How Sarasota-Manatee traffic has changed since before the pandemic

Traffic on Sarasota-Manatee roads has been on a steady rise since 2020 and in some areas, it has surged, state transportation data shows.

The population of the Sarasota-Manatee area has increased significantly over the last few years, leading to more drivers on the region’s main transportation corridors.

Using Florida Department of Transportation data, the Herald-Tribune identified the busiest sections of road in Sarasota County and Manatee County, excluding Interstate 75, and looked at how traffic there has changed since before the COVID-19 pandemic. On many of those sections, the traffic volume decreased in 2020 – the year the pandemic hit – and has increased since then.

What were Sarasota County's busiest road sections in 2022?

The busiest road segment in Sarasota County in 2022 was University Parkway from the eastern part of the I-75 interchange to the North Honore Avenue intersection, where the booming University Town Center shopping complex is located. The segment had an annual average daily traffic (AADT) of 61,500. The AADT is the total volume of traffic on a road in a year, divided by 365 days.

The second busiest segment is a tie between University Parkway from Honore to Lockwood Ridge Road and Fruitville Road from Honore to just east of I-75. The next busiest sections include U.S. 41 from the U.S. 301 split to Webber Street in Sarasota; Fruitville Road from Honore to Beneva Road; and U.S. 41 from the Venice Bypass to State Road 776.

What were Manatee County's busiest road sections in 2022?

The busiest road section in Manatee County in 2022 was State Road 70 from I-75 to Fairway Gardens Drive, near the Zaxby’s. It had an AADT of 73,000. The second busiest segment is Interstate 275 from where it merges with U.S. 19 to the start of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. The bridge allows people living in St. Petersburg to commute to the Sarasota-Manatee area and vice versa.

Other heavily traveled sections in Manatee County include U.S. 41 from 6th Avenue to the CSX Railroad crossing; U.S. 41 from 10th Street East in Palmetto to Manatee Avenue in Bradenton (that segment includes the DeSoto Bridge); U.S. 41 from Manatee to 6th Avenue; and I-275 from U.S. 41 to just east of the 36th Avenue East overpass.

Dave Hutchinson, executive director of the Sarasota/Manatee MPO, said that much of the region’s growth is outside of the urban areas, resulting in more travel time. The MPO is the regional transportation planning organization for Sarasota and Manatee counties.

“Lots of our population remains what has been called ‘sprawl,’ or it remains spread out over relatively large areas,” he said.

How did traffic on those segments change since before the pandemic?

Many of the busiest segments in the two counties saw a drop in traffic volume in 2020, which coincided with the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The entire state was under a stay-at-home order for a little over a month that year. Even afterward, many people spent more time at home than they normally would, working remotely and ordering take-out food.

Generally, the traffic volume on these segments rose from 2020 to 2022. For seven of the 12 busiest segments, the AADT has surpassed what it was in 2019.

There are, of course, exceptions. Three sections of U.S. 41 in the Bradenton-Palmetto area, for example, each had a lower volume of traffic in 2022 than in 2021.

Lashaun McDowell-Esaw, a Sarasota resident, said she watched traffic change in the Sarasota-Manatee area in real time. As a nurse, she had to drive to work even at the beginning of the pandemic.

“It was nice to have no traffic on the road during the pandemic, when only essential workers could be out,” said McDowell-Esaw, who was also studying to become a nurse practitioner at the time. Her daily commute decreased by about 20 minutes.

The traffic gradually picked up, she said.

“You got see the traffic getting busier and busier,” she said. “And by the time 2022 came around, it was like, ‘Woops, nothing ever happened.’”

What does this data mean?

The Sarasota/Manatee MPO's Hutchinson said the 2022 data shows that the local economy remains strong and people continue to want to move here. Sarasota and Manatee counties grew by a collective 53,611 people from July 2020 to July 2022, according to U.S. Census Bureau population estimates.

Ryan Brown, planning manager for the MPO, said that the areas of Sarasota-Manatee where housing is affordable tend to not be “where the jobs are.” This makes people to have to drive longer distances to work, which puts strain on the region’s transportation system. Some of the more affordable places to live in the region are Parrish, southern Hillsborough County and North Port.

Another trend the MPO staff members cited is the growth of east-west traffic in the region. Traditionally, most of the traffic in the area has been in the north-south direction, as that includes motorists driving on I-75. Now, east-west roads like State Road 70 and University Parkway – which serve Lakewood Ranch – are seeing substantial increases in traffic volume.

Lakewood Ranch is the second fastest-selling master-planned community in the country – a collective 4,420 home sites there were sold to builders in 2021 and 2022, according to real estate consulting firm RCLCO.

The MPO staff said more traffic is headed east-west than a decade ago, because more people live in the eastern areas now. Many of the region’s restaurant and activity options remain in downtown Sarasota and along U.S. 41, so residents drive west to reach those attractions.

What are transportation officials doing about the growth in traffic?

The Sarasota/Manatee MPO is about to start working on an update to its congestion management plan, which is a process it goes through every few years. Officials will determine which roads in the region are the most reliable and which are the least. Brown said the locations that are experiencing "extreme unreliability" may need intersection improvements or other changes.

Brown said that historically, people thought the best way to manage congestion was to build new roads and widen existing ones. But now, transportation planners like to take a more multi-faceted approach to addressing congestion. That includes strategies like changing the timing of traffic signals and using adaptive signals, which use artificial intelligence to learn traffic patterns.

Don DeBerry of Sarasota County’s public works department said the county plans to use money from the newly approved surtax on numerous transportation projects. Some examples include improving the intersection of Clark Road and McIntosh Road and widening Fruitville Road from Debrecen Road to Lorraine Road, which is in growing eastern Sarasota County. Sarasota County is planning to spend over $111 million on transportation-related capital improvement projects in fiscal year 2024, according to the county's preliminary financial plan.

Manatee County is also planning to update numerous roadways, including widening Moccasin Wallow and Fort Hamer roads, which run through the rapidly growing Parrish area. Fort Hamer has been extended northward, which allows residents of northeastern Manatee County to more easily access Lakewood Ranch without having to drive to I-75.

The county's Capital Improvement Plan for the next five years, which hasn't been approved yet, includes about $116 million for intersections and $918 million for road improvements.

Brown said some two-lane roads in high-growth parts of the region weren't designed to handle the current volume of traffic, which means they have to be resurfaced more frequently. He noted that developers can build homes more quickly than local governments can build new roads and widen existing ones.

Brown and Hutchinson said that land use decisions play an important role in alleviating traffic. One example is creating a grid system for a master-planned community, so there are numerous north-south and west-east routes in the area.

"If there's only one or two ways out of a 5,000-home neighborhood, you're going to find yourselves with a lot of congestion," Brown said.

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: How Sarasota and Manatee traffic has grown from pre-pandemic levels