HOLMES BEACH – City officials are considering altering the traffic patterns along Second Avenue and Fifth Avenue to prevent those residential streets from being used as southbound “cut-throughs” by motorists trying to avoid the congestion on Gulf Drive and Marina Drive.
During the May 26 city commission meeting, Public Works Director Herb Raybourn and Police Chief Bill Tokajer presented for preliminary discussion five potential traffic adjustment options. Preferences were stated, but no final decisions were made.
According to City Clerk Marina Horvious, the proposed Second Avenue traffic alterations will be placed on the agenda for the Tuesday, June 9 meeting, under old business, but the matter will not be decided that day because some potentially impacted residents who can’t make the June 9 meeting requested the commission’s final vote be delayed until a later date. Although no final decision-making is expected on June 9, public comment on the Second Avenue issues will be accepted. The June 9 meeting will start at 2 p.m. and it will be livestreamed at the city website.
The leading option currently being considered is to install temporary barricades at the intersections of 52nd Street and Second Avenue and 52nd Street and Fifth Avenue. The barricades would prevent southbound vehicles from entering those residential streets. Vehicles traveling on 52nd Street would be rerouted east to Gulf Drive.
If implemented, the impacts of the temporary barricades would be studied and if the experiment is deemed successful the barricades would later be replaced by permanent landscape walls that serve the same purpose.
STAFF INSIGHTS
The May 26 meeting packet included diagrams of the five traffic alteration options, a comparison matrix for those options and a memo from Raybourn, Tokajer and Public Works Department Civil Engineer Jacob Leone.
The memo included traffic data collected between noon and 5 p.m. on Jan. 15. During that one-day timeframe, 629 vehicles traveled along Gulf Drive from 52nd Street to Manatee Avenue and 328 vehicles traveled down Second Avenue instead.
“Over one-third of the vehicles that traveled between 52nd Street and Manatee Avenue did so by using Second Avenue,” the memo says. “An average of 65.6 vehicles per hour, more than one every minute, traveled along Second Avenue during the time period reviewed.”
“People are using it (Second Avenue) as a cut-through,” Tokajer told the commission. “Some use it because they think they’re going to get there faster.”
Tokajer said not allowing southbound traffic to turn onto Second Avenue would make it safer for pedestrians and help maintain the quality of life for those homeowners.
Option 1 proposes installing permanent landscape walls at the north ends of Second Avenue and Fifth Avenue at an estimated cost of $69,000. Raybourn said that cut-through reduction measure would preclude southbound traffic from entering Second Avenue and Fifth Avenue at the 52nd Street intersections.
Raybourn said he, Tokajer and Leone agree that if the city is going to implement such a measure, it should first be done on a temporary trial basis that provides the city time to evaluate the impacts of the proposed traffic adjustments.
“Human behavior is not something that’s easy to calculate or estimate, so the proposal for any of these options would be to implement something on a temporary basis first, before we spend a lot of money,” Raybourn said.
“And to see what the unintended consequences would be,” Tokajer added.
Tokajer suggested first putting up city-owned barricades that would restrict southbound access to Second and Fifth avenues.
Raybourn also presented the other options that include installing four-way stop signs at every Second Avenue intersection; lowering the Second Avenue speed limit and installing raised crosswalks at the 49th, 47th and 45th street intersections; installing a rain garden and a water retention area with plantings to restrict southbound access or installing mid-block speed tables on every other block.
Raybourn said the fifth option would be to take no action at this time and contract a traffic engineering firm to conduct a full-blown traffic study for that area. Raybourn acknowledged that he, Leone and Tokajer are not traffic engineers.
“Our recommendation is option 1 – the one that checks all the boxes,” Tokajer said.
None of the options discussed proposed restricting southbound access to Second Avenue by turning right off of Gulf Drive and using 51st or 50th streets to access southbound Second Avenue to avoid some of the Gulf Drive congestion.
COMMISSION DISCUSSION
Commissioner Carol Whitmore said Second Avenue served as a designated detour while the City Center project took place along Marina Drive in 2022 and 2023 and that made more people aware of the Second Avenue alternative to Gulf Drive.
Whitmore said she uses the Second Avenue cut-through almost every day and many Holmes Beach residents and Anna Maria residents do the same.
“This is a street I’ve used my entire life and I shouldn’t feel guilty,” Whitmore said.
Commissioner Jessica Patel said, “I use it all the time.”
“That’s what we’re saying. That is the problem: the amount of cars going down that residential road,” Tokajer responded.
