FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Fort Lauderdale’s fight over whether to build a $500 million bridge or a $3 billion tunnel to handle rail traffic through downtown could heat up further on Tuesday, as city officials meet to vote on their preferred option — after the city’s mayor sent out an email newsletter to voters saying “the future of downtown” is at stake — although the decision is not the city’s to make.
The bridge-or-tunnel fight is over a replacement for the current New River drawbridge used by Florida East Coast Railway and Brightline trains in the middle of town. While a drawbridge has long existed at the site, the increase in traffic with Brightline operations to Orlando — and with a proposed commuter rail operation on the horizon — is a problem for marine traffic [see “Fort Lauderdale, county officials at odds …,” Trains News Wire, Oct. 30, 2023]. Replacement options include a 3.5-mile tunnel or various bridge options, including one that would be 2.5 miles long but have enough vertical clearance to eliminate the need for openings.
Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis — who is calling for the tunnel, saying the bridge will divide downtown — sent the 2,100-word newsletter last week, saying, among other things, that the county’s “obsession with a bridge approach blinds it from the clear impacts to our city that demand consideration. These include the impact on economic development, the marine industry, vehicular traffic flow and individual neighborhoods.”
Trantalis told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel the city “will not be bullied into accepting a bridge. … I have a city to protect and billions of dollars of money already invested in real estate developments and an entire marine industry that will be compromised.”
Fort Lauderdale city commissioners will vote on their bridge-or-tunnel preference in a 6 p.m. meeting Tuesday, Dec. 19, and City Commissioner John Herbst told the newspaper the newsletter was to “rally the troops” to support the tunnel option at that meeting.
The ultimate decision on the project, however, lies with Broward County, and county Mayor Nan Rich told the Sun-Sentinel the decision is essentially done, although county commissioners won’t hold their final vote until early next year.
“The joint County-City Commission workshop held on Dec. 5 effectively marked the end of the debate over the New River Crossing,” Rich wrote in an email. “Anyone with lingering doubts about whether a bridge or a tunnel should be pursued should read the extensive reports issued by the joint county-city consultant team that resulted in more than 450 pages of supporting documentation, analyses and comparisons.” That joint session clearly favored a bridge, WLRN radio reports.
The cost of the tunnel makes it an unrealistic option, according to Greg Stuart, executive director of the Boward Metropolitan Planning Organization: “Everybody wants this tunnel. But somebody has to pay for the tunnel.” Also, he said, it will take 10 years to plan a tunnel project, and another 10 years to build, while a bridge project can be completed in less than a decade.
Trantalis, however, argues that if the city and county aren’t in agreement, it will likely sink the entire project.
“Ultimately, if there is not consensus, this project is doomed to fail,” he wrote in his newsletter. “The Biden administration and Congress are not going to help pay for a project that is subject to deep community divisions.”
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