Is a traffic apocalypse nearing at UTC?

I was coming out of the City Furniture parking lot at UTC, expecting a busy but easy ride home after 6 p.m. on a week night.

You have to understand that I am a veteran of the traffic wars. I grew up in New York and spent a lot of time in the city. I lived 26 years in the San Francisco Bay Area, where every 20-minute drive had the possibility of becoming a two-hour ordeal. I lived two years in the Los Angeles area where every 20-minute drive had the possibility of becoming a four-hour ordeal.

Traffic, in general, doesn't rattle me.

But on this evening, I was rattled.

So if you know the UTC roads, I turned right out of the City Furniture parking lot on University Town Center Drive and headed toward the Yard House. I inched along until I was directly in front of the Yard House, then hit a brick wall. Luckily, I had a magazine in the car. After reading for a while, I looked forward and saw that North Cattlemen Road was at a standstill as well. I figured that a flock of Sandhill cranes must have been in the road.

Gee, why doesn't the Yard House have drive-through bar service? I think they have it in Arkansas.

After 20 minutes and 150 yards, I was nearing what I thought was the promised land. There is a red light at that corner of Cattlemen Road, so I figured with about six cars in front of me, how much longer could it be?

Unfortunately for my lane of traffic, only one car could fight onto Cattlemen during a green light. The cars on Cattlemen weren't having any luck, so they blocked the intersection after their green light had turned red. Miss Manners and her sisters must have been in the cars in front of me, because most of them weren't willing to force their way onto Cattlemen, much to the delight of those blocking the intersection.

Eventually, it was my turn to get into the North Cattlemen Road procession and I summoned my inner-New York personality. Basically I drove forward, presenting the message to either hit me or use the brakes. I had done it. I was on North Cattlemen, with just a short drive to University Parkway. Eureka!

I would have celebrated, but I looked forward and saw the traffic wasn't moving on University Parkway, either. An accident on I-75 had paralyzed that roadway, along with the University Parkway traffic trying to turn north onto the interstate.

I inched ever so slightly into the right hand lands once I arrived on University Parkway, and managed to finally pass the unfortunate souls who wanted to use the interstate going north. For a brief moment of euphoria, I soared forward, zooming past all the cars waiting to get on the onramp. Oh, aren't I smart, going surface roads to get around this mess?

Yeah, I was smart all right, until I saw a solid lane of traffic a half mile back from the Lakewood Ranch Boulevard turn. All those drivers had thought they were pretty smart, too.

OK, no worries, I figured I would stay to the right, and drive all the way to Lorraine Road, turning north there. Nobody's going to try to avoid traffic by taking that big a detour, right?

Wrong.

I eventually joined the crowd on Lorraine Road, doing a bumper to bumper crawl all the way to State Road 70. Insanity was creeping in.

So here's the deal, whether you are living in the Bronx, or Pocatello, Idaho, there's always the chance of a traffic jam. An accident or mishap at the right time of day can cripple roadways. I always have been an advocate of looking at the big picture.

The big picture in the Lakewood Ranch area is that all our traffic woes are relatively minor. Sure, we have the congestion on State Road 64 and State Road 70, especially at rush hour. But, in general, we are fortunate. If you are driving at non-rush hour times, especially east of Interstate 75, it is generally smooth sailing — unless, of course, they have ripped up Lakewood Ranch Boulevard for construction.

But the big picture is that we are better off than most.

Sitting in my car, though, trying to escape the UTC cell block, I started to worry that a traffic disaster is upon us.

Normally, the heavy volume at UTC does not bother me. UTC has an amazing collection of stores, restaurants, bars and attractions that are a magnet for both locals and those who live an hour or more away in any direction (in smooth driving conditions). I don't mind the traffic woes there, because I realize it's part of the deal. It's only natural.

But throw in an accident, such as the one on I-75, and a bearable slowdown can become gridlock in a heartbeat.

Even so, occasional nightmares can be tolerated if you can get a good night's sleep most of the time. The worry for me is that the attractions keep coming, and we are simply going to overwhelm the existing roads.

There is a rumor that the new Mote Science and Education Aquarium is going to open before the end of the year. We can't be sure because the nonprofit has cut off communication with the public that funds it since last November when it comes to the aquarium. However, it does seem inevitable.

When it eventually does open, the aquarium expects 700,000 visitors in its first 12 months. Think anyone is worried about traffic?

University Place's Doug Kenny started a stream of 75 posters on Nextdoor commenting on UTC traffic woes.

"Now let's be generous and say visitors arrive four at a time," Kenny wrote. "(That) results in another 60 vehicles an hour or more than one vehicle a minute cluttering the intersection at University Park Avenue. What a mess!"

The posters were divided between those who said "stop whining" and the "traffic apocalypse" camp.

But does it seem reasonable that the area is not preparing for a spike in traffic? Regional officials are taking the "somebody somewhere has to do something" stance.

One step would be to move along with the I-75 flyover that SMR had designed to take vehicles from Lakewood Ranch to the UTC area. In 2023, the Observer did a story in which Ken Stokes, an Infrastructure coordination program manager for Sarasota County, estimated the project could break ground in 2025 and be finished by 2027. However, the project is still in permitting.

At the time, Stokes said the overpass, which would join Lakewood Ranch Boulevard and North Cattlemen Road, would help ease movement between Nathan Benderson Park, the Mall at University Town Center and Waterside Place.

Perhaps it would behoove Sarasota County to get this project done.

My advice until then is to put some magazines in your car.