Charlotte County Board of County Commissioners Local Transportation Quarterly Meeting

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Charlotte County Board of County Commissioners. Local transportation quarterly meeting for OCTOBER 20th, 2026. Let the record show all commissioners are present except for Commissioner Constance, who is chaperoning an honor flight this afternoon. And he s also the acting physician for that organization. If you wish, please rise for the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands. One nation under GOD, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. MR. Florez, any changes to the agenda? MR. Chair, I m pleased to report no changes to the agenda. So thanks to John and his team. Okay, okay. Thank you. Sir. We re going to move on to public input. Anybody wishing to address the board during this portion of the meeting must fill out a card, state their name for the record and state which agenda item or items will be addressed. Remarks shall be limited to three minutes and shall be addressed to the Commission as a body and not to individual members. There will not be any discussion. My first card is Fred Bassano. Regarding bike lanes. I sent in pictures prior to I don t know if. Did you get them? They were a PowerPoint presentation. Um, they were in advance. I sent them to the office. I just want to make sure, because I m going to refer to those. Do you have them? And I think I got them in an email form. Okay. So I have one hard copy if you want them. I got them is that. We can give it to the clerk. For the record. And just restate your name for the record. Thank you. Okay. My name is Fred Balsamo. I reside at 1085 Gulf Boulevard, Englewood. Um, I want to thank you all for allowing us to approach you today about the restoration of the bike paths on on the key. Um, one clarification before I go any further is the report that s been provided by staff, includes, uh, holiday drive. That was never our intention. Um, we were talking about restoring the original bike paths. There s never been a bike path there. That is a very narrow road and would never, ever, ever suggest putting a bike path there. So when we talk about this, please consider that is not part of the part of our recommendation. Um, I have been in love with Charlotte County for 50 years. I had a house. I ve had a home on the key for the last 42. Um, we the report that the staff has presented to you has some misleading, uh, and some inaccurate, uh, comments in there and pictures. So I want to get into it. Uh, first of all, you should know a lot of the homeowners believe that the decision to remove the bike lane was more motivated by creating more parking than safety. And we hope that s not the truth. But a lot of people believe that for some reason, people felt there needed to be greater access to the beach, but it s created a lot of problem. The parking issue is a discussion for another day. I don t want to get into it with three minutes, but someday I hope we can have that discussion because beside garbage, vandalism, cutting through people s property, public urination, and everything else that s going on, the parking itself is a disgrace. I want to get right to the report, please. That, um, the that I want to dispute some things that are in there. First of all, the staff report, page two. Quote, there is currently a paved shoulder on Gulf Boulevard, Shore, North Beach and on Minnesota Key. The shoulder is not large enough in many areas to consider a bike lane. My response to that is, in fact, if you look at my pictures, most of at least 90% 95% of I went up and down that with a four four foot rod, which is what the county told me we needed. There is four feet of pavement there. It is covered by two feet of sand and grass, which goes back to the cleanup post. Milton again, i ve been there for 42 years. There has never been a problem with seeing on that island. Whoever was contracted to pick up the sand never did a good job. They left residue. It is now overgrown. It s weeded. Um, and so that has, yes, diminished. The the visible bike path. But there is pavement under most of Gulf Boulevard and North Beach Road and Shoreview, which just needs to be cleaned out. And again, those are, those are the conditions that, you know, we went through a very trying time going through Milton. We want to get things back and restore to the way they were before then. And it s difficult when you see these little remnants of things that just constantly remind you. And it s important to keep in mind. That s your time. We reset the clock to three when you started speaking, so you got your full three minutes. That was three minutes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just just for the record, I did print your email and attachment. I called you and left a message that I did receive it, and I was in receipt. But I do have it here, sir. I have some highlights on it. So next on the list I have Nadine Bailey on the bicycle paths. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. I lived on Minnesota Key for 40 years on North Beach Road and I live on the south end now on Wilhelm. There s no way that you can put a bicycle path on the Gulf Boulevard. The ditches are there. You re talking about sewer pipes, water pipes and that. But I ve lived there for 40 years, and I ve never seen anybody hurt on a bicycle. And the people that really ride bicycles are traveling fast, and they are not going to be on a bicycle path. They re going to be on the road. So I m I against whatever they came up with, what they need to do. The, the municipal thing is, I know they put blacktop on the roads before when we first moved there, but now we ve got holes in our, our roads and everything from the the hurricane that came through. Thank you. Thank you, MR. Flores. I just wanted to confirm with MR. Balsamo spoke. We did reset the three. I saw you hit the button. I just want to confirm with you, uh, Cindy Erickson on the bike lane. Good evening. Thank you. Commissioners, my name is Cindy Erickson. I m at 1070 Gulf Boulevard. Thank you for the opportunity to share my safety concerns regarding bicycle sharing. The road on Minnesota Key, the south end of Gulf Boulevard where we live is narrow, winding, and features several blind curves. Since Hurricane Milton, sand along the shoulder has narrowed the roadway even further, leaving little room for cyclists to ride the shoulder safely. Consequently, cyclists either use the traffic lane, forcing fast moving vehicles to brake sharply or swerve around blind curves, or they just use the sidewalks. Parents with young children almost always use the sidewalk because of safety reasons. Cyclists using the sidewalk create hazardous conditions for pedestrians, dog walkers, and those with kayaks, strollers, or beach carts, especially given the increased use of e-bikes on the island. Also, since Milton, we have lost much, if not all, of our natural surface drainage, which filled in with sand and has not been reestablished. The sidewalk across the street from our house almost always has standing water on it, because that surface ditch that drained into the bay is now gone. This causes people again to leave the sidewalk and walk on the street. On Sunday alone, I twice witnessed vehicles passing one another in front of my house. Keep in mind, this is a no passing zone coming into a curve with very limited sightlines. I watched more vehicles than I could count, swerve into