- April 18, 2024
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It’s Sept. 1, one month before the Snowbirds begin their descent on our streets again. You know what that means.
No one has forgotten.
Traffic consumed everyone’s conversations throughout the 2015-2016 Season. And as that period wound down and Snowbirds headed north for the summer, there was ample discussion throughout the region — among residents and elected officials alike — that none of us wanted to live through a repeat.
Remember this, from our April 28 Longboat Observer editorial?
“In business, at a restaurant, or, say, a newspaper, or on a professional sports team, the managements and staffs routinely perform post-mortems.
“If something went wrong in the dining room, or in the day’s edition or during a play or game, the staffs analyze what happened and immediately take steps to prevent the same mistake from occurring the next day or the next night.
“That’s the kind of thinking and action we need now from our elected and government officials.
“Traffic was a nightmare this past season on both ends of Longboat Key, in Bradenton Beach, on the Cortez Bridge, on St. Armands Circle, the Ringling Bridge and on and on.
“We can’t let that happen again next season. Too much is at stake financially and for the future. Even if it means implementing interim steps, we cannot repeat what happened this season nine months from now.
“That would be a disaster — for everyone.
“This is the mindset on which taxpayers, residents and business owners must insist from public and government officials. The response that road projects are in the works or on the Florida Department of Transportation to-do schedule for 2018 or 2020 or whenever should not be excuses or deterrents to action. Work around them.”
On that same page and same date, we reported what traffic-improving measures were in store for the summer:
“[Sarasota City Manager Tom] Barwin says the Florida Department of Transportation will start in June constructing a permanent and better right-turn lane on 41 at Fruitville heading north, and a raised median island extending from Gulfstream to Fruitville. FDOT also will straighten that portion of 41.”
Here we are, Sept. 1, nada.
Nothing has changed, except that GreenPointe Communities, owner of the former Quay site, has provided details of its plans for its 15-acre site fronting U.S. 41. While we embrace what GreenPointe is proposing over a decade of development — 175 hotel rooms, as many as 695 condominium units and 225 square feet of office and retail space — what most people see in their minds’ eyes is more snarling traffic. Argh.
We know that FDOT is working on multiple fronts according to its protocols — in fact, faster than normal on the construction of U.S. 41 roundabouts. But the work that was to have started in June is now expected to begin Sept. 29. City Engineer Alex DavisShaw said this week she is waiting to hear whether that date means FDOT’s contractors will begin ordering materials or repaving.
Beyond that, however, the public has yet to hear from FDOT, Sarasota or Manatee county management officials; city of Sarasota; or Bradenton Beach officials of any immediate plans, strategies or steps that will be implemented during this next winter season to improve the flow of traffic in the most acutely clogged areas:
(And we’re not even including University Parkway and Interstate 75.)
Everyone knows the growing traffic congestion is a long-term challenge that must be addressed. But public officials have yet to give residents confidence that they have put this issue at the top their “most urgent” to-do list and are addressing it as quickly as they can.
Whose sand is it?
It’s an odd juxtaposition … and what a waste of an opportunity to save money.
On the south end of Longboat Key this month, Norfolk Dredging Co. of Chesapeake, Va., is pumping 200,000 cubic yards of sand out of New Pass to renourish the severely eroded beach on the south end of the Key.
And yet, less than a mile to the south, the severely eroded beach of Lido Key will continue to erode because residents of Siesta Key and Sarasota County commissioners have stalled and are doing whatever they can to thwart efforts to dredge sand from Big Pass and pump it to Lido.
It could have been so efficient and less costly to use Norfolk for both projects.
But such is the tangled state of beach renourishment, which is inevitably heading toward the Gulf Sand Wars — competition and disputes over which municipality and county has dibs and rights to which piles of usable sand.
It’s an extraordinarily bureaucratic and complicated process. When you hear knowledgeable government officials try to explain who’s in charge, who has rights to what and who owns the sand, it’s a wonder we still have beaches.
Try this out: Take the sand in New Pass. It has been building up for years, drifting south from Longboat Key’s beaches. Even though Longboat Key taxpayers purchased the sand with their money, when it drifted south to New Pass, the sand fell under the jurisdiction of the state of Florida. Likewise with the sand in Big Pass. The sand that drifted south from Longboat and Lido Beach to Big Pass is now in state-owned territory.
But because New Pass has been designated a federal channel, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers enters the picture and manages the contractors that ultimately do the dredging.
Now go one step further. In the case of Lido Beach, the city of Sarasota chose many years ago to enter a 50-year shoreline protection agreement. This turns over the renourishment of Lido to the Corps and allows the city of Sarasota to tap federal funding for renourishment. (Longboat rejected that idea.)
With the Corps of Engineers in charge of managing Lido Key beaches, it has the authority to designate sources of sand to satisfy the federal interest.
In this case, the Corps said the sand in Big Pass and New Pass would be good sources. But it also agreed to let Longboat tap New Pass for its renourishing.
In either case, the Corps is required to obtain permits to dredge any sand from any pass.
And that brings us to where we are today with Lido Beach.
Siesta residents fear that taking sand from Big Pass will create negative unintended consequences — environmentally or to their beachfront properties.
But the question arises: Who are they to be able to stop the state (all Florida taxpayers) from removing sand from state-owned Big Pass? Sure, they are Florida taxpayers, too, but Siesta residents didn’t explicitly pay for that sand and don’t own it. Tourists probably paid for all of that sand. (Renourishment is funded from tourist bed taxes.)
If, say, the Corps of Engineers and state have identified the most useful and economical sources of sand as that in Big Pass, why should Lido taxpayers (and Sarasota city beachgoers) be denied that sand?
If the Siesta residents and Sarasota county commissioners want that Big Pass to stay, should they compensate the city and Corps for having to pay more than they otherwise would for different sand?
This is just the beginning of future Sand Wars.
