Country Club Shores voice concerns over planned turn lanes

The town of Longboat Key’s project to bring turn lanes into the southern Country Club Shores neighborhoods begins construction this month. 

The Country Club Shores turn lane project will add left-turn lanes to several streets that extend into the Country Club Shores neighborhoods, particularly in the Country Club Shores 1, 2 and 3 developments. 

The scope of the project includes widening the portion of Gulf of Mexico Drive by 12 feet to become a 44-foot-wide roadway section. Within that section will be two 11-foot travel lanes, a 10-foot turn lane, two 6-foot paved shoulders and five curbed, landscaped medians. 

Overall, the project is intended to allow for safer and more efficient turning into the Country Club Shores neighborhoods. 

The project has been in the works for nearly 8 years. Originally, the idea was to create a single left-turn lane in the middle of the two travel lanes without any medians. 

The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT), however, turned down this proposal and added the requirement of medians to break up the left-turn lane, citing safety concerns. 

The original funding reimbursement agreement between the FDOT and the town of Longboat Key included a $1.4 million reimbursement from the FDOT.

With the new additions of curbed medians increasing the scope of the project, construction bids came in higher at around $2.6 million. The bid winner for the project is Superior Asphalt Inc. 

This bid price caused a delay in the project last year as the town negotiated with the FDOT to up its reimbursement agreement, which the state department eventually agreed to do. 

Concerns raised

Residents within the Country Club Shores community have mixed opinions about the addition of raised, curbed medians. 

Lynn Larson, Country Club Shores resident and former town commissioner, said some residents were surprised to learn that the project included raised medians. 

Larson was a commissioner from 2009 to 2016, when the turn lane project began to take root. Residents came to her with concerns about turning into the Country Club Shores neighborhood. 

“They expressed, and they were right, that they didn’t have a turn lane,” Larson said. “So that’s what I had put in a request for that turn lane to extend all the way down.”

If residents are trying to turn left into the neighborhoods without having a designated turn lane, Larson said it backs up traffic, which can be especially bad in peak season. 

“If somebody tries to turn left, it backs traffic up all the way to Publix, so it’s a real mess,” Larson said. “You hope that red light triggers at the Longboat Key Club, or you’re going to sit there for a while.” 

Then, for residents turning left out of the communities, there’s another problem — without a turn lane acting as a “staging” area, it forces drivers to wait for a gap in traffic, which can be hard to come by given the time of year. 

“The fact that we haven’t had more accidents because you have an elderly population out here is a shock,” Larson said. 

Photo by Carter Weinhofer

Sometimes, residents are forced to concede, turn right and go to Publix for a turnaround spot. 

It’s because of these traffic issues that Larson believes the project is bigger than Country Club Shores. 

“It’s not just a Country Club Shores issue, it’s an island issue,” Larson said.

Larson added some residents in her community raised issues about the medians, though, and claim the structures will inhibit the ability to “stage” in the turn lane. Also, when the drivers find a gap in traffic, having the medians in the way may be another obstacle for some drivers. 

Residents like Lynn Cook feel the project is important to the safety of residents turning into the neighborhoods and are fine with the alterations. 

“I’ve been begging for this project for 7 or 8 years,” Cook said. “However they want to do it, whatever they need to put in, I’ll take it.” 

At the Country Club Shores Unit 4 recent annual meeting, Assistant Town Manager Isaac Brownman gave a presentation to the community members, and some were adamant about their opinions, according to Larson. 

After the meeting, Brownman spoke to the Longboat Key town commission at the board’s regular workshop on Feb. 18 and recapped the meeting with Country Club Shores residents. 

“Many residents were there and strongly objected to the presence of curbs at all,” Brownman said. 

Brownman told commissioners curbs are a standard roadway feature and a requirement by the FDOT for this project. He said he would work to facilitate conversations with the FDOT to see if alterations to the medians are possible to reach a compromise, which peeling the curbs back a couple of feet could be an option. 

“The FDOT still gets the benefit of breaking up the single turn lane, and then the people exiting now have a car or two car lengths to stage,” Brownman said.

Construction timeline

The project is in the mobilization phase starting the week of March 3. Signs at both ends of the nearly 1-mile project site warn motorists of the roadway construction.

A mid-March to early May time frame is where the bulk of the excavation and base installation for the project will begin. 

The contractor has until the end of 2025 to finish construction with Town Engineer Jennifer Fehrs saying asphalt work may begin around mid-May, which would be the final stage of the project. 

Fehrs also said the town pursued a request for information (RFI) after hearing some residents’ concerns about the safety of the medians. The FDOT will evaluate the RFI and Fehrs said this could be an aspect of the project still in flux.

Brownman previously told the Observer the contractor’s traffic plan will maintain two lanes of travel throughout construction, something important to the project team, especially starting construction during peak season.