oncoming traffic lanes to go around people walking or biking on the road, and delivery and service vehicles that are parked in the traffic lane. This is a head on collision just waiting to happen. From my perspective, even backing out of our driveway is often a scary ordeal. During peak tourist season, these issues are compounded. Increased traffic, long lines of cars waiting to get into the state park, cars parked on the shoulders, and delivery and service vehicles blocking the lanes significantly raises the risk of serious collisions because the shoulder is not wide enough to accommodate parking. The vehicles are on soil rather than on solid surfaces. That causes ruts, and it compacts the soil, which I m sure you know, restricts the absorption of water. And we need all the help we can get. And absorbing and draining water on this island. I m not about placing blame, but about recognizing that the roadway in its current condition cannot safely accommodate vehicles. Cyclists, pedestrians and parked cars. We should not wait for a traffic accident to occur before taking preventative action. I respectfully request the board consider conducting comprehensive traffic and bicycle safety study on the south end of the key. This study should evaluate site distances, lane widths, traffic volumes, and accident history. Thank you for your time and service to the community. Thank you, ma am for your consideration on this critical and complex. Thank you. Thank you for your comments, ma am. Heather Nisbet on Minnesota Key. I did not say those in early, but, um, if you want to pass them around. Thank you. Hi, my name is Heather Nyberg. I live at 1125 Little Court on the south end of Minnesota. Key. Um, as our neighbors have already said, I m in agreement with the positivity of the bike lane being restored. It appears. And again, as, um, Fred had mentioned, the holiday has never been brought up. Holiday drive to put the bike lane on there. There s not one there. We we are not asking for that. Um, the North Beach Road has a bike lane. It appears that, um, it s already marked as that. There does not look like there. Share the road there. That MAY just need to be cleaned up a little bit. Um, and maybe a couple more markings if we re going to do that. Um, there were, there are previous bike lanes obviously there, as Fred mentioned, s you can see the four foot, um, roadway on the side for the bike lanes, which I believe is, um, f dots. Uh, they need four feet, um, for that. So I think we have that. We need them to be previously or maintained where they should have been previous. I m not sure what happened or where the disconnect was as to why they haven t been maintained. If that needs to be part of our maintenance contract with the, um, the landscape companies to do that or why that ever stopped. Um, and by doing that, the safety will increase pedestrian safety. As was stated about people walking on the sidewalks. Um, and not taking up people in bikes on the sidewalks because of the safety, the speed limit is is, um, slow enough, but there s a lot of people that don t quite go the speed limit. And so bikers that are mostly there, beach bikes out there, if they are road bikes, obviously they re going to keep up with the traffic. But if they re beach bikes, which we have a lot of that out there, they re not going to share the road. They re just it s it s a hazard for regular, um, motorists on the road. Big trucks that are going down there. We have a lot of construction. Um, it would be better for safety for bicyclists if we had the the bike lanes reinstated, um, so that they have their own designated area. They re not worried about the traffic, um, coming down at their speed. Um, also, the people that are parking in some of the pictures, you can see. So they re encroaching into the bike lane that was there, and they re encroaching into our swales, which we desperately need, obviously, for our flooding. Um, and then you can see where some of those pictures, they re close to the sidewalk area and people opening doors, children getting out of doors. I mean, that parking issue is another issue. But if you see where people are parking in those lanes, if if the bike lane was restored, and that s not going to be allowed because of the safety, that s also going to help with pedestrians and and all that. So, um, those pictures that I show obviously are showing the, um, the previous bike paths and how the, the, a lot of the people are parking in the encroachments. Thank you and everything. So anyways, thank you. Thank you, thank you for your comments, ma am. Beth Tapper on the on the bike path, on the bike and parking on Minnesota Key. Everyone on the dais attendees, thank you for allowing me to speak today. I m Beth Tapper. I m a year round full time resident on South Minnesota Quay. 135 Sand Dollar. I m here today to address real ongoing public safety concerns on the south end of the quay and give you a firsthand accounting of my observances. My property abuts both Sand Dollar and Gulf Boulevard, so I experienced firsthand day in and day out, the conditions of traffic, pedestrians and bicyclists. Historically, parking on Gulf Boulevard has never been allowed. After Hurricanes Helene and Milton. Understandably, the parking lots at the beach were closed. Over time, more and more cars started parking on Gulf Boulevard, and now cars are parking on Gulf Boulevard. As a first choice, they bypass beach parking and park on the road and in swales. This new behavior has caused numerous public safety issues. I have witnessed persons parking between cars on the road or walking between cars on the road. I ve seen car doors open onto the street, some forcing bicycles to, without thought, swerve into the street. Not only are bicyclists endangered, but motorists also have to avoid the sudden car door openings. The road is damaged by car tires going over the edges. Blacktop is breaking off, decreasing surface area for safe bike travel, this is an increasing safety problem as more and more rentals and residents owned bicycles in this corridor share the road makes parking unsafe. Cars often park facing the wrong direction almost without fail. Cars are parked too close to the intersections, and residents and renters cannot exit streets safely as the view is obstructed. Cars unexpectedly and routinely do u-turns. They are parked in front of fire hydrants, utility companies and emergency vehicles need access. Aside from the safety issues, I ve witnessed urination in our yards multiple times. Loitering, litter, loud people, car horns, cigarette butts make it unpleasant for our vacationers and the residents, and they mention it. The swales, grates and drainage systems are first offense from flooding are wantonly run over and parked up. Many are damaged and the swales have collapsed from car tires constantly running over them. Another firsthand account a car drove into a swale to park, hit hit a drain in the car was damaged. They wondered aloud if the damage to their car would be considered. Negligence by the county. I took my concerns to Officer Ruffino. He assured me that they are giving parking citations. Most citations were given for violations across from the restaurants. And guess what? They no longer have a parking problem there. So let s do this on Gulf Boulevard. In conclusion, public safety is an immediate, right now concern, and parking on Gulf Boulevard should, without delay, be stopped by erecting no parking signs. This