How Anna Maria Island Is Changing With the New Cortez Bridge

If you've spent much time on Anna Maria Island, you know the bridges are part of the experience. When I lived on the island, “Sorry, I got caught at the bridge” was a perfectly acceptable explanation for being five minutes late. Nobody questioned it. They knew.

This September, work is set to begin on a project that will eventually make that excuse a little less common - at least on the Cortez Bridge side of the island.

The Cortez Bridge, built in 1956, is being replaced with a 65-foot fixed-span bridge. When it's finished, boats that currently require the drawbridge to open will be able to pass underneath without stopping traffic.

There are practical reasons for replacing an aging bridge. I get that.

But if you live here—or have spent enough time going back and forth to the island—you may find yourself asking the same question I do:

What problem is the new bridge really going to solve?

It Will Eliminate Bridge Openings. It Won't Eliminate Traffic.

Anyone who has sat on Cortez Road while the bridge goes up knows that bridge openings contribute to traffic backups. Eliminating them removes one source of delays. But the new bridge will still carry one lane of traffic in each direction. Once you reach Bradenton Beach, there's still a traffic light at Gulf Drive. When traffic is already backed up going onto the island, there's nowhere for those additional cars to go. The bridge may no longer stop traffic because a large boat needs to pass, but that doesn't mean traffic suddenly has somewhere to move.

Will eliminating bridge openings make the trip more predictable? Maybe...well probably.

Will it solve the traffic backups getting onto that end of Anna Maria Island? I'm not convinced it can.

And maybe traffic isn't really the problem this bridge was designed to solve.

The existing bridge is nearly 70 years old. Infrastructure ages. It requires maintenance and eventually replacement. A fixed span also eliminates all of the mechanical equipment required to raise and lower a drawbridge.

But, it eliminates something else, too: the bridge tender. For decades, someone has sat in that little bridge house watching the waterway, stopping traffic and raising the span when boats need to pass. A fixed bridge doesn't need a bridge tender. It's a small part of a very large project, but it's another familiar piece of old Florida that disappears along with the drawbridge.

There's More Here Than a Bridge

For me, this isn't really just about traffic. It's about the character of this part of Florida. Anna Maria Island has changed considerably over the years. Tourism has grown, vacation rentals have expanded, older homes have given way to larger new construction, and the balance between a residential community and a vacation destination has shifted.

Recent storms have also taken their toll on many of the little ground-level houses that were once such a familiar part of the island. None of these changes happened overnight. They happened gradually, one at a time, until one day you looked around and realized just how much the island had changed—and that another familiar piece of it was about to disappear.

And Then There's Cortez

The bridge doesn't just connect the mainland to Bradenton Beach. On the other side sits Cortez Village, one of the area's remaining historic working fishing communities. There's something about traveling through Cortez, crossing that old drawbridge and arriving on Anna Maria Island that still feels distinctly like this part of Florida. A large elevated fixed-span bridge will change that approach considerably.

That doesn't automatically make the new bridge wrong. But it does mean we're changing more than the way cars and boats get past each other. We're changing the entrance to two places with a tremendous amount of history and character. That breaks my heart a little

Progress Usually Comes With a Tradeoff

But progress almost always comes with a tradeoff. We'll get a newer bridge. Boats will pass underneath without stopping traffic, and we won't have to wonder whether the bridge will go up just as we're trying to get somewhere.

But we also won't get to sit there for a few minutes with the windows down and the music playing, that unmistakable smell of the bay coming in with the breeze. We won't get to look down at the boats passing underneath—or even yell down to someone we know. Those little moments were part of getting on and off the island. An inconvenience sometimes? Maybe. But also part of the experience of living on Anna Maria island. And once they're gone, they're gone.

So yes, I'll miss the old Cortez Bridge when it's gone. I'll miss the drawbridge itself, the little bridge house and even that universally understood excuse:

“Sorry I'm late. I got caught at the bridge.”

I understand why things have to change.

I just don't think we have to pretend I like it.