 BRIDGE PROJECT 20 YEARS IN MAKING Palm Beach Post -- Monday, July 23, 2001 By: Teresa Lane, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer PORT ST. LUCIE - It's been the target of demonstrations, petitions and an unflattering Web site, but after 20 years of on-and-off discussions, a bridge over the St. Lucie River at West Virginia Drive is looking more and more like a sure bet to residents like Ralph and Lolly Olson. A week after the state channeled $20 million to the project and one day after city council members voted to raise property taxes for the city's third east-west river crossing, longtime residents of the street no longer question whether their homes will be demolished to make way for a bridge or a four-lane expressway. The only questions left now are "when?" and "for how much?" "If they give me a fair price, I'll be happy," said Eva Misiak, who's planning to move to a nice, quiet street when her home at 169 West Virginia Drive is moved or leveled to make way for the expressway. "The traffic is getting too busy here anyway." Like many residents of the two-lane drive, Misiak has heard rumblings of a bridge at West Virginia for years, but like many, she stopped worrying about it after the talk led to little more than rejection letters from state environmental regulators. A slate of new city council members elected in September vowed to re-energize the lagging movement, claiming gridlock on Port St. Lucie Boulevard would doom the city if another east-west corridor wasn't built soon. Mayor Bob Minsky formed a committee of volunteers to lobby legislators and state Rep. Gayle Harrell, R-Port St. Lucie, convened a meeting between city officials and the same environmental regulators who once threatened to veto the project. Coupled with the collapse of an unrelated bridge that was deemed even more environmentally unsound, the West Virginia Drive corridor received its biggest boost last week when the state Department of Transportation agreed to move $20 million from the unpopular Walton Road Bridge to a project that many consider the city's most critical need. "The Walton Road bridge was a luxury, but this is a necessity," Minsky said. "There's no way this city can survive without a third way to cross the river. People will spend their whole lives sitting in traffic without it." A traffic study commissioned by the city a few years ago concluded that if a third river span was built at West Virginia, enough traffic would be diverted from traffic-choked Port St. Lucie Boulevard to make it passable for another 20 years. Earlier traffic projections concluded Port St. Lucie Boulevard would become a parking lot in 2015, but City Engineer Walter England said that milestone was reached a year ago. "In the morning, cars back up eight blocks on Floresta Drive trying to go east onto Port St. Lucie Boulevard, and in the afternoons it becomes a parking lot on the (Port St. Lucie Boulevard) bridge trying to go west," England said. "We've reached a level of service 'F' on portions of the road, which means it's failing. It can't handle any more traffic." Although the city's second east-west corridor, Prima Vista Boulevard, is faring better than the first, England says it's too far north to divert much traffic if expanded from four to six lanes. West Virginia Drive is smack in the center of the two boulevards, dissecting the city's heart and beckoning to the 40,000 city residents who live west of the scenic river. "When we moved here, we used to beg a car to go by, but now it's like the Indianapolis Speedway," said Lolly Olson, a 77-year-old Port St. Lucie resident who has lived on West Virginia Drive for 20 years. "We do need another way out of here because everyone has to use the same two roads. The only thing I'll really miss is my big porch out back. We had to replace the screens in it with vinyl windows because of all the fumes from the cars." Many Indian River Drive residents who fought the Walton Road bridge also chided the West Virginia Drive span, claiming the two were part of an ill-conceived master plan to link Hutchinson Island with Interstate 95. Critics say they're happy the Walton Road project has effectively died but say they're not convinced the second bridge is needed either. Members of the St. Lucie County Conservation Alliance staged a protest and mock bridge demolition in March at the Halpatiokee Preserve, where the bridge will cross the North Fork of the St. Lucie River. A resident of Coral Reef Street whose neighbors will lose their homes to the bridge collected 200 petition signatures opposing it, attaching pictures of alligators, osprey and egrets he photographed from his back yard. And a Web site denouncing the span has photocopies of DEP reports blasting the proposed route as the worst possible place to cross the river, noting other proposed routes would disturb fewer wetlands. City council members considered those alternate sites, Walters Terrace and Thornhill Drive, in the early 1990s but eventually settled on West Virginia because it was more centrally located and required fewer homes be razed. England said the city hasn't decided whether it will demolish or move the 167 homes built alongside the roadway but assured neighbors who live one or two streets off the road they won't find gas stations or other businesses popping up behind their homes. "That's why the city council said to buy all lots on both sides of the road, to limit potential commercial development from fronting on the roadway," England said. "It also eliminates all driveways on the road and gives you room to build a pedestrian-friendly route such as the one along Midport Road, with meandering sidewalks, benches and landscaping on both sides. "We don't want to create something that divides the neighborhood," England said. "We want to blend with the neighborhood and move traffic quickly." Although such main intersections as Floresta Drive and Bayshore, Airoso, Cashmere and California boulevards will remain open on the new four-lane West Virginia Drive, many smaller side streets will be closed and converted to landscaped cul-de-sacs to limit turns, England said. The city is advertising for a consulting engineer to complete an 18-month study that will answer whether the bridge is environmentallyfeasible, how it should be designed and whether it will divert enough traffic from alternate roads to warrant construction. The city has identified about $59 million of the $74.5 million cost to build six-lane bridges over the river and Florida's Turnpike and widen the roadway to four lanes. Council members on Thursday said they'll raise taxes by 33 cents for each $1,000 of taxable property value each year for the next three years to raise the rest. The first year's tax increase would net $900,000, and about $2.7 million will be raised in the third year if future council members comply with the request. City council members say while they're concerned about protecting wetlands, they're equally concerned about the quality of life in a city that could one day have 250,000 residents and only two ways to get from their western homes to jobs and stores east of a beautiful but divisive estuary. "If (DEP) says we can never have another river crossing because it will damage the river, that is absolutely stupid," Minsky said. "I'm going to ask them to show me a route where we can cross the river without crossing the river. Any place you pick is going to have some impact, but as long as we keep it to a minimum and mitigate the impact, we should get a permit to cross. Our future depends on it." Copyright (c) 2001, The Palm Beach Post |