will alleviate most concerns for bicyclists for now and then we can work on making a permanent bike lane safety assessment. Thank you, thank. You, thank you for your comments, ma am. Jim Geraghty on Minnesota Key Bike Lanes. Good afternoon. Good afternoon sir. My wife and I live at 160 Friendship Lane on Minnesota Key. Um, I m in support of the bike lanes. Uh, many of the points that I was going to make have already been made. So I will not repeat what was been said. But I did want to share with you, my wife and I have had personal experiences. In fact, I still have a scar on my knee where I fell down driving in the right of way, car opening up almost. I don t know what happened. Look, they got a scrape. My wife almost ran over a child. She drives 15 miles an hour on Minnesota key. But if mothers are with their children, they re trying to get equipment back into their vehicles, and little children dart out. They darted out in front of my wife. Thank GOD she had enough distance to stop. So certainly safety is the number one issue. Um, the other thing I read in the report or the PowerPoint presentation that was available for the meeting was the, um, the drainage well points were made earlier, but part of the problem is people parking in the swales, which affects the drainage. And I ve been on the island for 12 years now, and, um, to read an earlier point that was never parking, there was a dedicated bike lane. And I think for the safety, the benefit and the protection of the county, should there be a major accident or issue, we should do the bike lanes. Thank you. Name. For the record, Sir. Jim Geraghty. Okay, I know it seems redundant because I say your name, but if i get it wrong, we ve got to make sure you say it for the record properly. Damien. Oh, Chad, I don t know if you re the last one, but it s my last card. Good morning. Damien. Oh, uh, 5056 North Beach Road. Uh, PRESIDENT Of South Minnesota Sandpiper Key Association. Um, I m just going to make a brief comment. As PRESIDENT Of the smc is that there s there both arguments in regards to the the bike lanes and share the road. Um, I want the commissioners to understand the issue is in talking with the sheriff, if in fact, it stays as share the road and the bike lane goes away from the shoulder. And I agree with Fred, there s not been a clean up of the shoulder in a lot of cases where it needs there s a effect. Your presentation will show grass being overgrown onto the shoulder. Uh, but I but I want to say is I called the sheriff s department, and if it does become shared, a road, then the sheriff s department will not give out tickets. And they can they they re told me that they can put a tire on the shoulder right next to the white line of the road. Okay. And they have they have not they won t have the ability to give a ticket for parking on part of the shoulder and into the right of way. And that s an issue, as they were mentioning, doors will open whatever cars will go by. That s way too close to the road. So as a inn, personally, not as PRESIDENT Of the sm, sk, I state that you should clean the shoulder, keep the shoulder clear of uh, of any, any obstruction by somebody s parking. You can have the share the road, but you ll see that a lot of the bikers will use the shoulder, even though it can t be officially considered a bike, a bike lane. But the key is the parking and the parking. If they are on the shoulder, it s going to obstruct possibly the traffic. If they are off the shoulder and still park in the there swales there. It s a lot of soft dirt. The south end of the of the island is the worst part for drainage on our island north, and doesn t have as much problems as drainage on the south end. So what we re asking you for is to really look at this. First off, clean the shoulders off to because they do have 3 to 4ft of asphalt there for people to either bike or at least clear the area for oncoming traffic. And and worst off is the speed. And I know that s not part of this conversation, but, uh, there are people are still speeding and this is going to just cause more havoc at the island if we don t get this clear. We, uh, we invite you to come out, you know, personally, come in and look and see what s going on on the island all the times. Uh, this is an issue. I think we can have both have share the road and clearing of the shoulder with the intent. I don t know if it s an ordinance or whatever, not to park on the shoulder of the asphalt. They re on the road. Thanks for your time. Thank you sir. Thank you for your comments. Last call. Anybody wishing to speak, please come forward. State your name for the record. You ll have three minutes. Last call. Okay. We re going to move on to the presentation. We ll start with item number one. The transportation projects update. MR. Lee, as you re recognized to present, sir. Commissioners. For the record, John Elias, public works director. Um, just as an aside, we have three presentations. This is the longest one in Minnesota. Keys next. So would you like to move? Yeah. I d like to move. Okay. Sidewalks. There s people here for that. And probably not very many people here for anything else. Okay. That sounds good. Yeah. We re going to move item number two up. So the bike lanes on Minnesota key presentation. Perfect I m going to bring MISS Vernon up. Who s going to present this. No. Good afternoon commissioners Joanne Vernon, County engineer for the record, um, we re here today to talk about bike lanes on Minnesota Key. Um, there is currently a paved shoulder on Gulf Boulevard, Shoreview Drive in North Beach Road on Minnesota key. However, in in some cases, the shoulder is not large enough to be considered a bike lane. So how we got here? Um, staff received a phone call from the sheriff s office in MARCH of 2026 to ask about bike lane bike lanes along Gulf Boulevard. Um, the sheriff had received complaints as citizens were parking along the bike lanes and wanted the no parking signs enforced. So when staff went out there, we discovered that there were bike lanes, uh, bike lane, no parking signs along Gulf Boulevard during a site visit. Um, after research, it was discovered that those signs had been up for many, many years. Um, I m not sure who put them up. It could have been the county. It could have been someone else. Honestly, we don t know. We don t have records that the county had put them up. Um, and due to the shoulders not meeting bike lane standards, the signs really should be removed. Um, also, as part of the history, I know you know this, but we re just restating it that we have received multiple complaints about residents, about parking along the roadways on Minnesota Quay. Their primary concern is safety, both from line of sight issues, um, and being very close to the road. Um, if we were to just do no parking on Minnesota Key, a no parking ordinance would be required to accommodate that request. So we went back to the engineer of record for the Gulf Boulevard sidewalks that were done fairly recently, just to as them were designated bike lanes looked at during the sidewalk design. Um, and that engineer recommended that share the road designation is the most practical strategy for this corridor. So these pavement markers were placed along Gulf Boulevard. Um, and then the Minnesota Key msu Advisory Board requested that bike lanes be placed along Gulf Boulevard, Shoreview Drive, Holladay Drive. I know that was said that that wasn t a recommendation. It was told