At the September 17, 2021 City Commission meeting, Commissioner Michael Gongora referred a discussion item regarding the 63^rd Street bridge schedule to the Neighborhood and Quality of Life Committee.  This item is now being sponsored by Commissioner Steven Meiner.

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 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 by USCG 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 marine traffic are maintained.  Per the weekend bridge schedule in place 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 deemed the pilot was successful, and after an extensive public comment period that concluded on July 26, 2021, the USCG 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 (but 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/tow vessels.
  
• From 7 AM to 7 PM, on Saturdays and Sundays, the drawbridge will open on the hour and half-hour (but 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 outlined above.

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 and compared this data to 2019 bridge logs.  Based on this review, staff identified an increase in daily openings of 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^rd Street after a bridge opening.

Based on traffic modeling performed by in-house staff, 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.  This delay contributes to significant congestion along southbound Indian Creek Drive and northbound Alton Road. Congestion is exacerbated with frequent bridge activity, thus not allowing these corridors to fully recover for several hours during the day. 

Update Since the October 2021 NQLC Meeting

Following some recent discussions with area residents regarding their concerns with the amount of bridge activity and the traffic impacts to 63 Street as well as to southbound Indian Creek Drive and northbound Alton Road, City staff further investigated weekend bridge activity.  Given the current bridge opening schedule during weekends, the City’s Transportation and Mobility Department staff reviewed bridge activity logs to determine the feasibility of extending the restricted hours to begin at 9:00 AM rather than at 7:00 AM and to end at 9:00 PM rather than at 7:00 PM.  Staff assessed available weekend bridge activity data from February 2021 to November 2021 and identified the following:

• The bridge had an average of only 2 openings between 7 AM and 9 AM on the weekends

• The bridge had an average of 24 openings between 7 PM and 9 PM on the weekends
• Bridge activity significantly dropped after 9 PM

Based on the above data, staff believes that modifications to the bridge’s current weekend schedule are warranted to begin at 9AM and end at 9PM on weekends.  Thus, from 9 AM to 9 PM, the bridge would open on the half-hour and hour only if there is demand.  Outside of those hours, the bridge would open on demand.  Furthermore, staff believes that these weekend schedule modifications should be brought forth to the USCG for consideration.

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 Street drawbridge schedule, the City must submit a formal request to the USCG.  Although not a requirement, the USCG encourages requestors to provide empirical data substantiating their request.  The USCG reviews the request, and if 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.