Florida highways among Top 10

Don’t be shocked. When compared to other states, Florida’s DOT keeps the state’s urban and rural highways well-maintained. Fatalities are a weakness.

HOW THE STATES’ HIGHWAY SYSTEMS RANK

“If we are to build a better world, we must remember that the guiding principle is this — a policy of freedom for the individual is the only truly progressive policy.”

Friedrich Hayek “Road to Serfdom,” 1944

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Every year, the Reason Foundation ranks all 50 states’ highway systems. In this year’s report, examining 2020 data, the latest available, Florida’s highway system ranks eighth in the nation.

That is great, considering how important our roadways are to our economy, including tourism; to our own ability to get around and enjoy our quality of life; and to our ability to evacuate in the event of a hurricane.

Reason’s “Annual Highway Report” uses a broad range of performance measures on the condition and cost-effectiveness of state-controlled highways in 13 categories, including pavement condition, traffic congestion, structurally deficient bridges, traffic fatalities and spending (capital, maintenance, administrative, other) per mile. You can see Florida’s ranking on each of these categories in the accompanying table.

On most of the performance metrics in the table Florida either excels or struggles.

Compared to nearby states, Florida’s overall highway performance is worse than South Carolina (sixth) and Georgia (fourth), but better than Alabama (15th).

Florida ranks ahead of other comparable states, such as Texas (19th) and California (47th).

WHERE FLORIDA DOES BEST

Florida’s best ranking is in rural Interstate pavement condition.

The state does a crackerjack job of maintaining Interstate 75, Interstate 95 and Interstate 10 and others in those long woody stretches between cities. And I think anyone who drives around Florida and other states knows this. Our rural freeways are smooth and lovely rides.

Once those interstates get into urban areas, though, they are not in quite such good shape (ninth), but still pretty good.

Florida also does well on rural arterial pavement (second). These are all the rural highways like the U.S. 41, U.S. 301 and State Road 70, which are in great shape and provide vital links to most interior cities and towns and many coastal ones.

Those same roads in urban areas (urban principal arterials) are also in good shape (fourth).

Finally, Florida ranks eighth in structurally deficient bridges, which is not bad. These are bridges that score as “deficient” on feder- ally mandated inspections of structural adequacy and thus qualify for federal funding to repair them.

Florida has a lot of bridges, given the extent of our wetlands, so this metric is vital to the overall health of the highway network.

The Florida Department of Transportation is at its best in maintaining our state highway system, with good road conditions driving all its top performance categories in the report.

WHERE FLORIDA CAN IMPROVE

Where the state’s highway system doesn’t rank so well is in safety and cost effectiveness.

Florida’s worst rankings are in urban fatality rate (49th) and rural fatality rate (45th). The state’s rural fatality rate is 2.2 times higher than peer state Pennsylvania and 1.2 times higher than Texas. In urban fatalities, Florida is 1.5 times higher than Pennsylvania and 1.4 times higher than Texas.

Nationwide, both rural and urban roadway fatality rates increased in 2020, with distracted driving being blamed the most.

The Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles data show distracted driving, speeding and driving under the influence are the primary causes of road fatalities.

To be fair, there is no evidence that Florida builds or operates its roads in a way that increases fatalities. The causes are behavior of individuals and cultural problems over which the state highway department has little influence.

Nevertheless, the state is making major efforts to reduce all these causes.

Florida tends to spend more than average on its roads, and that creates poor performance rankings on cost effectiveness. On a per-lanemile basis, the state ranks 43rd in construction and bridge spending; 29th on maintenance spending; and 28th on administrative spending. All are ranked per lane mile to make fair comparison with other states. For example, Florida’s construction and bridge disbursement per lane mile is 1.5 times higher than Pennsylvania and 1.2 times higher than Texas.

In other words, Florida’s highway system is in better shape than most other states, but we spend more to achieve that performance.

Source: Reason Foundation

HOW FLORIDA’S HIGHWAY SYSTEMS RANK

Here is how the Reason Foundation has ranked Florida’s highway systems nationally in the Foundation’s 27th Annual Highway Report.

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TAKEAWAYS Florida’s highway system is in great shape, and that helps the state rank in the top 10 in the nation on highway performance. That is valuable to our state economy and to our quality of life.

To improve the state’s rankings, we need to find ways to tackle problem drivers that make our road fatality rate among the highest in the nation. Also, finding ways to be more cost effective, such as more use of public-private partnerships, could really improve the state rankings on spending.

Adrian Moore is vice president of the Reason Foundation and lives in Sarasota.

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Proper parking proposal vetting

First a point of order, it is important to note that the artist rendering of the St. Regis multilevel garage presented to P&Z and depicted in the May 24 Longboat Observer on Page 5 is misrepresenting what it is to be. Note that there are no cars illustrated on the top level of this large parking garage and those cars will also be visible over top of the garage’s low side walls.

Why not? You can draw your own conclusions.

This compels bringing up the most important issue of inadequate communication to residents about this major departure application to expand the St. Regis development. The Town Commission hearing dates of June 5 and June 20 fall in the summer offseason when half to two-thirds of Longboat residents are not in residence.

The many departures requested in this application have not and cannot be properly communicated to constituents for consideration because they are not here.

You may recall a few years ago another important issue surfaced in the summer when Florida Power & Light presented a plan to replace all the power poles with hardened, larger and taller poles to withstand hurricanes.