to me, but we kind of put together this presentation per each road so we can get direction on each road. Just a quick question on the signs that you there have been up for many years that you weren t sure where they came from. Had we put up no parking signs, that would have been done by ordinance, would that have been? And maybe that s a legal question. Wouldn t we have had passed an ordinance for that? Um, yes. For the signs to be legal. And so we have no ordinance you could find on the record? No. Okay. Well, then it begs the question where, you know, you can tell if you look at the signs where they stop signs at from our inventory. I m just wondering, so a citizen MAY have just put up signs. So, Commissioner, for the record, John Elias, public works director, um, there was an exercise we did. I want to say early 2000. There was a big push to create connectivity with bike lanes throughout the county. So any road that had a shoulder wide enough that could support a bike lane. And I think some of those were probably on the cusp of not being wide enough. So, um, barrier islands is very common to have a bike lane. So long story short, we have bike lane signs all over the county that we re finding when we go to look at that, it s not a legal bike lane, so we end up having to remove them or do share the road or do a a project where we create a bike lane. In this case, these signs MAY be part of an inventory, but anybody can order any of our signs. It s not saying that some previous, uh, staff wasn t directed to put them out there. We just didn t have a record. Of it. Yeah, because I figured, you know, there d be an ordinance. For the No parking. For sure. There d be an ordinance. Yeah. And, um, we did the we did a major sidewalk improvement there years ago. I was almost wondering if maybe those signs got folded in when we did that sidewalk improvement, because it was a pretty big job. I m sorry. I sorry. And I do want to say I don think it was just no parking in general. I think it was a sign that said bike lanes, no parking. So it meant no parking on the bike lanes. Right? Okay. All right. Go ahead and continue. Sorry about that. Okay. Oh, sure. We ll make sure we get that mic close. Okay. So to eliminate the, um, bike sharing the roadway, bike lanes would need to be added on both sides of the road. Or a ten foot. You could do a bike lane on one side that can accommodate two, um, two way traffic, but that would be a ten foot minimum. Um, this would require a minimum. I think we got our math wrong. I m not going to lie on this, so I apologize. I believe it should be 29ft of roadway, um, not 31ft. So I apologize. Um, this would might require re striping the roadway to reduce the lane widths where needed and widen the pavement to accommodate the bike lanes to make sure it fits. Um, if we need to re stripe, it would need to hydro blast or grind off the striping, which could cause some minor damage to the roadway surface, but not it would be fine. Um, in a comprehensive look at the drainage would need to be done to ensure no adverse impacts, and that has not been done at this time. So these were the roadways that the mc two advisory board is requesting. Bike lanes. Um, we just want to put together some pavement widths. Um, these are averages on Gulf Boulevard. The pavement varies from 27ft to just under 29ft. There is a very small section of just over 25ft, but that s very minor. Shoreview drive, the pavement is about 27.5ft holiday drive. It s pretty narrow. Um, so it s an extensive amount of pavement would need to be added in order to accommodate bike lanes on this. Um, so I m not sure that would work. And on North Beach Road, there s plenty of pavement in this area. So, um, bike lanes could easily be accommodated. We just need sign signage and pavement markings. So, um, just to be transparent, staff does have concerns about creating a designated bike lane in the location due to the nature of being on an island. Sand collects along the shoulders and would be very difficult to keep clear. Landscaping and garbage cans. Protruding into the bike lane is a concern. It already occurs on the sidewalk project and parking is not allowed in bike lanes, and this would decrease parking on the island. Um, we ve had talked about parking previously and it has been determined not to move forward with the no parking ordinance in the past. Um, and it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to prevent parking in the bike lanes without a dedicated patrol. Does that type of parking impact our, um, beach re nourishment? I think we took a look at that and we would be fine with that with if we did. No parking on o Connell. Boulevard. Thank you. So the options would be to maintain share the road on the island. Um, we could add, um, markings and signs, um, to make sure that the bike, both bikers and vehicles know. And it would be safer. We could create a designated bike lane, um, to increase maintenance and keep the bike lanes free of sand and encroaching vegetation. Um, it would be maintaining the ten foot lane widths and provide to widen the pavement to accommodate the bike lanes. Again, drainage would have to be looked at to make sure it wouldn t be adversely impacted. Um, and we have not done an analysis to determine if it would be impacted. You could create a designated bike lane on one side of the road and maintain the share of the road bike, um, for bikes in the opposite direction. I m not sure that this is I wouldn t recommend this. This MAY cause confusion to bicycles and vehicles, but it is an option. Um. Tentative costs. These costs are estimated below are to construct bike lanes in both directions. Um, again, we didn t include an analysis of drainage would be needed or it doesn t cost for for drainage. But it is a significant cost that we re seeing. That s all I have. We have questions or. Direction gentlemen. Any questions comments. Well, nobody s in the queue. Well are you going to go ahead? Okay. Um, yeah. So a couple of things. Um, my understanding is the way the law is currently written, nothing prohibits bikes from using the road as long as they follow the rules. That is correct. So they whether there s a bike lane or not, they have a right to be in the road. Correct. Okay. Because I know when I drive Minnesota key towards Sarasota County, they actually have markings in the road. When you get into Sarasota County that it s a shared roadway. It s a picture of a bicyclists and some arrows. I know that s like some standard markings for that. So they they do it there because there s literally no shoulder there. You get to the white line and it s vegetation, you know, and the trees, it s you know, if you get too close re gonna hit your car with a, with a branch. But um, so that s how they, they do it there. Um. Do we have a complete inventory we can get, like, a plan. I know you had a diagram on here. It was kind of hard for me to. You know, I can zoom in on it. Um, where the bike lanes are supposed to. That s where the ms2 advisory board is requesting bike lanes. Do we have something that shows the bike lanes that the county currently acknowledges exist? And are there lanes that after the hurricane, we never restored because there s questions about we didn t complete our recovery. Things got overgrown, sanded in. Have we done that type of inventory? Commissioner? Again, for the record, John Elias, we have not completed that type of inventory and I would definitely not argue that