APRIL FOOLS -- Underground utilities project takes aim at Longboat sidewalks, bike paths

The survey teams working around Longboat Key’s neighborhoods are harbingers of bad news for the Key’s pedestrians and cyclists: The Key’s project to bury utility lines will bring with it more than a year of closed sidewalks and bike lanes.

In documents obtained by the Longboat Observer, the town’s general contractor for the long-awaited utility undergrounding project has laid out the process by which the work will be done. 

Although the completion of the project by the end of 2018 means Longboat Key will be a more picturesque community that will have a higher level of telephone and internet service, the construction for the project means the popular sidewalk and bike lanes along Gulf of Mexico Drive face broad closers.

Piles O’ Dirt LLC, the coordinating contractor for the $50 million project, is planning to relocate the overhead cables directly under pedestrian and cycling stretches along GMD.

Reached this week, company officials said it’s possible they might have misunderstood a request passed down from Town Hall, via the utility company that is authorizing the work. But now, unless the town wants to push the work back to 2020, the plan is too far along to reset. Digging will likely begin on both ends of town by January 2018.

POD president Digg Hier said he was told initially by Florida Power and Light, which is designing the underground conversion, the town was interested in avoiding traffic tie-ups as the work progressed.

Because the overhead cables had to go somewhere, sites immediately alongside the roads made the most sense, Hier said, conceding he made that call on his own, after lunch on a Friday.

“Ohhhh, I see ... now. But it’s not like it’s a road or anything,” he said. “It’s just a sidewalk.”

Pedestrians and cyclists will find the going tough for a while but are advised to begin now planning detours and alternate routes that avoid not only the construction zones, but also uneven ground and plush St. Augustine turf, which can be hard for the unsteady to navigate.

“I think I’ll buy a treadmill,” said Buttonwood Drive resident Russell Sprout as he took a recent stroll along GMD. “That, or I’ll start walking in the grass now to get used to it.’’

Cyclists were particularly incensed, saying they had fought long for their roadside lanes, only to hear they will soon be torn up.

"State of Florida says I'm a vehicle just like a car or truck,'' said 87-year-old recumbent bike enthusiast Mildred "Gears" Ryder. "Outta my way, Mr. Benz.''