Garcon Point Bridge
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The Garcon Point Bridge is a 2-lane
toll bridge A toll bridge is a bridge where a monetary charge (or '' toll'') is required to pass over. Generally the private or public owner, builder and maintainer of the bridge uses the toll to recoup their investment, in much the same way as a toll road ...
in Santa Rosa County, in the
Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...
panhandle. The bridge generally runs north - south and connects U.S. Route 98 east of Gulf Breeze, Florida to Interstate 10 and
U.S. Route 90 U.S. Route 90 or U.S. Highway 90 (US 90) is an east–west major United States highway in the Southern United States. Despite the "0" in its route number, US 90 never was a full coast-to-coast route. With the exception of a short-lived ...
west of Milton, Florida. The road and bridge uses the TOLL 281 shield on signage from US 98 to I-10. North of I-10 the road is signed solely as State Road 281. Exit signs on I-10 display both the State Road 281 and TOLL 281 shields. The bridge crosses East Bay, a large section of
Pensacola Bay Pensacola Bay is a bay located in the northwestern part of Florida, United States, known as the Florida Panhandle. The bay, an inlet of the Gulf of Mexico, is located in Escambia County and Santa Rosa County, adjacent to the city of Pensacola ...
and serves as an evacuation route during
hurricanes A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system characterized by a low-pressure center, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Depend ...
.


History

Due to the reputation of being a pet project of former Florida House Speaker Bolley "Bo" Johnson, D-Milton, who later went to federal prison for tax evasion, the bridge project was nicknamed "Bo's Bridge". It was completed in 1999 and in 2000, the Santa Rosa Bay Bridge Authority asked for an $500,000 loan from the state despite having to delay paying back previous multimillion-dollar loans from the state.Pittman, Craig.
"Flawed figures leaves toll roads running flat"
St. Petersburg Times 16 Jul 2000. Retrieved 4 May 2010
The loan was later denied in 2001. In 1996, URS Greiner Woodward Clyde, a consulting firm, made traffic volume projections based on the assumption that the Garcon Point Bridge would have traffic similar to a nearby bridge to Destin, a popular beach resort instead of the subdivisions that it actually connects. In 2000, the average daily traffic was only 3500 vehicles a day, far from the 7500 that URS projected. In 2000, Arthur Goldberg, the URS vice president who wrote the estimates for the Garcon Point Bridge, told the ''St. Petersburg Times'', "We now know that e were wrong about the estimates I don't think the Garcon Point Bridge will ever get back to the forecast we made for it in 1996." Odebrecht-Metric, the construction company who built the bridge, illegally dumped
construction waste Construction waste or debris is any kind of debris from the construction process. Different government agencies have clear definitions. For example, the United States Environmental Protection Agency EPA defines construction and demolition materia ...
during the project, resulting in a $4 million fine for the company for violating the federal Clean Water Act. Three supervisors pleaded guilty and paid $1,000 in fines and served a probation.


Toll

There is one
toll plaza A toll road, also known as a turnpike or tollway, is a public or private road (almost always a controlled-access highway in the present day) for which a fee (or '' toll'') is assessed for passage. It is a form of road pricing typically implemente ...
at the north end of the bridge. Tolls may be paid with cash or with the SunPass electronic toll system. From December 2019 to June 15, 2022, the one-way cost for the toll for a 2-axle vehicle was $5.00. SunPass users who cross the bridge 30 times per month receive a discount for the toll cost. In November, 2014, the trustees of the bridge project proposed raising the bridge toll to $5 each way and reducing the discount given to frequent users. On December 4th 2019, a State judge ruled that the bridge bond holders, UMB Bank, could increase the toll from the current rate of $3.75 per vehicle to $5 per vehicle. On September 17th, 2020, Governor
Ron DeSantis Ronald Dion DeSantis (; born September 14, 1978) is an American politician serving as the 46th governor of Florida since January 2019. A member of the Republican Party, DeSantis represented Florida's 6th district in the U.S. House of Repres ...
has suspended tolls on the Garcon Point Bridge, as it is the primary alternate route for the
Hurricane Sally Hurricane Sally was a destructive and slow-moving Atlantic hurricane, which was the first hurricane to make landfall in the U.S. state of Alabama since Ivan in 2004, coincidentally on the same date in the same place. The eighteenth named storm, ...
-damaged
Pensacola Bay Bridge The Pensacola Bay Bridge, also known locally as the Three-Mile Bridge, runs between downtown Pensacola, Florida, and Gulf Breeze, Florida. It carries two to four lanes of U.S. Highway 98 across Pensacola Bay. History The bridge, which is dedic ...
. The repairs to that bridge were complete enough to allow traffic to return to the bridge on May 28, 2021. It later returned to having four lanes of traffic. In June 2022, FDOT bought the bridge. The tolls were lowered to $2.30 for SunPass customers and $2.75 for cash users on June 16, 2022.


See also

* Garcon Point, Florida


References


External links


Santa Rosa Bay Bridge Authority
* ttp://www.garconpointbridge.com/project.htm Garcon Point Bridge Site {{Bridges of Florida Toll bridges in Florida Bridges completed in 1999 Road bridges in Florida Concrete bridges in the United States Box girder bridges in the United States Transportation buildings and structures in Santa Rosa County, Florida 1999 establishments in Florida