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Transportation
Bridging the Divide
 THE NARROW SHANDS: The two-lane Shands Bridge was built in 1963. |
In a region where seemingly all major roads lead to Jacksonville, the Shands Bridge is something of an exception -- a narrow, two-lane span across the St. Johns River that joins Clay and St. Johns counties. As the population of both counties has exploded, however, Shands has become an increasingly obsolete link in the transportation chain.
Politicians and business leaders in both counties have long believed a multilane bridge -- one that, unlike the Shands, ties into the region's principal highways -- would spur commerce between the two suburban counties. It's something transportation planners envisioned some 20 years ago when they first incorporated a new bridge into the state's long-range plan.
As plans for the span are being finalized, however, opposition is building on both sides of the river. In the last two decades, dozens of subdivisions have sprouted in the pine forests of St. Johns County that state officials have pegged for the bridge. And on the Clay County side, environmentalists have been fighting plans to have the bridge and its arteries dump into the largely pristine wetlands that surround Black Creek.
State transportation officials recently held a series of public hearings at which they unveiled four possible routes for a new bridge. While many homeowners and environmentalists seemed to warm to the idea of a new bridge that would parallel -- and eventually replace -- the existing Shands, many business and political leaders favored options that put the bridge farther north and closer to both counties' population centers.
State officials say they'll announce a preferred route in early 2007.
