One bridge project has leapfrogged another on the calendar.
In its latest five-year tentative work program, the Florida Department of Transportation programmed construction of a 65-foot-clearance, fixed-span bridge to replace the 17-foot Cortez bascule bridge that spans the Intracoastal Waterway between Cortez on the mainland and Bradenton Beach on Anna Maria Island.
Pending legislative and gubernatorial approval of the plan, the Cortez Road megabridge is expected to be built in 2026-27 — before the Manatee Avenue drawbridge replacement with a 65-foot, fixed-span bridge.
The groundwork for a new Anna Maria Island Bridge on State Road 64/Manatee Avenue — including the design process — began years before that of the Cortez Bridge, but the Cortez project now takes precedence in the eyes of the DOT.
The decision to move forward with the new Cortez Bridge ahead of the Anna Maria Island Bridge is based on the Cortez structure’s condition and continued deterioration, DOT spokesman Brian Rick wrote in a Feb. 10 email to The Islander.
The DOT uses sufficiency ratings to evaluate bridges. This metric is based on three factors:
- Structural adequacy and safety;
- Serviceability and functional obsolescence;
- and essentiality for public use.
After making special reductions for features like structure type or detour length, the DOT’s district structures maintenance office issues a bridge a rating based on 100 possible points.
The Cortez Bridge has a sufficiency rating of 46.6 and the AMI Bridge has a rating of 60.
The Cortez Bridge, built in the late 1950s, also is a year older than its counterpart and has a beam design that is more difficult to repair, Rick wrote in the email.
“At one point, the Anna Maria Island Bridge was at a lower rating than Cortez and recently, within the last couple of years, we’ve been spending a lot more money on the Cortez Bridge to maintain its structural integrity,” DOT District 1 Secretary LK Nandam said Feb. 9. “So, when we prepared our priorities for bridge replacement last year, Cortez kind of rose above Anna Maria.”
“It doesn’t mean that Anna Maria isn’t a priority, too. It is a priority and it is in our 10-year plan,” Nandam added.
The DOT’s Cortez Bridge plan faces a challenge in federal court from a coalition of local citizens and nonprofit groups led by former Manatee County Commissioner Joe McClash.
The challengers maintain the big bridge will destroy the character of the historic fishing village of Cortez at its eastern terminus and are advocating for a compromise 35-foot-clearance bascule bridge.
There is no pending legal challenge to the Anna Maria Island replacement project.
According to McClash, the logical progression would be to do the Anna Maria Island Bridge first because it is not facing a legal challenge, has been designed and would serve the community’s needs.
McClash said the DOT’s sequencing is illogical.
“The reality is that we don’t know the outcome of the challenge,” McClash said. “If you design a bridge and have the money funded for a 65-foot bridge and the challenge is successful, then you wasted all the money on the design plans.”
“For the FDOT to ignore the reality that they could lose is the typical DOT my-way-or-the-highway type of attitude,” he added.
And if the DOT loses on the Cortez Bridge, it would be behind on the Anna Maria Island Bridge. In such a situation, the island also would be deprived of a reliable fixed-span bridge, important for storm evacuation, until the Anna Maria Island draw is replaced, McClash said.
The current design cost for the Cortez megabridge is about $7 million. The bridge aesthetics design committee, which includes 11 local people, began meeting in 2020 and has held three meetings to date.
Meanwhile, the northernmost megabridge design committee has held meetings since 2016 with an anticipated design completion date of late 2021, according to the DOT website.
Since most of the Anna Maria Island Bridge design details are decided, the DOT could move forward rapidly with the project, McClash said.
McClash and his allies began their legal campaign against the DOT by filing a 47-page complaint in U.S. District Court March 9, 2020.
On Feb. 1, both parties agreed to jointly file an amended case management report, a step toward mediation regarding the bridge on Cortez Road.
The DOT maintains that the fixed-span is the most fiscally responsible option because it requires less maintenance than a drawbridge and no attendant.
McClash and company argue the DOT is forcing the wrong bridge on the community.
“They just feel like they have the ability to dictate what is allowed versus working with the community and resolving realistic community issues,” McClash said. “If they replace the bridge with a 65-foot bridge, the impacts on the Cortez community will be devastating and irreversible. And it doesn’t have to be that way. There’s two options.”