DOT polls county board on future Cortez Bridge options

What is your choice for the repair or replacement of the Cortez Bridge?

Manatee County Commissioner Robin DiSabatino looks at the prospect of two new bridges linking the mainland to Anna Maria Island from the perspective of a boater who waits for a bridge to open and a motorist who sits idle until it closes.

DiSabatino and her husband moved to Manatee County in 2004, attracted to the area as a haven for boaters. They recently sailed the Intracoastal Waterway in their 38-foot Hunter sailboat under both the Cortez Road and Manatee Avenue bridges.

“You’re stooging around for a half-hour waiting for the bridge to open,” she said. But she also observed motorists on the bridges waiting for the spans to open and close.

“That traffic is inconvenienced by me,” she said.

DiSabatino enjoyed the period of time the couple kept their boat docked at Marina Jack in Sarasota, near the fixed-span Ringling Bridge. She empathizes with boaters who prefer a fixed-span replacement Cortez Bridge, because it can be difficult to time the trip from one bridge to another.

“If you get to the bridge one minute after it closes, then you have to wait the full half-hour,” she said. “It’s not fun because you have to battle the current (and) little boats going past you under the bridge” in a narrow channel.

Sometime during April, representatives of the Florida Department of Transportation met individually with Manatee County commissioners to report the DOT’s progress on the project development and environment study for the Cortez Bridge.

According to the DOT study, Cortez Bridge, built in the 1950s, is “functionally obsolete” due to small shoulders, a 9-inch concrete curb separating the travel lanes from the sidewalk and old-style railings. But the bridge remains structurally sound.

According to some members of the county board, the DOT appeared to be floating its plan to build a 65-foot fixed-span to replace the aging Cortez Bridge.

Of primary interest for the members of the county board are the options for the future of the bridge.

Based on the conversations with commissioners, no one is seriously discussing a no-build repair option or the option to rebuild the existing bridge.

The current bridge is a 19-foot-clearance bascule. The DOT’s foremost options are a new 35-foot clearance, mid-level drawbridge, costing approximately $102.6 million, or a 65-foot, fixed-span bridge, costing about $79.8 million. The drawbridge also requires a budget for bridge tenders.

The fixed-span structure would require less maintenance and bridge tenders would be eliminated. The fixed-span bridge would take a couple of years to construct and the bascule bridge a little longer.

DiSabatino said there are “pros and cons” to both bridge alternatives. She left the meeting with the DOT believing the planners would prefer that the Cortez Bridge be a tall, fixed-span structure, like the Ringling Bridge in Sarasota and the planned replacement for the Anna Maria Island Bridge on Manatee Avenue.

“That’s what they were showing,” DiSabatino said. “I was there to listen.”

But the DOT says the final “recommendation” for Cortez is pending.

“We have not come to a definitive conclusion yet regarding which bridge type to select,” DOT spokesman Robin Stublen stated firmly.

When that happens, the DOT will schedule a public hearing, likely in the summer. “The final studies of everything will be laid out,” Stublen said. The PD&E study will be completed a few months after the summer public hearing.

DOT officials must budget for the bridge and maintain it and, therefore, get to decide what type of bridge will be built, although Stublen said the agency does consider public input.

“I guess when you are paying for it, you get to decide.” But, he added, that’s why the DOT is going to be having a hearing.

“This bridge is going to be around for 75 years,” Stublen said.

Sometimes new information conveyed at a public hearing results in changes to the DOT’s plans. But by the hearing date, the DOT likely will have considered all relevant information.

Among the considerations are cost and the effects of each bridge type on flow of traffic and mobility in Cortez. With a fixed-span bridge, conceivably, traffic in Cortez could go under the bridge ramp from one side of Cortez to the other.

Deciding to build a fixed-span bridge would put the state agency at odds with residents of the Cortez fishing village and other residents of Manatee County. Many don’t want to see a high bridge over Sarasota Bay at Cortez Road, even if it alleviates traffic problems and congestion that have prevailed for decades.

County Commissioner Steve Jonsson, a longtime banker and El Conquistador resident, was elected in November to succeed John Chappie in the district that includes Cortez and Anna Maria Island.

Jonsson believes the DOT is leaning toward the 65-foot, fixed-span option.

While declaring himself open-minded, the new commissioner said he would prefer a bridge with 35-foot clearance because he is concerned about the disruption that would result from the ramps for a taller bridge in Cortez and Bradenton Beach.

“There’s not a whole lot of land there to work with,” he said, adding that the DOT doesn’t think the new bridge will be built until at least 2032.

County Commissioner Carol Whitmore has been involved in discussions about replacing island bridges since she first took elected office in 1991.

The former Holmes Beach commissioner and mayor says that while a fixed-span bridge on Manatee Avenue “makes sense” because of abundant right of way, a fixed-span Cortez Bridge does not.

A tall, fixed-span bridge at Cortez “will destroy that whole area,” Whitmore said. “It will destroy the character of another part of Anna Maria Island, which is Cortez.”

But if the DOT is “dead set on 65 feet,” Whitmore said, its officials would not have mentioned the 35-foot drawbridge option.

DiSabatino says she’s a commissioner who likes to see both sides of an issue.

“The Cortezians in general don’t want to change the character of the bridge,” she said. “On the other hand, sometimes change is scary, but then it’s good. It could make their lives a little easier to get from the north to the south going under the bridge, versus having to cross” Cortez Road. “Traffic would not be backed up as much. So there are pluses and minuses.”

Commissioner Betsy Benac, chair of the county board, says she was surprised to see a mixed response from her constituents regarding the two options. More residents support a fixed-span bridge than she anticipated, based on survey data the DOT provided to commissioners.

And it appears villagers in Cortez will amass to fight any such proposal.

While Cortez residents oppose a fixed-span bridge, Benac said, there was some support for the fixed-span option among “beach people” tired of waiting for the span to close as they leave the island.

“It’s a very tough decision,” Benac said.

According to Stublen, final approval of the bridge project will be made by the DOT in Tallahassee with possible input from the federal government.

There may be federal funding if the state builds the 65-foot option.

Meanwhile, opponents of a 65-foot span — some local officials, activists and private citizens — have some homework to do before a public hearing is scheduled this the summer. A grassroots effort for a drawbridge option could emerge.

“We represent the local community and we need to make sure that their voices are heard and considered,” Benac said. “That’s my goal.”

“I think that we can convince them that fixed-span does not make sense,” Whitmore said. “Fixed-span saves a lot of money for repairs throughout the year. I understand that. But they should have thought about that when they first built it.”

“The Cortez Bridge is 60 years old,” Stublen said. “Do we want to replace it with the same type bridge that we built 60 years ago? That’s the question.”