Commissioner Steve Oelfke said he sometimes uses Second Avenue but he sometimes doesn’t because he feels guilty about driving through that residential neighborhood.
“I don’t think it should be a thoroughfare,” he said.
Mayor Judy Titsworth said Second Avenue has become a thoroughfare.
“We shouldn’t be making neighborhoods thoroughfares and we need to come up with a solution. It’s not fair that it’s a local cut-through. It’s not fair that it’s a landscapers’ cut-through. It’s not fair that it’s the tourists’ cut-through. It’s not fair that it’s every worker’s cut-through or everybody that lives in Anna Maria’s cut-through. It is a residential neighborhood and we do care about quality of life here,” Titsworth said, noting it was her idea to pursue a solution at this time.
Titsworth said Gulf Drive traffic is slowed by motorists merging onto the Gulf Drive near the south end of Second Avenue, where 43rd Street intersects with Gulf Drive, by Manatee Beach.
Commissioner Terry Schaefer said his neighbors, Sarah and Jay Calhoun, are engineers and he invited Sarah, a traffic engineer, to speak on this issue, which she later did.
Schaefer said, “Part of the problem is that of perception. We believe that by at least being in motion, there’s a perception of getting off the Island faster. In reality, that is probably not the case.”
Whitmore said having more data would help justify the potential impacts on Anna Maria residents and others who must travel through Holmes Beach and the Gulf Drive/Second Avenue area to get on and off the Island. Tokajer said that’s true, but they don’t have to use Second Avenue to do so.
Patel said the Second Avenue cut-through saves time and serves as a “zipper lane” that merges with Gulf Drive at the south end of Second Avenue.
Oelfke said if Second Avenue wasn’t used as a zipper lane, the merging traffic wouldn’t slow the flow of traffic on Gulf Drive.
“There’s a flow problem for people trying to get off the Island,” Oelfke said.
“There’s no way to know until we test it,” Titsworth said.
Patel said she would love to hear from a traffic expert.
Titsworth said a traffic study would cost $10,000-$20,000 and there’s currently very little extra money in the public works budget.
Patel said the commission’s decision could significantly impact many people on the Island. Commissioner Dan Diggins noted a decision wasn’t being made that day, but the public needs to know that a decision will be made soon.
Schaefer said installing the temporary barricades soon would give the commission time during the summer budgeting process to determine what, if any, traffic-altering actions or studies might require funding.
PUBLIC INPUT
When given the chance to speak, Sarah Calhoun spoke as a resident and not as an expert speaking on behalf of the city. Titsworth noted Calhoun served as the traffic engineer on the city’s City Center project.
Calhoun said option 1, the landscape walls, offers the simplest solution and the results would be seen fairly quickly, but she doesn’t see the need for any traffic alterations.
“As a traffic engineer, the numbers I see don’t warrant anything. I’m one of those who uses that route all the time,” she said, noting she has a property on 60th Street and that street’s also used as a cut-through.
Calhoun said 60 trips an hour is pretty minimal for any roadway.
“That is not a significant amount of trips,” she said.
Oelfke said he thinks more than 60 trips an hour are occurring along Second Avenue during peak periods.
Holmes Beach resident Nancy Deal said she lives on 56th Street and people use that street as a cut-through too. Deal said not using Second Avenue as a zipper lane would create more traffic on Gulf Drive.
“If we could slow the traffic down on Second Avenue, I think that would be better than cutting it off all together,” she said.
She suggested four-way stops at every intersection.
“Putting those barricades up and not letting those people use Second Avenue is a big mistake. I would say slow it down. Please don’t do it. Raise my stormwater fees to $5. Don’t barricade Second Avenue,” Deal said.
Future city commission candidate Mark Hebden lives on the 4600 block of Second Avenue and he first expressed his Second Avenue traffic concerns last summer when the new Key Royale Drive speed bumps were being debated. Hebden said he sent several videos and photos of the Second Avenue traffic congestion to Raybourn.
Hebden said the decision comes down to weighing the quality of life for residents versus the convenience of others.
“The convenience of one should not be an imposition or disadvantage to another citizen. That’s what it comes down to,” he said.
Hebden said the Second Avenue traffic is “horrible” between 5 to 8 p.m. and it ruins the quality of life for those who live there. He said drivers will just “blow through” the stop signs if more are added.
Whitmore said it’s important to inform Holmes Beach residents, Anna Maria residents and others that this change is being considered.
“It will be a public meeting. They’re welcome to come here,” Titsworth said.