there s probably some remnant sand, uh, leftover from hurricanes. But I would also argue that there s been sand with grass encroaching on this for years. It s just, um, it just a thing that s occurred. Because I d like to see a county map of what we acknowledge were bike lanes and, you know, so it gives me a basis, you know, where what gaps need to be filled if we want to move forward. So to your point, let me clarify your your request. You want an overall county map or a map for Minnesota. Minnesota key okay. Yeah. Okay. Well, and the reason I ask is because originally that was the premise of installing these bike lanes is to create connectivity. And one of the issues that happened is like anytime you hit a bridge like Tom Adams Bridge, we re definitely not having bike lanes on the town manager. No, no, I m talking about what s the question here? I m just saying the premise was to create connectivity all the way from throughout the county to Sarasota County. So the we can certainly put together something about where they it looks like they were. And to the folks point, we can go out there and clear back, sand a significant amount and show where, you know, get a better understanding of where we can easily do it right. Now because post-hurricane you can see where, you know, we recovering the beaches. You know, we re pretty much done with at least getting the beach open in some elements working on the boardwalk and bathrooms. I understand that part. But you know, when you go to the beach, you know, people are riding the bicycles and you almost want to encourage that. So there s less cars on the road. So when tourists come, they re not clogging up the roads with more cars needing parking. They can get on a bicycle. It seems conducive to the atmosphere down in this particular area, you know, especially with the tourists coming, coming back. On most of your barrier island scenarios like you travel around. It is usually a very. Your Airbnbs all have bikes that people can use. I m not saying that they do, but to your point, they typically do. And to your earlier point, your hardcore bike. Bicyclists are rarely ever using the sidewalk or a bike lane. They re almost invariably in the roadway because that s that s the way they want to ride their bikes. Yeah. I m using MR. Balsamo as email, kind of as a guide, because a lot of it was things that that I was thinking and wanted to talk about. Um, was there or was there not on street parking allowed? Was it prohibited or was it allowed? It was never predicted. Yeah. It s to my understanding, on street parking has never been prohibited out here. In fact, we had concerns about this previously with other things to include a sidewalk and some landscape encroachment. And we were told, because of the charm of the island that we we didn t want to be aggressively trying to push that back. Yeah. Because, you know, I know we have commercial business out there and sometimes you got to park just like a garbage truck. They ll stop in the road or the mail person. Right. And that s going to happen. I just want to make sure that people aren t using these as a parking space where they park in. Their tires are right on the white line. The rest of it s in the swale and on the sidewalk, and they re using it just the park as a parking space. These shoulders. Yeah, 100% they are. Yeah. Yeah. Well, as I m saying, that s what I don t want. That they are. We have currently the condition you ll find out. Yeah. Because of the uniqueness of of that area with the cyclists, the walkers and everything down there, we you know, we can t have that. So that s going to need to be addressed. Um, removal of the accumulated sand of vegetation. You re going to be doing an inventory because, you know, I don t know where we are with that. I know we ve done a lot of recovery. We ve not done that, but we could certainly do that. But I can tell you, you will probably receive some pushback from citizens where over time, just stuff is kind of creeped out. And if we go back clear to that line, which I m not in disagreeing with them, we can. But you ll see, like a eight inch drop of sand from someone s lawn going out in the road, and then it ll creep out and we ll just continually be picking up sand. Well, here s the thing. You know, we had this discussion about recapturing County right away. If we don t do anything, what happens? You start getting hard scapes, things start migrating back out into the right of way. And then we re back where we were in the beginning. That is what s happened, especially on the southern end. Well, I don t want that to happen again. Gotcha. So yeah, I mean I want to see where, you know, we recapture our right of way before it gets taken over again by, you know, private entities. And then, then we when we go to do work, you got to come back. Oh, we ve got a problem. Understood. You know, so, you know, these people put stuff in there and we can t do our work. Uh, so evaluate the repair and roadway edges and swales. I m not sure the condition of, you know, I know after the hurricanes, it got beat up really bad. Plus people parking. I don t think we repave the roads down there. Maybe even after the hurricane. I don t know if it was scheduled, but I don t. Think we ve resurfaced. The road. Yeah, and it s probably on a schedule somewhere on that 20 year schedule. Um. I ve got commissioner trucks in the queue, so I ll hear from my colleagues on this. Commissioner Truex, you recognize, sir. We MAY have been split this morning, but we re in lockstep this afternoon. So, um, no, I agree, I think we do need to recapture, uh, and we do need to talk about having a no parking ordinance out there. It s something that, you know, I know I want people to be able to have access, but you also have to have safety if they re parking, if somebody is temporarily parking to offload something, I mean, there s got to be a little bit of understanding and give and take. It happens all over the community when people stop and they mow and they do certain things, they MAY be in the, in the, in the way for just a little while. And I understand that. But I also know that if you ve got situations of being described that we re hearing and I ve seen some of those things when I ve been out there that we need to try to, um, eliminate that as best we can. And that would give law enforcement an opportunity to then enforce it if we can, you know, get that to happen. So I agree with everything you said. Yeah. Commissioner Dougherty recognized, sir. Thank you. You read my mind. Yeah. I m in agreement with both of you, I think. And, of course, I m looking at these tentative costs, too. You know, if we if to try to build lanes. My gracious, you know, is there any you don t have any of that in budgeted in the work program. No. But to the citizens and the commissioner to Sale s point, I think, and this will help me recap this, what we can do is create an inventory. If we have known locations that there was already bike lanes out there, and it s clearly able to have a bike lane will mark that. But I think we can do a relatively inexpensive I hope I m saying this, but we can recover the right of way, clear that sand back to the to the actual edge of the shoulder and give you all a summary of what s available and what can be done. And then, in addition, working parallel to potentially create a no parking. Ordinance. I m in agreement with that. Yeah. Me too. Yeah. We need to get an inventory and accurate