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CRA votes to discontinue tram funding

CRA votes to discontinue tram funding

Written by Leslie Lake on . Posted in Bradenton Beach, Community News, Tourism, Transportation.

BRADENTON BEACH – The Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) board voted unanimously to discontinue funding the Old Town Tram at an Aug. 15 budget meeting.

The potential defunding of the tram comes on the heels of another free Anna Maria Island ride service, the Monkey Bus, which has temporarily shut down services while attempting to resolve insurance issues.

The Old Town Tram, a free park-and-ride shuttle service in the CRA district (from the Cortez Bridge to Fifth Street South), is supported by the CRA at a cost of $52,000 annually.

“We have $52,000 set aside for this as a recurring cost in our budget,” City Attorney Ricinda Perry said during the budget discussion meeting. “Is this something that you’re looking at continuing? We have extended and extended and extended the trial period to see if this is a success.”

Launched as a pilot program in November 2020, the Old Town Trams were put in place to help address the lack of parking on and around Bridge Street. The program, using two electric golf carts, is provided by the Sarasota-based Easy Parking Group, owned by Joshua LaRose.

Perry noted that the tram agreement between the CRA and Easy Parking Group is on a month-to-month basis and could be closed this budget year.

“We have had a loose understanding of what is successful. We know that one of the main contributors to why this is not wildly successful is because of what is happening with the construction on the south end of the city,” Perry said, referring to an ongoing sewer project.

Perry noted that changes are coming with regard to Manatee County’s water taxi and she said she has had discussions with Elliott Falcione of the Manatee County Tourist Development Council about how people will make their way to the beach and back, and perhaps the county might want to be in partnership with that endeavor. Perry asked the board: “Do you feel the $52,000 is something you want to continue to invest in that project or is this something we need to look at tapering off and picking up potentially down the road?”

“I think that tram is a waste of money personally,” Commissioner Jan Vosburgh said. “I don’t see any benefit to that tram.”

Commissioner Ralph Cole expressed his belief that the tram service should be run privately.

“I think there’s enough interest out there that a private individual would buy the insurance to do it,” he said.

Mayor John Chappie echoed Cole’s sentiments.

“I’ve said all along that I thought the private sector could handle things. If the businesses want to provide some sort of tram, trolley system, golf carts, they should be the ones to do it,” Chappie said, adding, “We’ve tried this as an experiment. I don’t think it’s been all that successful.”

Chappie noted that a significant change throughout the Island in recent years is the rental of golf carts.

“That’s what the people are driving around in,” Chappie said. “The private sector needs to step up.”

The tram is partially funded by advertising sales.

“No one’s going to do that business,” Commissioner Jake Spooner said. “Josh is not covering his own costs. To think that service is going to keep happening from the private sector – I don’t think is going to happen.”

“If there’s money to be made, somebody will do it,” Bradenton Beach Police Chief John Cosby said.

Spooner said while he doesn’t feel the tram is successful, he thinks it could be more successful after a promenade is built and the ride service has a designated route.

“I think it does serve a purpose, and for $52,000 a year, that’s totally up to the board. My other thought is if we get rid of it and then we get the promenade, it’s hard to get things back,” Spooner said.

“Let’s see if that $52,000 is one of our priorities,” Chappie said. “Let’s move on and see how it shakes out.”

After a line-by-line discussion of other CRA-budgeted projects during the meeting, the tram was not among the approved expenditures.

LaRose declined to comment on the specifics of the CRA vote, but expressed the desire to continue the tram service.

“We would like to keep going,” he said, adding that he has reached out to the city to discuss options. “I haven’t heard back yet, but I have some ideas. We still have service going right now.”

LaRose said the two trams he has in service currently accommodate 4,000 riders a month off season and close to double that in season. One of those vehicles is ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) accessible.

“Right now, we have more value than ever with the construction limiting the amount of parking,” he said. “Our guys tell people where parking is so we’re also an information service.”

The CRA board unanimously approved the following expenditures: 300,000 for paid parking; $38,550 for a grant to monitor seagrass and $20,000 for future monitoring professional services; $300,000 for undergrounding; $40,000 for Christmas on Bridge Street; $25,000 for a fence at Anna Maria Oyster Bar; $10,000 for cultural arts; $75,000 for a resiliency project on Bay Drive South; $106,690 for cistern improvements; $30,000 for sidewalk improvements; $50,000 for district improvements, including trash cans, bike racks, planters and landscaping; $15,000 for signage in the CRA district; and $10,000 for additional improvements.

The next CRA budget meetings are tentatively scheduled on Thursday, Sept. 7 at 5 p.m. and Thursday, Sept. 14 at 5 p.m.

