Monumental rulings take time.
It’s been about five months since the last filing in a federal lawsuit between the Florida Department of Transportation and four complainants challenging the agency’s decision to replace the 17-foot-clearance Cortez drawbridge with a 65-foot- fixed-span bridge in 2026-27.
Matt Farmer and Ralf Brookes, attorneys for the complainants, said July 19 there is no timetable for Judge Anthony E. Porcelli of the U.S. District Court, Middle District of Florida, to hand down a decision.
“I have no idea how long it’ll take before the order but I just know that the judge will certainly get to it as soon as he has time,” Farmer said. “He’s got many, many cases, a very heavy caseload, like all the judges.”
Complainant Jane von Hahmann, a Cortez resident, said the long lead time could be a good sign.
“I’m hopeful that the judge is just doing a really thorough review,” the former county commissioner said July 19. “And then that way, he will see that (the DOT) didn’t act as it should have. That they kind of jumped at what they wanted and just said, ‘Regardless of needing to do these things, we’re just going to pick a design and we’re going to go with it.’”
The complainants maintain the DOT inappropriately used a categorical exclusion to bypass U.S. National Environmental Protection Act-mandated environmental studies into the impacts of a high bridge during the agency’s bridge alternative selection process.
A ruling in the megabridge fighters’ favor would force the DOT to go through its bridge selection process a second time and conduct the environmental studies.
“I think once they do that, they’ll see that for the community, for the environment, even for traffic flow, increasing the height of that bridge is not going to help that, but it will have a huge impact on this community,” von Hahmann said.
The Cortez Bridge spans the Intracoastal Waterway, connecting Cortez on the mainland to Bradenton Beach on the Anna Maria Island.
High bridge schematics call for the construction of inland retaining walls 20-feet-tall at their peak near 127th Street West that would extend into Cortez about 700 feet along Cortez Road.
Von Hahmann and fellow complainants Joe McClash, also a former county commissioner, and Cortez residents Joe Kane and Linda Molto maintain the bridge walls would divide the community in half, separating the historic fishing village of Cortez south of Cortez Road from residents and businesses to the north.
Whereas people on foot now can cross Cortez Road at any point between the Intracoastal Waterway and 125th Street West, the high bridge’s walls would create a barrier, forcing them to cross along 127th Street West.
To visit Cortez businesses near the Intracoastal Waterway, such as Tide Tables and the Seafood Shack restaurants, motorists on Cortez Road would need to utilize an approximately 675-foot access road stemming north from Cortez Road near 124th Street Court West that loops back beneath the bridge before feeding into 127th Street West.
According to DOT bridge selection study documents, replacing the Cortez drawbridge with a fixed-span bridge would reduce the travel time between Gulf Drive in Bradenton Beach and 123rd Street West in Cortez by 1 minute and 46 seconds for motorists.
The megabridge fighters advocate the selection of a 35-foot-clearance drawbridge replacement and von Hahmann said a favorable ruling would give Cortez residents another opportunity to voice their opinions about the best structural fit for the community.
About 70% of 1,229 respondents to surveys the DOT issued during its bridge alternative selection study favored rehabilitating the existing drawbridge, built in 1957, or building a mid-level drawbridge over replacing the structure with a high fixed-bridge.
“We got a good response before, I can’t imagine we won’t get a positive, good response again for supporting a lower bridge,” von Hahmann said.