At the September 17, 2021 Commission meeting, Commissioner Michael Gongora referred a discussion item regarding the 63^rd Street bridge schedule to the Neighborhood and Quality of Life Committee.

The 63^rd Street bascule bridge is a drawbridge located near the east end of SR 907/63 Street between Alison Road and Indian Creek Drive.  The operations and maintenance of the 63^rd Street bascule bridge are under the jurisdiction of the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT).  FDOT engages a private contractor to provide bridge tender services.  The bridge tender is responsible for controlling bridge opening activity and maintaining bridge activity logs; however, the United States Coast Guard (USCG) establishes and regulates the drawbridge schedule.

At the March 11, 2015 City Commission meeting, Commissioner Micky Steinberg sponsored a discussion regarding potential modifications to the 63^rd Street bascule bridge schedule.  At the meeting, Transportation and Mobility Department staff presented traffic data showing a 45% increase in vehicular traffic on 63 Street from 7 AM to 10 AM (morning peak) and from 4 PM to 7 PM (afternoon peak) with no corresponding increase in marine traffic during those time periods.  

On April 8, 2015, pursuant to City Commission direction, the City submitted a formal request to the USCG to modify the schedule of bridge openings for the 63^rd Street drawbridge, and in particular, restricting bridge openings during the aforementioned morning and afternoon peak periods.  Following an extensive public vetting process including two comment periods in the Federal Register, the USCG approved the ruling modifying the drawbridge schedule pursuant to the City’s request.  The new bridge schedule was endorsed by the City Commission via Resolution No. 2016-29346 and implemented in May 2016.

In December 2020, the USCG notified the City of the results of a review of the weekend schedule of the 63^rd Street drawbridge and its intent to modify the weekend schedule on a pilot basis to better serve the needs of vehicular traffic while ensuring the reasonable needs of navigation are maintained.  Per the weekend bridge schedule at that time, the 63^rd Street drawbridge opened on-demand on Saturdays and Sundays.  The USCG pilot modified the weekend schedule to allow bridge openings on the hour and half-hour (only if there is demand) rather than on-demand.  The USCG determined that the pilot was effective, and after an extensive public comment period that concluded on July 26, 2021, the USCG officially approved the new weekend schedule in the Federal Register.  Based on these latest changes, the current 63^rd Street bascule bridge schedule is as follows:

• From 7 AM to 7 PM, Monday through Friday, the bridge will open on the hour and half hour (only if there is demand).
• From 7:10 AM to 9:55 AM and from 4:05 PM to 6:59 PM, Monday through Friday, except federal holidays, the bridge will not open for passage of vessels, except emergency vessels or tug and tow vessels.
• From 7 AM to 7 PM, on Saturdays and Sundays, the drawbridge will open on the hour and half-hour (only if there is demand), except on federal holidays when the bridge will operate on demand.  Outside of those hours, on Saturdays and Sundays, the bridge operates on demand.

The City’s Transportation and Mobility Department staff requests the bridge logs from FDOT on a monthly basis and reviews bridge activity and compliance with the current schedule.

As a result of numerous recent complaints from area residents regarding the frequency and duration of the 63^rd Street bridge openings and resulting traffic congestion on 63 Street, the Transportation and Mobility Department staff conducted an in-depth review of the bridge logs between March 2021 and September 2021.  Based on this review, staff ascertained the following:

• Average monthly openings – 658
• Month with highest opening – May 2021 (787 openings)
• Average vessels per month – 2,077
• Month with highest vessel activity – May 2021 (3,054 vessels)
• Average monthly openings within peak periods (bridge locked down) – 3
• Month with highest openings within peak periods (bridge locked down) – March 2021 (5 openings)

Staff reviewed the openings that occurred during restricted hours when the bridge is locked down to determine if the vessels complied with the USCG rule (i.e. emergency vessels or tugs and tows) and found that two (2) of the 22 vessels that were allowed passage during the restricted hours did not comply with the USCG rule.  These occurrences were shared with FDOT in prior months.

Furthermore, staff compared the March 2021 – September 2021 log data to pre-pandemic log data from 2019 and found that average monthly bridge openings have increased by 11%; however, the average number of vessels per month has increased by 534% (from 389 in 2019 to 2,077 in 2021). This significant increase in documented maritime activity has contributed to significantly longer queues of vessels waiting to pass under the 63^rd Street bascule bridge.  This higher demand has increased the duration of bridge openings from an average of 3 minutes per opening in 2019 to approximately 9 minutes per opening in 2021.  The increased duration of bridge openings has ultimately resulted in longer periods of traffic congestion on 63 Street after a bridge opening.

Staff has ascertained that there are daily bridge openings that occur at 4:00 PM on weekdays (prior to the start of the restricted period which begins at 4:05PM) and extend for approximately 10 minutes.  Given the extended duration of these particular openings due to the increased demand, the openings regularly encroach for several minutes into the weekday restricted period.  These occurrences have generated resident complaints alleging that the bridge was raised during the restricted afternoon peak hours.  City staff brought these occurrences to FDOT’s attention; however, FDOT stated that the bridge tender is legally and contractually required to raise the bridge on the hour and half-hour if there is maritime demand, even if the duration of the bridge opening encroaches into the weekday restricted periods.    

To further illustrate the 63^rd Street bascule bridge activity and identify trends, staff plotted a comparison of bridge activity log data from 2019 and 2021 (Attachment).  The graph shows that while bridge activity is trending downward since May 2021, the recent increase in maritime activity has contributed to a higher number of bridge openings in 2021 as compared to 2019.

Based on traffic modeling performed in-house, it is estimated that each bridge opening on 63 Street represents an additional 85 seconds of average delay per vehicle.  Given the increase in the number of  bridge openings in recent months, the cumulative additional delay per month per vehicle has increased by approximately 2 hours and 20 minutes.  Additionally, it takes longer for the 63 Street corridor to recover from a traffic flow perspective following each bridge opening.

USCG Process for Consideration of Modifications to Drawbridge Schedules

The USCG has a formal process to consider modifications to drawbridge schedules.  In order to request further modifications to the 63^rd Street drawbridge schedule, for example, the City must submit a formal request to the USCG.  Once the request is reviewed and approved by the USCG, the Notice of Proposed Rule Making is published in the Federal Register for a 30-day public comment period.  Once all comments have been considered and the public comment period ends, the proposed final ruling is placed in the Federal Register for a second public comment period.  From inception, the USCG’s rule making process typically takes over one year to complete.