inventory. What s out there? Then we could work on filling in gaps if we have to. Okay. Again, if direction. Commissioner Deutch, any comments? You re good with that. Okay. We are going to go back to item number one. Commissioner, this is again for the record, John Elias, public works director. This is our quarterly project updates. These are things that we that we see. Um, numerous times. So with that said, um, most of this you ve already seen so. Numerous times. Yeah. So we ll start with Harborview Road. Um, I will also say that we ve added some stuff to this based on, uh, conversations that we ve had and request from the board. So when we re doing these quarterly transportation updates, we re trying to capture a bunch of information and just provide the opportunity for the public and for the board to hear where we re at with it. Harborview road, phase one, Melbourne Street to date, and then phase two Date Street to I-75, Harborview Road, phase one 100% plans received in MARCH of 2026. Bid specifications were received and reviewed in JUNE of 2026. The right of way scenario. Again, I don t want to jinx us, but um, in talking with MR. Kip and his team, we weren t expected to get this completed until JANUARY or FEBRUARY of next year, but it s looking like we MAY possibly get the right of way acquired for Harborview Phase one by NOVEMBER DECEMBER. So slightly ahead. But, um, there could be some movement. On that. You know, you just jinxed us. I know I knocked would if you noticed. Um, Harborview Road phase one continued is construction and fy of 2028 federal and local funding. Uh, construction will be the funding will come through a lap agreement. Um, will be processed after all. Right of way has been acquired. County to manage the construction phase using ci. Um and the county will hire ci as soon as funding is available, which is anticipated in JULY of 2027, and construction will occur as soon as ci is on board. Harbor View Road, Phase two Summer of 2025. We received 90% plans. Final plans will be available when ready for construction, and we put all this in a to be determined status just because of the ambiguity surrounding the funding and a bunch of other scenarios playing out with regard to Harborview. I ve got we re going to take a tag team approach on this. I ve got fiscal on the ready to come up, and they re definitely going to come up and speak to some slides. On the overall sales tax program, as well as Edgewater. But you all have seen this numerous times, and I can go into this if you d like. Or we can just review this. Your call. Yeah. I mean keep keep moving unless it s a question. Perfect. Harborview road faced funding funding phase two. I m sorry. The next one we ll talk about is Edgewater Drive and Flamingo Boulevard. Widening. This is broken up into three phases phases three, four and five. Phase three is Midway Boulevard. The Collingswood phase four is Collingswood Boulevard to Samantha, and phase five is Samantha Avenue to 776. Edgewater and Flamingo. Phase three. We ve received 100% plans we ve reviewed and provided. We ve reviewed and provided comments. Phase four the same, and phase five the same. I ll just take a moment to say that if you remember, the board gave us direction early on on this project to phase this project in two phases. But in addition, each one of these phases could technically be scaled back if need be. Instead of doing the full profile, we could do half the profile and we ll have we have the ability to pull that out of the design and the bid specs as part of our original design concept. This is where we are with the Edgewater and Flamingo phases three through five. Right of way acquisition. You ll notice that there was a lot of parcels added on one. I believe it s phase three, and that was due to the final design. As we come up with our stormwater elements. And a lot of that s just easements, I m sorry, parcels. And where s the easement one? I think it s this one. Phase three. Construction is slated for 2027. And project is designed to be. That s why it s previously said to be split into phases if needed. And three, four and five can all be constructed independently. Um, previous board. Previously, the board has asked us questions specific to the bridge over Christopher Waterway. They wondered if the elevation change was as drastic as the one out there. So what we ve we ve put a excerpt from the plan set and it kind of shows it s being much gentler because the overall roadway is higher. But the what we put in here is the clearance under the bridge will be slightly higher than the current bridge height. And the United States Coast Guard regulates any replacement bridge in tidal waters must be at the same elevation or higher. Yeah. So I have a question on that. So when they say slightly we re talking 4 or 5in. The or are we talking like a foot. Um, it says it s going to be slightly higher. Um, I could get you an answer. I don t have it. Off the top. We have the engineer. Okay. Because the rest of the road is elevated. Yeah, that s what I m saying. So you re not going to have that train, right? It s going. To be the. There won t be a big of a hump. That was the question. Joanne Vernon, County engineer for the record, they said it would be less than a foot higher. Okay, less than a foot. But with the elevated roadway, it it won t be it won t have like a correct the hump. Correct. Yeah. The humpback okay. Thank you. I had to clarify for my own purposes. They re a question. Are you good with this one, sir? Yeah. Yeah. So another question was just to revisit how the a peanut shaped roundabout looked. So we put an excerpt in there showing that, um, was used to accommodate the sides and the stretching out of a single roundabout. The design was able to connect both side roads as. So they both have full access. 776 and Flamingo Intersection. This is primarily focused on the north section. I think I said at a recent mpo meeting that if you haven t been out there, if you come through Centennial next to the park and go out to the new Flamingo and take a right and just drive back there, the entire four lane corridor is constructed, landscaped, looks amazing. I flew out there recently and just kind of looked at it. It really does look good. So the developer at that location there is still working with fdot to get his stuff coordinated, and that still ongoing. Um, but we received bids for this portion. Which of this, uh, we received them this month and we re continuing to coordinate with the developer, our portion, 776 at Flamingo intersection or the southerly side. This is just an excerpt of the plan showing an overlay here. What it s going to look like. And this is the Edgewater funding. Do you want to get into this one? Good afternoon, commissioners Rick Arthur Fiscal Services. Um, as you know, during these quarterly transportation, um, meetings, John has been presenting these, um, with the uh, budget funding source and um, expenditures broken out by phase. Um, so we have those for you here. So you can take a look at each one of these Edgewater phases. And as you mentioned, you ve got the flexibility. If you had a need to scale back any of these phases. So it s it s we ve just been trying to provide it to you on a phase basis. But based on some of the discussion we ve had previously, um, we thought it might be a good idea to bring this back, um, and give you a holistic picture of the project. Um, so we ve, we ve put that together here and we ve got all