Signal in flashing mode as of Feb. 3
Just three days after the attorney for a south Siesta Key resident expressed continued concerns to the Sarasota County Commission about plans for full operation of a traffic signal installed at the Avenue B and C intersection with Stickney Point Road, county staff announced that — as of Feb. 3 — the signal would return to flashing mode.
“This signal was activated after Hurricane Milton [in October 2024] to provide safer intersection control for the debris management site activities occurring at the northwest corner of Stickney Point Road and U.S. 41,” staff noted in a Jan. 31 advisory.
That site is planned to be home to the mixed-use development Siesta Promenade. As approved by the Sarasota County Commission, the project will include 414 apartments/condominiums, a 130-room hotel, 133,000 square feet of retail space and 7,000 square feet of office space. The property encompasses nearly 24 acres.
“Drivers are asked to be aware of the updated traffic pattern in this area and as they approach the flashing traffic signal, drivers are to treat the red signal as a stop sign and proceed with caution on the yellow signal,” the county advisory added.
In response to a Sarasota News Leader inquiry in early January, the county’s Public Works Department staff wrote in a Jan. 7 statement that after the activities at the debris management site were complete, the Avenue B and C “signal will be placed into flash (yellow flash for Stickney Point; red flash on cross street), until development activities at the Siesta Promenade site warrant a return to a fully signalized intersection control.”
‘A dangerous and egregious situation’
During the Jan. 28 County Commission meeting, held in downtown Sarasota, attorney Ralf Brookes of Cape Coral and Longboat Key appeared before the board, once again representing south Siesta resident James P. Wallace III, who recently withdrew a Circuit Court complaint against the county over the plans to operate the Avenue B and C traffic signal.
As he has on Wallace’s behalf in the past, Brookes emphasized to the commissioners that allowing the signal to function would be “setting up a dangerous and egregious situation …” The stoplight, Brookes pointed out, will stop traffic at yet another intersection between “the two most important and congested intersections” for traffic heading to and from the barrier island via Stickney Point Road. One of those intersections is at Midnight Pass Road; the other, at U.S. 41.
With three traffic signals operating on that stretch — which also has a drawbridge — Brooks stressed, the response time for emergency medical units trying to reach Siesta Key will be lower. Yet, as Wallace’s brother — Raymond M. Wallace, an emergency medical responder in Tennessee — pointed out in an affidavit that Brookes provided to the commissioners, adding even a minute to the travel time for EMS units can mean the “difference between life and death of a Siesta Key resident or visitor suffering from a stroke or a heart attack.”
Raymond Wallace grew up on Siesta and visits each year, Brookes noted during his Jan. 28 remarks, which were part of the Open to the Public comment period that morning.
In the affidavit, Raymond Wallace explained that he is the “assistant chief of a squad of 10 professionals in a retirement community of about 1200 people. I am licensed at both state and national levels. I have been on active duty for ten years and have had over 600 ‘call-out’ experiences. About 150 of these cases were on the county ambulance where I received ‘on the job training.’ ”
Further, in addressing the commissioners, Brookes referenced part of the April 2023 Final Order of a Florida Division of Administrative Hearings (DOAH) judge in a case that Siesta resident Lourdes Ramirez had filed with DOAH, to challenge the Comprehensive Plan consistency of an October 2021 amendment to the county’s zoning and land-use regulations in an effort to allow high-rise hotels to be built on Siesta Key. (Ramirez ended up winning that case.)
As Brookes noted in an Aug. 1, 2023 letter to the County Commission — a copy of which he provided to The Sarasota News Leader — the administrative law judge in the Ramirez case wrote, with Brookes’ emphasis, “There are only two bridges — Siesta Drive Bridge and Stickney Point Road Bridge — that provide access and evacuation routes to the mainland from Siesta Key. Both of the bridges are designated as constrained roads by the [county’s] Comprehensive Plan. A constrained road is defined by the Comprehensive Plan as a road with ‘a level of service lower than the adopted standard.’ The level of service provided by the bridges is classified as ‘D.’ This means that while on the bridges, ‘[s]peed and freedom to maneuver are severely restricted. Small increases in traffic will generally cause operational problems at this level.’ The Comprehensive Plan states that constrained roads are common throughout the County and therefore the County has accepted ‘an additional responsibility … in its review and approval of LDRs [land development regulations]. Therefore, the County must base approvals of LDRs on ‘maintaining the existing level of service of [constrained] roadways and to not allow the existing operating conditions to be degraded.’ ”