span bridge with 65 feet of navigational clearance and two drawbridge options with either a 21-foot or a 35-foot clearance.
The existing drawbridge has 17.5 feet of navigational clearance, while the Anna Maria Island Bridge has 37 feet of clearance.
All of the replacement options would be expected to last up to 75 years.
The 35-foot drawbridge option replaces a prior 45-foot bascule design. The 35-foot clearance bridge would have a grade of 4 percent and could potentially reduce bridge openings by a third. The lower-grade bridge also would be easier for cyclists and pedestrians to cross than a 45-foot bridge with a steeper 5.5 percent grade.
A repair option would extend the life of the Cortez Bridge 10 years past a 2025 tentative start date, according to DOT.
The plan would be to close the bridge and the main thoroughfare in Cortez for nine weeks, with detours to the Anna Maria Island Bridge on Manatee Avenue/State Road 64 and through Longboat Key to Sarasota via the John Ringling Causeway if the no-build/repair option is chosen.
If the DOT elects to replace the bridge, the current bridge would remain in use until construction is completed.
Eleven months of repairs, totaling $4.4 million, were completed on the Cortez Bridge in March 2015, extending the bridge’s life span for another 10 years to 2025.
At Annie’s Bait & Tackle in Cortez, people shook their heads and doubted bridge construction would improve the frequent November-March traffic gridlock on Cortez Road West.
Diana Jackson, who works and lives in Cortez, said, “I don’t know how I’ll get to work. If they shut it down, I won’t be able to get to the doctors and the grocery store.”
Linda Molto, a Cortez-based Florida Institute for Saltwater Heritage board member, Cortez historian Mary Fulford Green, and Tjet Martin, a Bradenton Beach community activist, say the DOT lacks a good bridge solution.
FISH supports the historic fishing village in Cortez.
“We never should do it with a high bridge,” Molto said, adding people walk, bike and fish off the drawbridge. She called the existing bridge “a treasure” and favors repairs.
Molto is hoping to band together with Save Anna Maria Inc., the island-based activist group formed in the 1990s to oppose the DOT’s plans for mega bridges on Cortez Road and Manatee Avenue. SAM continues to work to create regional awareness about the newest rounds of bridge proposals.
“It’s the new development and the tourist development council that’s created this mess,” Molto said.
Martin said the DOT studies become outdated before funding is available.
“Don’t do a study until you can fund it,” she said, adding the DOT should consider a bridge over Sarasota Bay between the 53rd Avenue/El Conquistador corridor to the islands, as previously suggested by Jim Kissick of Bradenton Beach.
Green agreed.
She opposes the DOT’s continued consideration of the 65-foot bridge alternative on Cortez Road. She maintains federal funds can’t be used if the DOT negatively impacts the Cortez historic district.
Green opposed a fixed-span bridge in 1994-95. Cortez was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in March 1995.
The 65-foot-clearance option would close four or five streets into the 129-year-old village and block entrances to Cortez Road West on the north side, including Harbour Landings, Seafood Shack and new development at H&H Marina, Green said.
Molto believes the bridge won’t help with traffic backups because westbound vehicles will continue to pour from two lanes into two lanes on Gulf Drive in Bradenton Beach.
Acknowledging a need for the bridge due to traffic backups, Green is glad the DOT is considering smaller alternatives.
She stressed the importance of Cortez’s “multimillion dollar fishing business,” including restaurants and fish markets, to the local economy.
“They say the poor old boat owners are having to wait,” she said.
“I say they can just wait for the safety of the thousands of people on Longboat Key and Anna Maria Island,” Green said, pointing out high winds can close high bridges, causing hurricane evacuation issues.
At Tide Tables Restaurant & Marina on Cortez Road near the base of the bridge, patrons Tom and Kim Freiwald of Longboat Key arrived by boat and shared their concerns.
Tom Freiwald is part of a Longboat Key revitalization task force on traffic and redevelopment issues.
“It’s an interstate highway out there,” Tom Freiwald said, pointing to the Intracoastal Waterway that passes under the Cortez Bridge.
He favors a 35-foot drawbridge “as a compromise,” because the lower clearance on the existing bridge requires more bascule openings for boat traffic, which, in turn, backs up Cortez Road.
Kim Freiwald is a real estate professional in Sarasota.
“The real problem is 119th Street,” she said. “We’re backed up because of the light.”
The traffic light at 119th Street in Cortez is part of a proposed island congestion traffic study to be conducted by the DOT. The study, expected to be conducted in the next five years, is a funding priority for the Sarasota/Manatee Metropolitan Planning Organization for the 2016-17 fiscal year.
For more information about the project, visit cortezbridge.com.
Linda Molto of Cortez is quoted among many responders to the DOT’s latest plan(s) for bridges from the Mainland to Anna Maria Island. Her words, while blended into many other valid comments, is the real bottom line to the whole issue. The DOT could build a super high 18 lane bridge to the island but at the end of it the cars still need to fit into 2 lanes which will ultimately take them to nowhere left to park. That will never change because it’s impossible – there is no land for it to change on. We are maxed out.
But, for I don’t know how many times in the 30 plus years I’ve lived here, the DOT is yet again wasting taxpayers time and money with proposals and so called “solutions” to a problem that doesn’t exist. It isn’t a problem, it is a reality and impossible to change no matter how many millions of tax dollars are thrown at it. This is a no brainer and I’m so tired of paying taxes for collossal governmental ignorance and for the DOT to justify their extremely questionable existence. Remember the bumper sticker “Think Globally Act Locally”? We need to.