Broadway Roundabout project paused for soaring costs

The new designs for the Broadway Roundabout project came at a cost high enough for town commissioners to press pause on the project for now. 

On June 28, Director of Public Works Isaac Brownman spoke with Longboat Key town commissioners at a special meeting to update them about the roundabout project.

Due to the Florida Department of Transportation’s previous notice of a necessary redesign, the project is now expected to cost a little over $3 million more than originally expected. 

Brownman explained that the Broadway Roundabout project has been in talks since about 2011 when a comprehensive plan discussion among commissioners led to the vague beginning of roundabout discussions. 

“For a long time, this has been an intersection of use for pedestrians and bikers crossing it,” Brownman said. “It’s nothing new, but that has been enhanced as more development and other things happen.”

The idea for a roundabout specifically at the intersection of Broadway Street and Gulf of Mexico Drive was brought up in late 2014, which began the process for a feasibility study followed by a Project Development and Environment (PD&E) study by the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT). 

The town’s fiscal year 2020 budget included $124,420 for the PD&E Study. 

During that time, FDOT decided that the intersection did not meet any of the warrants, or criteria, to implement a traffic signal. Brownman explained that to install a traffic signal, the intersection has to meet just one of the criteria relating to vehicular volume, pedestrian volume, crashes or other factors. 

From there, it was determined that a roundabout would be the best solution for intersection control to increase pedestrian safety. 

The Broadway Roundabout project proceeded to design through 2022 and into 2023. Design costs for the first roundabout were about $280,000, with Manatee County paying half of the cost according to Brownman. The plans were at 90% when FDOT’s comments halted the project. 

According to FDOT, the road at the intersection needed a normal crown. Crowning is when a road is slightly elevated when going around a turn. A crown in the roadway typically increases speed, Brownman explained, and the purpose of a roundabout is to decrease vehicular speed. 

“Basically, FDOT informed the town to create a normal-crowned roadway where one does not exist today, which is practically a full-blown road reconstruction,” Brownman said.

It was back to the drawing board to redesign the roundabout to include a normal crown. The road has to be excavated downwards on one side and upwards on the other, which has impacts on the drainage around the road as well as the length of the project along Gulf of Mexico Drive, Brownman said. 

The original roundabout design did not include elements of the town’s Gulf of Mexico Drive Complete Street Corridor Plan, which includes a 12-foot-wide trail, 7-foot-wide buffered bike lanes and raised medians. Brownman said since a redesign was required, the town asked the engineers to include some of those elements where feasible. 

The town completed a purchase order of $158,000 for the redesign, which is currently at 90%. The plans were recently submitted to FDOT and, according to Brownman, received a couple of negative comments which staff would debate if necessary.

But the new design also came with a higher opinion of cost — about $5.6 million. That doesn’t include construction engineering and inspection, which would bring the total cost closer to $6 million. 

“That’s obviously substantially higher than anything we were contemplating in the original project,” Brownman said, adding that the estimate for the original roundabout was closer to $2 million or $2.5 million. 

FDOT committed $1.685 million before the redesign, the town budgeted $600,000 for FY25 and Brownman said Manatee County agreed to financial support, possibly around $500,000. Altogether, that’s $2.8 million. 

“Unless DOT came forward and said, ‘We have $3.2 million for you,’ and they haven’t yet, it may be difficult to get this project to the finish line,” Brownman said.

The Sarasota/Manatee Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) has $4.86 million set aside in its long-range “Transform 2045” plan, but the money would not be available until 2030. 

Co-Chair of Longboat Key North Paul Hylbert said that something needs to be done at the intersection, but the resident group he represents felt the roundabout was no longer the way to go with all the changes. 

“We really need to address that intersection from a safety standpoint,” Hylbert said.

Reevaluate the roundabout

With the new information in front of them, town commissioners discussed what the next steps could be. 

Brownman laid out several different options, one of which was an interim solution — installing pedestrian refuges, or medians, to allow for safer crossing at the intersection. 

While that remains an option, the main focus of the commissioners’ discussion was to suggest taking a step back to reevaluate the roundabout. 

Brownman noted that since 2019 — when the original traffic signal study was conducted — the north-end community has developed significantly, including the expansion of restaurants. This increased traffic flow may produce different results that may warrant a traffic signal, which would be a less costly option. 

Commissioners advised Brownman that, if that’s the route taken, to ask FDOT to survey during the peak season to see the full impact. 

With the commission going on recess for the summer, Brownman said his next steps were to pause the design and go back to FDOT for a “gut check” to see if the traffic signal study would be worthwhile. 

“I’m going to mention that the roundabout project has gotten too big. It’s way out of scale with what the town had in mind and we don’t have the funding to cover the additional cost,” Brownman said.

Brownman said he would return in the fall with updates.