the funding sources together, along with all the budget and expenditures for the, um, uh, for the total project. So the main thing to, to that jumps out here is that you ve got the 51 million there that s pending for sales tax 20, 26. Um, so a big chunk of this we ve got tied up in that pending. And I know as well some questions had come up about, okay, if we move forward on some of these phases, but we have big chunks of that 2026 pending sales tax tied up. Can we do we have the ability to go ahead and move forward with this project. And so we wanted to bring back to you where we are as far as available balance from our prior sales tax programs. So this slide shows that. So you can see for our 2020 um sales tax program, we ve got just under 28 million available. Now. We do have about 21 million in uncommitted tier two projects. So even if all of those if you were to approve all of those, there still be about 6 million available from 20 from the 2020 sales tax program, but additionally from our previous sales tax programs, we ve got just under 30 million. So we do have some surplus, um, uh, funds available to move this project forward if you wish to do so. And we can pull from these until we get that revenue stream, um, coming through for the fiscal year, for the 2026 sales tax. Now, in NOVEMBER, if that were not to pass, we ll have to come back and have a different conversation. Yeah. I mean, in two weeks, it s going to be a clarifying moment. Yes. I mean. So we re right there. The decision making process is going to be a lot easier as as we navigate these things. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Any other questions for me. Any questions for on the financial side of this. All right. Thank you. Thank you. The next project the next project will be covering as Kings Highway. Uh, this project. Got a question track on Flamingo. Uh, the north side of the coldest part of it seems to be hung up. We talked about this mpo. Do we know specifically what the problems are with Ddot and and their their engineer? I don t think it s a problem. I think I think the term they use is an Ice analysis. It s a it a terminology that, that they, that they utilize, um, that they re just in the process of going through. But we re checking in with that to make sure that there s nothing that we can t help push this along our expedite, because we know that the developers have had some concerns early on and they talked to the board, but this is between the developer and fdot. But we re loosely associated with it because of proximity to our people. Just again, and I appreciate your comment that if there something we can do to help it get that darn permit in place and get going with it, I d like to do that. But if we can, we understand. What it is. So so not only do we bring it up in these means, re bringing it up at mpo, we re Dot s at the table. So they re they re hearing all those comments that we ve had at previous ones. As well. Thank you. I actually have a meeting tomorrow with a representative from Coulter at 130 in my office, so I ll get some clarity on that as well. Good. Yeah. Thanks. Thank you. So, MR. CHAIRMAN. Yes, sir. He said it s an ice analysis. So they re frozen. They re frozen. In time. It s not that. It it s an acronym that stands for something for the life of me. It is. s it s appropriate though. Yeah. The state is frozen. I m shocked. I was wanting to make sure that I wasn t mixing up my acronyms, but I believe it is called an Ice. No problem. So the next project we ll talk about is King s Highway, and this project is ongoing. Currently from Sandhill Boulevard to the DeSoto County line, um, construction. New potable water main has been installed. Work on the stormwater system is ongoing. Stormwater pond is approximately 90% complete and the project is currently slightly ahead of schedule. That s probably a jinx moment to yeah, I know, I know, uh, King s Highway funding again. You ve seen this before, so this is not new information. Sandhill Boulevard this project is from King s Highway to Deer Creek Boulevard. Uh, it does include two roundabouts, as illustrated there. Uh, the widening four lane, including streetlights, sidewalks and roundabouts at Capricorn and Deep Creek Boulevard. Uh, design stormwater pond locations are being evaluated. And once this is complete and ponds are located, consultant can complete the 90% plans and start the permitting process. And this is the funding for that project. Next one our intersection improvements. I will start with some Veterans Boulevard turn lanes, the right turn lanes along Veterans at Yorkshire Street, Harbor Boulevard, Orlando Boulevard, Torrington Street, Norman Street, and Loveland Boulevard, Norman and Orlando are completed, and the contractor current is currently working on Yorkshire and Torrington and Loveland, with Harbor to follow. Once these are complete. Yorkshire Street sidewalk construction has been completed and paving is scheduled for mid OCTOBER. Orlando Boulevard construction is complete and intersection is open to traffic. Norman Street construction is complete and intersection is open to traffic. And just as an aside, um, whenever we do projects along veterans, I m always I always get like, oof! Because it s the we know the amount of traffic that goes through there. Um, I feel like this has went relatively better than I thought it would be. We re giving people enough notice to get over, and as long as they re paying attention to that M.O. And to a point, I think you made commissioner to say at an mpo meeting, um, it actually opened up some visibility to look out because those turn lanes come back and you can see back a little bit farther. So we found some unintended benefits of this. Commissioner Truex you recognize. Yeah, John, I just want to say that I think it s going very well. I ve been down back and forth on that road a lot. And I know you drive it all the time too, but I think that s gone very well for what I was worried about being a very inconveniencing situation. It seems to be very smooth. Same. I had some complaints initially about going to one lane, but I m like, you can see the darn arrow. Just stop looking at your phone. Yeah. You know, and but after that, nothing. Everything s moving. Well, people who frequent that road know. What. To what to do now. I started. Getting over. It was just that initial week or two. Torrington Street contractors prepping the roadway for base material and installation of the new stormwater system has been completed. Loveland contractors installing stormwater system and conduit for street lighting and contractors prepping curb and gutter installation. Do you have lights down on veteran intermittently while you re doing the work? Because there s been some outages there, are they shutting down sections at a time? No. We think uh, we thought I think the contractor MAY have done some stuff that was impacting lights, but I think we also had something that wasn t related to the contractor that I thought I heard the staff talking about that they were trying to track down. So you heard about the problem with the lights being out? Yeah. Okay. And it s being addressed. There s about 60,000 people that will let me know anytime. Of the light. Right? 