APRIL FOOLS: Toll plan rolls along for popular bike trail

In an effort to resolve impending budget issues, Sarasota County announced its intent to make users pay tolls for using the existing Legacy Trail and the forthcoming extension. The plan has drawn the ire of bicyclists and other trail users, who have complained about everything from the amount of the tolls to where riders might keep change in their cycling shorts. 

“For this to be worth it, it would have to make the county billions of dollars a year,” said bicycle enthusiast and trail user Clyde Radford. “They’re already asking taxpayers to pay $65 million to fund the extension of the trail — now they want to make even more money off it? Come on!”

In November, voters will decide to approve a $65 million bond to purchase land and construct the extension up to Fruitville Road. But the county said the tolls are separate from the issue of funding the extension.

Faced with budget deficits, the County Commission believes tolls on the popular trail will help fund the county’s other operations. 

“Adding tolls to the Legacy Trail will generate the money we need to fund other amenities around the county,” county staff explained in a memo. “We can use this money to pay for the Siesta Key Breeze Trolley, or to help keep libraries open more days a week.”

The tolls, which will be situated with arms and change collectors at intervals along the entire trail, will require cyclists and pedestrians to pay $2.50 every five miles. It’s expected to generate more than $1 million each year.

“When I bike, I carry the bare minimum — a water bottle and my house key, that’s it. Where am I going to store fistfuls of change to pay the toll?” asked Radford, who is known to bike 10 miles every weekend. If he does that every week, he’d pay more than $200 a year in tolls.

The Friends of the Legacy Trail, an advocacy group for the extension of the trail, is also miffed over this announcement. The group has been campaigning for the county to invest funds in the public amenity for four years.

“This isn’t what we wanted. We wanted a safe, free trail for bicyclists and pedestrians,” said Juniper Freeman, a member of the group. 

Advocates of the tolls argue that cyclists can afford them, given the money they’re saving on gas.

Friends of the Legacy Trail will be busing in people to speak against the toll at a public hearing April 1. Estimated attendance so far is more than 100 people.