That seemed, on the surface, to be a reasonable thing to do. However, a few of us year-rounders asked the commission to slow down and do more homework on the real cost and figure out a plan to underground all power utilities, islandwide, for consideration.

As a result of great work by the town staff and commission, we will now enjoy a drastically improved environment on our key. No more unsightly utility poles, power lines, and we will experience uninterrupted service.

Folks, that was a close call!

Important projects need proper vetting by all residents — not just those who happen to be in town during the summer.

Respectfully, please do not fully consider this project until the late fall for proper communication and vetting by all residents when they return. Or vote no, and the developer can resubmit after the resort opens and has some real-world operating experience. Any necessary new departures will be based on facts, not on revised, estimated projections and conjecture, which is now before you.

As an aside, arguments about the importance of reducing valet wait times in the electric lift departure should be completely ignored by the commission. This is not a town problem or an unmanageable problem for the operator. They previously asked for approval on this which the commission did.

The operators can make adjustments without building more large concrete structures.

As you well know, most of the letters oppose this garage on GMD for obvious, common sense reasons. Please take heed and do not approve this garage, much less during the summer months with so many residents away. That would be misguided.

The St. Regis will successfully open next summer and will be a great asset to our community.

Many thanks to the town staff for their hard and diligent work on this new resort and to Chuck Whittall and Unicorp for the years of effort to make this special resort a reality. Please do not mar this “crown jewel” resort with a multilevel parking garage at its entrance right on Gulf of Mexico Drive.

BOB GAULT LONGBOAT KEY

Too many changes to parking plan

We were very supportive of the new St. Regis but now have doubts that it will be the quality development we were promised. We have watched the building process and now can see the massive structures taking form.

Change upon change to the original plan has incrementally altered the project to become something that would never have been approved in the first place.

The landscape plan has been completely voided. Plastic plants to be used to prevent having sprinklers. We use drip irrigation on this island where the hoses rest on the surface beneath the mulch or ground cover. Each plant has its own small dripper. No impact on below-ground infrastructure.

Perhaps their landscaper isn’t familiar with it. You must not allow them to use plastic plants because storm winds will blow the plastic into the mangroves right across the street. Manatees and dolphins are born in the harbors there. The plastic can never be removed.

And the idea that they are asking for yet another building, a three-level parking garage at Gulf of Mexico Drive to avoid a threeminute extra wait time for their customers to receive their valeted cars, is breathtakingly insulting. They got everything they wanted.

And Longboat Key lost the thousand trees that were supposed to screen the property and maintain the lush tropical paradise that is Longboat. Please deny the application.

SHANNON BOLSER GAULT LONGBOAT KEY

Your bias, immorality, stupidity are ugly

Your bias is showing, and it’s not a pretty sight!

In a recent column, “These two are the best we can do?” Matt Walsh used the word “lecherous,” not for the guy who bragged about grabbing you know what, not for the adulterer, not for the guy who has been accused by more than 20 women of sexual assault or not for the guy who was just found liable for sexual battery and defamation!

That kind of hyper-partisan “journalism” makes the propagandists at Fox, Newsmax and AON look like Pulitzer Prize winning journalists.

And, “hands down” we’d be better off with the “nonlecherous” person? Donald Trump’s most recent policy positions include: “Let’s default and see what happens”; he’s not rooting for Ukraine to win a savage assault on its territory; and throughout history it has been “fortunate” that rich people can get away with grabbing you know whats!

Now, your immorality and stupidity are showing, and it’s even uglier!

I won’t even go down the “trying to overthrow the duly elected President of the United States” road!

If you aren’t embarrassed and ashamed for printing such garbage by now and by supporting taxdodging, draft-dodging, p-grabbing, un-American, un-democratic (fascist) and un-Christian egomaniacs, your moral compass won’t be swayed by additional facts regarding Mango Mussolini!

MICHAEL GRAHAM SARASOTA

Carter Weinhofer

STAFF WRITER

The Longboat Key Police Department’s newest officer has felt a connection to law enforcement since childhood. Now he hopes to build connections with the community on Longboat Key.

Justin Ramsaier was sworn in on June 2 after moving to the island from New York. He retired from a 17-year career with the New York City Police Department and is eager to serve Longboat’s community.

“I’m mostly looking forward to becoming ingratiated with the community,” Ramsaier said. “Living out here on Longboat, I have a vested interest in keeping Longboat safe and getting to know the residents and businesses on a personal level.”

During his 17 years with the NYPD, Ramsaier said he received some meritorious and exemplary police awards for certain cases. But he said he is

Get Behind the

most proud of the work he did during the last five years of his NYPD career.

“I worked in a small unit that had a big impact on a larger scale and worked with a bunch of great teammates,” Ramsaier said. “The last five years were probably the best part of my career because we were able to develop curriculum for the department for officer safety and various tactics that can be used in situations out there to make our officers safe.”

Ramsaier grew up in New Jersey, where he said his community had a close relationship with law enforcement. This foundation, combined with a desire to help people from a young age, led him to pursue a career in law enforcement.

Longboat Key is familiar ground for Ramsaier. Though he grew up and worked in the Northeast most of his life, he said he has been vacationing on the island for 30 years at a family condo. Ramsaier met his wife, Magally, while working together at the NYPD and continued the Longboat vacation tradition with her. In 2019, they decided this was the place they wanted to retire to and bought a condo of their own.

Aside from needing to get used to a new department’s lingo, Ramsaier is confident he will be able to serve without too much of a learning curve.