61, 60,001, one and one. And two. Well, I got my wife, so I heard to that mix to my father in law, uh, Veterans Boulevard at Atwater Street, adding right turn lanes north to west, west to south and east to north. These are basically off the road. So it sounds confusing, but it s just adding a bunch of turn lanes for the movement there. Um, 90% plans have been received and reviewed by staff and real estate services working on obtaining drainage easements. Peterson Boulevard and Harbor Boulevard were adding left turn lanes in all directions, and right turn lane eastbound to southbound and hardening of the signal 90%. Plans were reviewed and comments provided back to the consultant and real estate services working on obtaining the drainage easements. Gasparilla Road at Ingram and Ingraham signal pedestrian improvements. Turn lane bids due OCTOBER 28th. Gasparilla road in the Rotunda Boulevard East signal, pedestrian, signal and pedestrian improvements. Again. Bids are due OCTOBER 28th. And turn lanes on to Gasparilla Road. These are the roads that approach Gasparilla, uh Keystone Boulevard and San Domingo. Request for proposals. Design is scheduled to begin in the next few months. It s, uh, if you just look at these slides right here, from here to here, it s really illustrates how much growth you re seeing out in that part of the county that historically has just been like a rural two lane road to four lane to signalized intersections. It s I say this every time we present, but it s just like it s wild. That when you see it real time. Veterans Boulevard at Murdock Circle and Polson Road that I seem to be taking a lot as of late, and it s a lot going on over there. So we re adding some additional southbound three lane exclusive westbound right turn lane and extending the westbound to southbound left turn lane. Uh, request for proposals and design will be in the next few months. I call these legacy issues, but we have this. You have it at Atwater to some of these become really challenging. If you look there at the proximity to Prineville to veterans and the amount of traffic coming off Prineville and the stacking that you get there, it s just they re going to be it ll be future things that we ll have to probably address additionally. But we have the same thing back at, um, Atwater with the Hillsboro right there because a lot of people cut down Hillsboro and there s it just creates a lot of a lot going on at these intersections. Uh, Enterprise drive at 776, right turn lane. Request for proposals. Design will begin in a few months. This one, I think, is going to be a relatively easy one, because I ve looked at the asphalt countless times out there, and there s a lot of landscape on that asphalt, so it s probably just going to be primarily some striping, maybe some roadwork. Jinxed yourself again. Yeah, it s going to be an easy one every time. It s going to be the most challenging job. You hope. Not I ve ever had. Yeah. Uh, El Cam Boulevard at Midway Boulevard, the northbound two eastbound right turn lane. Uh, request for proposals. Design will begin the next few months. 776 at the sports park, right hand turn lanes into the sport park and the fairgrounds and left hand turn lane into the sports park. Uh, this is a lap project, and fdot consultant will be is being used working on survey and layout. And 60% plans have been received and are being reviewed by staff. This is one that I know we bring up at the mpo, and it s been out there for a while. With that, I ll take any questions before we move to the. Next one. Any questions? Okay. Thank you sir. We re going to move on to item number three. Traffic impacts from outside the county s jurisdiction. So this is another thing that we added to this. Um, as a result of some conversation from the mpo. Um, we re trying to just basically make sure that the public and the board knows that we re really, really taking the next steps. Um, I would say to a higher level than we ve done in the past of coordinating and communicating as effectively as we can with other local jurisdictions. Um, administration tasked me when I first got this job to just make sure I m keeping and maintaining relationships with the different agencies that we re adjacent to. I think the one agency that I ve, I struggled to just get something going as Glades County and it so far out and it s just like really difficult to get that set up. But we ve met consistently with DeSoto, and it seems like we re meeting all the time with the city of Punta Gorda, as well as the city of Northport. Um, we have great relationships with those folks. And we re, we re we re able to really have candid conversations. So this will kind of illustrate some of that here. So the the premise or the lens that we re viewing this through is some of these roadways that are starting to see more impacts due to traffic. There s other agencies that have traffic that dump onto our roads. And the question at the mpo was like, hey, are we looking at that to see what those challenges are? And I think it was primarily veterans. So we kind of go into this and talk about some of the stuff that we re doing. So staff does monitor the impacts to the county s infrastructure from outside of our jurisdiction. Generally speaking, these impacts are measured using traffic counters, radar feedback trailers and mile vision cameras. Recently, staff has been requested to monitor the impacts of traffic from the city of Northport and the city of Punta Gorda. Again, the data collection. This is just some pictures. Um, a lot of we still use them, but a lot of your old data collection was just the pneumatic tubes that you put across the road. But these new systems are really amazing. Um, I know people get freaked out with the flat cameras and and the license plate readers, but what these cameras allow staff to do far more efficiently. It used to be when you d have a design person going out there, they d have this thing and they d be sitting at an intersection and count and movements, right turn movements, left turn movements, pedestrian movements. These camera systems, specifically these mile vision ones, they literally can parse this information out, like how many right turn movements, how many were trucks, how many were like pedestrian movements. They give you all kinds of unbelievably solid data that helps us make, uh, data driven decisions. And then the speed trailers, not only are they, uh, feedback for the people driving the roads, but they also which fun fact. That s something you ll never see in a speed limit. 50. The actual somebody going 34. Unless they re. Cars broke, I object. I ve been behind them. Yeah. Um, with that said, these these trailers aren t just static to give information to the people that are driving on the road that we actually get traffic counts from those trailers as well. So there s a bunch of useful information. And further, we ve been doing, I feel a much better job of coordinating with the sheriff s department to provide that data. So if we re seeing speeders on roads at certain times, they can target enforcement to be more efficient. So we ve been trying to work with them on situations like that, especially stuff that comes to the board, like when you hear stuff people complain out there in Wilmington, I know was one. We had a special meeting to talk about enforcement of that. As an aside, one of the challenges we have with technology is and ve all done it. You re driving, you re not really paying attention. You re in an area that you re not familiar with, and you re using Waze, Google Maps, Apple Maps, any of the mapping systems. If there s any delay, it ll tell you to get around it. And what we re finding is people a