Big changes could be coming to the Coquina Beach Trail.

TDC approves proposal to use Coquina Beach Trail for shuttles

Written by Jason Schaffer on . Posted in Business, Featured, Tourism.

BRADENTON BEACH – The Manatee County Tourist Development Council (TDC) is recommending a plan to Manatee County commissioners to widen the Coquina Beach Trail for shuttles.

The trail is a paved path about the width of a city sidewalk that begins at the south end of the Coquina Beach parking lot and runs 1.5 miles along the beach north to Fifth Street South. The plan, discussed at the April 24 TDC meeting, would resurface and widen the trail, potentially for the use of the Old Town Tram golf cart shuttle service owned by Josh LaRose’s Easy Parking Group and partially funded by the Bradenton Beach Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA). 

Big changes could be coming to Coquina Beach Trail
Easy Parking Group’s ‘Old Town Trams’ currently service Coquina Beach to Bridge Street, but are not allowed to drive on the current beach trail, making for a bumpy ride for passengers, or long waits in heavy beach traffic. This tram stopped for a break in the shade near 13th Street South. – Jason Schaffer | Sun

“They desperately need a way to get people back and forth from Bridge Street to here without sitting in traffic for an hour,” said Doris Snyder, who comes to the beach from Palmetto on a regular basis. “We like to hit one of the restaurants on Bridge Street for lunch or dinner when we come down here, but it’s impossible to park in that area unless you get incredibly lucky. We use the golf cart service a lot, but even if they drive off the road in the parking area instead of sitting in traffic, the ride beats you to death. A cart path would be amazing.”

Project Manager Mike Stern told TDC members that the trail improvements would cost $1.5 million – including the removal of 96 Australian pine trees whose roots are damaging the pavement – and take about eight months to complete. Stern said a large part of the cost will be building a root barrier, which will require the current trail to be removed so that the barrier can be placed underground to prevent future tree roots from growing under the trail and destroying it, causing more unnecessary cost in the future. With the barrier, the trail should last for many years with little serious maintenance, he said.

“While this sounds like a large investment, we hope this will last much longer than the original trail did because we are fairly confident that there was not as much root barrier, if any, used the first time around,” said Chad Butzow, director of Public Works for Manatee County. “Hopefully we’ll get a bit more longevity this time around.”

The county currently spends between $35,000 to $40,000 a year maintaining the trail, and Public Works says that the steps being taken with the new trail will save that money because the tree roots will no longer be an issue. If this holds true, a third of the cost of the project would be covered by the nearly half a million in repair dollars that wouldn’t need to be spent over the next decade. 

When asked by TDC members if the trail could be widened enough to make ample room for golf carts and pedestrians, Stern explained that as long as they were working from the existing footprint, no new permits would be needed, but because of environmental issues due to its proximity to the Gulf of Mexico, any size expansion proposals would require permits at the state level that could take months or even years, and be potentially costly.

Big changes could be coming to Coquina Beach Trail
Beachgoers enjoy the picnic area and shade provided along the Coquina Trail. – Jason Schaffer | Sun

While not addressing Easy Parking Group’s Old Town Tram by name, TDC member and Bradenton Beach restaurant owner Ed Chiles stated that six-passenger golf cart trams should be allowed to use the path so people could park at the beach and not have to endure the sometimes impossible task of finding a parking space near the Bridge Street shopping and dining area. 

“The biggest single issue in Bradenton Beach is lack of parking,” Chiles said. “Coquina Beach may be the most parking spaces anywhere in one place in the county. This trail offers connectivity. I don’t want to see all the golf carts on there, I want to see one set of trams. That connects 1,200 parking spaces that this county has worked so hard on to what the CRA has worked so hard on in downtown Bradenton Beach.”

Elliott Falcione, executive director of the Bradenton Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, said the trams using the trail would also be a big help for water taxi passengers to get to and from downtown Bradenton Beach when the service begins in July of this year. 

TDC Chairman James Satcher moved that the proposal be presented to the Board of County Commissioners, with the option to expand the scope of the proposal, such as a wider trail with a shell path adjacent, at a later date. The proposal was passed at the close of discussions. 

In other business, it was reported that phase one of the ongoing drainage project at Coquina Beach is now complete, which added 192 parking spaces. Phase two is estimated to be completed by early July, adding 862 additional parking spaces, according to Stern.

Stern said the paving of the parking lot should be completed by the end of May, but there will still be more work to be done. He was pleased to report that fewer of the Australian pine trees that offer shade to the picnic area along the beach and parking area would need to be removed than first thought. This will not only save time and money, but keep much-needed shade in the area.