City of Bradenton Beach
Special Projects
The Scenic Highway Vision
Visit the Bradenton Beach Scenic Highway Website
The Bradenton Beach Scenic Highway is a beautifully greenscaped, pedestrian friendly, waterfront highway corridor where residents and visitors can safely walk and bike. The outstanding beaches, picnic areas, boat ramps, parking and scenic vistas along the highway provide pleasant places for residents and visitors to interact with the natural environment and the island community.
The Bradenton Beach area provides unique family-oriented restaurants and locally owned lodging. The island community located along the Scenic Corridor provides both environmental and historic educational opportunities that have maintained the 'Old Florida' ambiance of both the architectural and natural flavor. The carefully planned Bradenton Beach Scenic Highway has been developed and constructed through the cooperative and creative efforts of the community, public agencies and private partnerships.
Background
The City received the Scenic Highway designation in April of 2001. This provided an opportunity for the city to implement a comprehensive vision that is supported by the community. The CME is charged with management and development of the vision. As an advisory committee to the city, the CME finds grants and develops funding possibilities in cooperation with such other entities as FDOT, County Parks and Recreation, the MPO and Island Chamber of Commerce. These partnerships and unique funding strategies will be the cornerstone to a successful Scenic Highway program.
Ongoing Work
After the initial landscaping of the Scenic highway route the Citizens Action Committee continued to work for other improvements to the project. Some of these include:
- In the Fall of 2003, the Historic Bridge Street sign was completed.
- Modular Newspaper Racks- After holding work sessions and physically locating all box locations, The Scenic Highway Board recommended to the City Commission that the Bradenton Herald's offer to install modular news racks at six locations initially be accepted. The Commission accepted this recommendation and the news racks were installed in the Summer of 2003.
- The City Commissioners approved, on April 1, 2004, a recommendation from the Scenic Highway Committee that Police Chief Sam Speciale and Public Works Director Dottie Poindexter pursue some possible quick fixes to the problem of traffic tie ups at the intersection of Cortez and Gulf Drive. Suggested was a permissive green arrow for southbound cars turning east on Cortez Road and getting flexible traffic delineators at the 2 lane approach to the bridge.
More information from the Florida Scenic Highway website.
