If you were king or queen, how would you fix traffic?

Traffic is a lot like the weather. A lot of people talk about it, but no one does anything about it.

Well, that’s not exactly true. Some very smart people have tried to do something about the weather. And that didn’t work out very well.

Likewise with traffic on Longboat Key and its surroundings.

The Barrier Island Traffic Study resulted in dozens of ideas big and small, but nothing that directly affects Longboat Key, except for a plan to keep planning a middle-turn lane on the south end of the island.

But some things have been done to make things better over the years. We’re thinking of the third turn lane to U.S. 41 from the Ringling Bridge, which has widely been hailed as a big tool in breaking up logjams at that junction.

But that lane has been temporarily blocked as work begins on a traffic circle at Fruitville Road and U.S. 41.

Sigh.

We recently published a letter from Bob Gault, decrying the idea of beginning projects such as that, and a planned bigger traffic circle at U.S. 41 and the bridge during the high-traffic season. Why not start during the off-season, he opined, and get months of work underway before crowds return?

That got us thinking. And this is where you come in.

If you were the Monarch of Sarasota-Manatee, what are your solutions? You drive everyday around here. Tell us what you’d do? A third bridge? Pedestrian crossings over (or under) St. Armands Circle?

 Let us know. Send your answers to me, Managing Editor Eric Garwood at [email protected], or drop them off at our Longboat office, 5570 Gulf of Mexico Drive. We’ll publish them soon.