Transportation Department staff to work on necessary Comprehensive Plan amendments
Following a Sept. 23 review of Sarasota County’s Thoroughfare Plan, the County Commission voted unanimously to direct staff to work on proposed amendments to that plan involving Myrtle Street in Sarasota and Casey Key Road.
If ultimately approved, the amendments will become part of the county’s Comprehensive Plan, which guides growth in the community.
The first would maintain Myrtle Street, in the community of Newtown, at two lanes between Old Bradenton Road and U.S. 301. The second would modify Casey Key Road from a Minor Collector Road to a Significant Local Road between Blackburn Point Road and North Jetty Park.
During a presentation to the board members as they met in the new County Administration Center on Apex Road in Sarasota, Spencer Anderson, director of the county’s Transportation Department, noted that the above segment of Myrtle Street is “a very constrained roadway.”
Several years ago, he continued, county staff “did a ‘Complete Streets’ project there,” which entailed widening the existing pavement and adding bike lanes, sidewalks and lighting. The result, Anderson said, was “a better-looking roadway section …”
(Smart Growth America explains on its website that “Complete Streets is an approach to planning, designing, and building streets that enables safe access for all users, including pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists, and transit riders of all abilities.”)
However, Anderson explained, in the future, if the County Commission wanted to widen that part of Myrtle Street to four lanes — as shown on the county’s 2045 Thoroughfare Plan map — the project would entail “a very significant cost. We’d have to buy houses; we’d have to buy parts of industrial complexes; and we’d have to deal with our ‘favorite’ stakeholder,” the Seminole Gulf Railway, which still has tracks running across Myrtle Street.
Changing the plans for Myrtle in the Thoroughfare Plan, Anderson added, would have no long-term potential effects.
In regard to Casey Key Road: Representatives of the homeowners association on that barrier island have “had a lot of conversations” with county Transportation Department staff, Anderson said. “They’re very concerned about speed along their roadway.”
(During a February 2020 discussion about the potential creation of a funding mechanism that would entail annual payments from Casey Key residents to support a long-term stabilization process for Casey Key Road, Lisa Napolitano, president of the Casey Key Association, told the commissioners that all of her organization’s members agreed that the county needed to pay for the road repairs itself, because so many members of the public use it, for tourism and for bicycling, especially.)
During his Sept. 23 remarks to the commissioners, Anderson did note, “Overall, the numbers don’t prove there’s a speeding problem on Casey Key Road, but there are target areas where some traffic calming may be needed …” Changing the classification of the road would enable staff to pursue such measures, Anderson added.
“The ultimate step for changing Thoroughfare Plan road classifications or [the number of lanes on a road],” he continued, “is a Comprehensive Plan amendment.”
If the commissioners decided to pursue the changes for Myrtle Street and Casey Key Road, Anderson said, staff would work in accord with the timeline he had outlined for them on a slide:
The Florida Commerce Department, which has rebranded itself FloridaCommerce, is required by state law to review any proposed amendment to a local government’s comprehensive plan. After that analysis — provided no issues arise that need to be addressed — the local government must conduct another public hearing on the amendment. Then, in Sarasota County’s case, four of the five commissioners — what is known as a “supermajority” — would have to vote to approve the amendment before it could take effect, county staff has explained.
Myrtle Street, yes; but ‘Casey Key is odd’
Following Anderson’s Sept. 23 remarks, Commissioner Tom Knight told said he is “very aware” of the situation on Myrtle Street. “I would agree with … what you wanna do there,” Knight added in addressing Anderson.
However, Knight continued, “Casey Key is odd. Has the residency out there increased that much,” to the point that traffic on the road is of a significantly higher volume than it was “20 years ago, 10 years ago, 5 years ago?”
“It is, from what the … HOA has communicated to us,” Anderson responded. “I mean, you can see the traffic. ‘Lookie-loos,’ bicycles — a lot of just non-residential or directly residential traffic that wants to go take a look at the Gulf and travel that [road] between Blackburn Point Road and also down to Albee Road.”
Then Anderson pointed out of the Casey Key Association members, “The one thing that they … would like us to do” is install traffic calming measures, such as speed cushions. “We can’t do that on a Minor Collector,” he added. “So that’s why the change [has been proposed to make the road] a Significant Local Road …”
Knight asked whether the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office — which he led for 12 years — still has radar guns. “What’s going on with that?”
Then Knight conceded, “I’ll leave that alone.”
He did ask Anderson about the expense of traffic calming measures.
“Actually,” Anderson replied, “the upfront costs are pretty low. It’s just installation.” The HOA would pay for the devices, he continued, and county staff would put them in place.
When the devices reach end of life, that organization would have to pay for new ones, he added.
Knight next acknowledged, “Just to be a little facetious, you know, as I get: So who do they call when people are upset about hitting those speed bumps?” In his experience, Knight indicated, some people in neighborhoods want such devices installed, while others do not.
“So who do they call?” he repeated his question. “The head of the HOA” or someone else on Casey Key? “You or me?”
“They can call all of you,” Anderson replied, referring to the commissioners.
“Maybe we can write some tickets [for speeding],” Knight said.
Knight ended up making the motion to direct staff to move forward with the recommendations for the Thoroughfare Plan amendments regarding Myrtle Street and Casey Key Road, and Commissioner Mark Smith seconded it.
Commissioner Joe Neunder was absent from the meeting, so the resulting vote was 4-0 in favor of the motion.