Letters to the Editor

Traffic: Keep the pressure on

Dear Editor:
Thanks for highlighting our traffic crisis in your Feb. 19 edition.

I hope you will continue to put editorial pressure on Longboat Key and Sarasota leaders to take meaningful measures to improve it in season.

I just drove from downtown to the Longboat Key Publix at about 12:30. Gulf of Mexico Drive was a parking lot from Publix through St. Armands Circle headed to Sarasota.

Late in the afternoon, it is backed up from Country Club Shores all the way over the bridge to U.S. 41.

The light at Golden Gate is also a killer late in the afternoon, with traffic backed up across the Ringling Bridge through the Circle to New Pass Bridge. All of this is daily now.

I don’t understand why pedestrian crossing guards can’t batch pedestrians at crosswalks in the Circle, when busy, to allow traffic to flow more steadily.

It’s a terrible bottleneck in season, and year after year it just gets worse, even if it is only from February through April.

Bob Gault
Longboat Key

Home buyers look on the mainland

Dear Editor:
This traffic condition will surely discourage potential Longboat Key real estate buyers and impede property value growth on Longboat Key when visitors experience this gridlock.

It reminds me of the horror traffic jams on Sanibel / Captiva in season. The Realtors should band together and put pressure on Longboat Key and Sarasota leaders.

Agreed, it is horrible.

It took me an hour and five minutes to go from Longboat Key Publix to Main Street. I was 30 minutes late for a meeting.

The person I met is an agent looking for a $2.5 million home and said, “That is why we are looking on the mainland now.” It may also be why there are so many active real estate agents living on Bird Key.

Sue Wolverton
Senior Vice President,
Southwest Region
Coldwell Banker Residential LLC