City commission puts two North Trail projects back on wish list.
By Johannes Werner
Original Air Date: Jan. 8, 2024
Host: The streetscape along US 41 north of downtown Sarasota has changed, and the Fruitville Road, 10th and 14th Street roundabouts have made a big difference, turning circular traffic foes into fans, and in some cases pedestrians or bicyclists. So what’s keeping the remaining three roundabouts along the North Trail from being built?
Johannes Werner: City of Sarasota Commissioner Jen Ahearn-Koch was not a friend of roundabouts. But she changed her mind once she saw them built in her neighborhood.
Jen Ahearn-Koch: The North Trail has experienced an incredible transformation over the last couple of years. You took your life into your hands, literally, and people have died crossing the North Tamiami Trail. There were people that lived on the east side of the Trail that never crossed to the west side, never accessed Whitaker Gateway Park, never accessed the Van Wezel and some of these other parks and areas of the city, because they would have to take their life in their hands crossing that street. The roundabouts at 10th and 14th have completely changed a section of the North Trail just from the safety issue, from accessibility, from slowing down traffic, beautifying, widening sidewalks. I’ve never seen so many people at Whitaker Gateway Park before than I have now, and such a variety of folks who have never been able to access that park and The Bay. You cross there at 14th, and you walk all the way down all along the bayfront, it’s amazing. And so I have seen firsthand what those roundabouts have done for a major roadway, and I was one of the doubters. When they were planning this, I said, ‘Are you kidding me, who’s gonna walk down North Tamiami trail? The sidewalks are this big, and the cars are going 55 miles an hour, who’s going to do that?’ Right. And the just transformed the Trail.
JW: So, at a commission meeting Monday discussing the city’s top priorities of federally funded transportation projects, she was missing the Martin Luther King Way and MyrtleStreet
North Trail Roundabouts
roundabouts along the North Trail. The city’s top priority for 2025 is creating a safe way for students and employees to Booker High in north Sarasota. Also prominently featuring is
the Main Street complete street redesign. Inquiring why the North Tamiami Trail roundabouts were not on the list, Ahearn-Koch was told by staffers that construction has been funded, but not land purchases. And that has held up the construction start along the state-managed US 41, because the state government has changed its approach.
The Department of Transportation now wants to build wider traffic circles, to make them safer. But that requires buying up more land,
and there is no money yet for that. Another piece that’s missing is the complete-street redesign of Fruitville Road along downtown, as expressed by a representative of the Downtown Sarasota Condominium Association. The commissioners unanimously voted to include both – the North Trail roundabouts and the Fruitville Road redesign – into their wish list for this year.
Reporting for WSLR News, this has been Johannes Werner.
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