Downtown Bradenton traffic already is a mess. It’s going to be worse in June

The Florida Department of Transportation and CSX Railroad will close Manatee Avenue West in downtown Bradenton for 28 days beginning May 31 so construction crews can replace the railroad crossing just west of Third Street West.

Motorists on Manatee Avenue West will have to exit at Third Street West to find alternative routes around the construction or to get back on Manatee Avenue West farther west of the construction zone. East-west alternates through downtown Bradenton include Ninth and 13th avenues west.

The work will give the city a partial test run of an FDOT proposal now under study and design that would divert the majority of northbound traffic approaching downtown onto Ninth Avenue West rather than Manatee Avenue West. That part of the proposal is designed to ease traffic over the DeSoto Bridge and ease what officials call a choke point at First Street’s intersections with Sixth and Manatee avenues.

According to Jim McClellan, public works director, the city has little say in the project because it is a state road, governed by FDOT, and the railroad crossing is overseen by CSX. But the city was able to stall the project, originally scheduled to begin in April, to May 31 when schools are out to help alleviate congestion.

“They did agree to wait until school was out,” McLellan said.

Downtown access is going to get complicated enough beginning in April when FDOT begins improvements at the intersection of Third Avenue West and Ninth Street West.

The $1.52 million project is scheduled to begin in April, though McLellan said a pre-construction meeting has yet to take place. That project will take 200 days and includes up to 30 days of Third Avenue West being closed during construction either intermittently or for a prolonged period. The project calls for the installation of a dedicated southbound right-hand turn lane at Third and Ninth, the reduction of the size of the existing lanes to 10 feet wide and widening of the Green Bridge walkway to 10 feet wide.

Third Avenue West will get even busier around the middle of the May when construction begins on the City Centre Parking garage on the corner of Third and Old Main Street.

While final costs for the new garage are not yet finalized, the city council on Wednesday approved spending the first $2.8 million for the demolition of the city hall parking lot and Manatee Chamber of Commerce building. The chamber will occupy the southeast section of the garage when completed.

Economic Development Director Carl Callahan said the approval was needed to keep up with the construction of the new $17 million Spring Hill Suites hotel nearby.

Callahan said by approving Wednesday’s documents, the city locks in “a significant savings” on the precast concrete walls for the garage.

This story was originally published March 28, 2018 at 2:29 PM with the headline "Downtown Bradenton traffic already is a mess. It’s going to be worse in June."