The Milton City Council will explore the possibility of submitting the Berryhill Bridge concept as an alternative to the U.S. 90 four-laning project in downtown Milton to the Florida Department of Transportation.
City staff also will draft a survey for Milton residents to determine whether they would support the bridge concept or the four-laning plan, it was determined after a lengthy discussion at a council meeting Thursday night.
The Berryhill Bridge concept was brought forth by private residents Vernon Compton and Jack Sanborn, the latter of whom privately funded a conceptual design and video that overlaid a rendering of the Berryhill Bridge over current drone footage of the U.S. 90 corridor in question.
The proposed bridge concept involves a secondary, two-way traffic bridge that spans northeast from the intersection of Berryhill Road, Willing Street and Broad Streetover the Blackwater Riverto a new lighted intersection near the current entrance to Russell Harber Park. From there, the bridge joins U.S. 90, which continues as four lanes eastbound from that point, to Ward Basin Road.
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The Florida Department of Transportation has not evaluated this specific plan yet for viability, but a similar plan years ago was studied and eliminated as a possibility when FDOT was first determining how to alleviate the traffic issues on U.S. 90.
“Right now it’s just a concept. Whether or not it’s viable is for other people to determine,” said City Manager Randy Jorgenson. “I’m not a traffic engineer. I look forward to input from those individuals.”
Milton Mayor Heather Lindsay told the News Journal in an email on Friday that she was against the Berryhill Bridge concept because italready had been studied and declined as an option by the state following its Project, Design & Environmental (PD&E) study.
"Committing taxpayer dollars to study an option that the prior $2 millionstudy already rejected does not make sense, especially when the city and the county have other infrastructure projects that require funding now," Lindsay said in her email.
She added that despite Sanborn's video featuring the city seal, it was not an official city-sponsored video.
"Mr. Sanborn’s video makes some appealing claims, but where is the engineering study that would show those claims could become reality?" Lindsay asked."I am also concerned about negative impacts to Russell Harber Landing with a second bridge to Berryhill Road."
The concept was brought forward to the City Council to determine if there was an appetite from city officials to approach FDOT with the concept design. If FDOT saw the plan as viable, they would move forward with a PD&Estudy.
FDOT, however, has already determined that widening U.S. 90 from two to four lanes is the most viable option, as opposed to keeping it two lanes. A PD&Estudy completed in March 2019, after five years of public input and state engineering, determined the four-laning would best alleviate traffic flow.The stateplans to begin funding the design portion of the project in 2023.
Opponents of the four-laning say it will ruin the charm and history of downtown. Advocates of the widening say it will help traffic flow, as traffic backs up frequently in the downtown corridor, especially during morning and evening rush hours.
Council members, citizens divided on project
Council members' opinion on the Berryhill Bridge project was anything but unanimous, with members split over the viability of the project and the necessity of putting forth the option after FDOT spent the better part of the past decade evaluating several different options.
Councilman David Richardson said he lives near Berryhill Road and was hesitant to support the project, saying it would “take some convincing for me to go along with this, because all I can see is trouble on Berryhill (Road).”
“Berryhill, with the amount of traffic that it has even right now, is very difficult to get out of coming off Alabama Street, let alone living in a Berryhill residential area having to come into the traffic,” he said.
Councilwoman Roxanne Meiss, on the other hand, said she thinks the Berryhill Bridge concept is a “great idea.” She said with downtown Milton’s projected growth during the next several years, widening U.S. 90 would have a negative impact on the downtown area.
“I think it’s important to protect our historic district. I think we need a safer, quieter downtown,” she said. “Things are going to happen when people move out of the courthouse and when it’s decided what to put there. … People live in the downtown area, and we need it to be safer and quieter, and I think that (the Berryhill Bridge project) would really help.”
Newer councilman Robert Leek put forward the idea of surveying Milton residents to see what the residents who would be affected most have to think about the idea, something the rest of the council unanimously supported.
The handful of residents who spoke out at the public forum were unanimouslyagainst the Berryhill Bridge project, saying it would add traffic to the already clogged corridor and not solve the key traffic issues that the widening is seeking to solve.
Mike Cusack, a Milton resident who lives on Berryhill Road, said the road already isn’t safe and he thinks the Berryhill Bridge would make it even less safe. He’s in favor of the four-lane project that FDOT has already approved.
“I see more and more people now walking dogs and kids walking down the sidewalk. … But do you understand how unsafe it is right now? You can’t cross the street. Sometimes I can’t get out of the driveway,” he said.
The executive committee meeting will take place at 5:30 p.m. July 6 at Milton City Hall.
Annie Blanks can be reached at ablanks@pnj.com or 850-435-8632.
