Drawbridge Operation Regulation; Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway; West Palm Beach, FL

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>Coast Guard</SUBAGY> <CFR>33 CFR Part 117</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. USCG-2023-0601]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1625-AA09</RIN> <SUBJECT>Drawbridge Operation Regulation; Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway; West Palm Beach, FL</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Coast Guard, DHS. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Coast Guard proposes to modify the operating schedule that governs the Flagler Memorial (SR A1A) Bridge, mile 1021.8, the Royal Park (SR 704) Bridge, mile 1022.6, and the Southern Boulevard (SR 700/80) Bridge, mile 1024.7, across Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway (AICW), at West Palm Beach, FL. Palm Beach County and the communities surrounding the bridges have requested the Coast Guard consider placing additional weekday restrictions during peak traffic hours to assist with alleviating vehicle congestion. This proposed modification will allow the drawbridges to operate in concert and determine whether a permanent change to the schedules is needed. We invite your comments on this proposed rulemaking. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments and related material must reach the Coast Guard on or before December 6, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments identified by docket number USCG-2023-0601 using Federal Decision Making Portal at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> See the “Public Participation and Request for Comments” portion of the <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION</E> section below for instructions on submitting comments. This notice of proposed rulemaking with its plain-language, 100-word-or-less proposed rule summary will be available in this same docket. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> If you have questions on this supplemental proposed rule, call or email Ms. Jennifer Zercher, Bridge Management Specialist, Seventh Coast Guard District; telephone (571) 607-5951, email <E T="03">Jennifer.N.Zercher@uscg.mil.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Table of Abbreviations </HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">CFR Code of Federal Regulations</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">DHS Department of Homeland Security</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">FR Federal Register</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">NPRM Notice of proposed rulemaking</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">SNPRM Supplemental Notice of Proposed Rulemaking</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">ANPRM Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">Pub. L. Public Law</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">§ Section </FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">U.S.C. United States Code</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">TD Temporary Deviation</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">AICW Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">FDOT Florida Department of Transportation</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background, Purpose and Legal Basis</HD> On July 31, 2023, the Coast Guard published a temporary deviation entitled “Drawbridge Operation Regulation; Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, West Palm Beach, FL” in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (88 FR 49287). The comment period ended September 29, 2023, with 529 comments received. Those comments were addressed in the NPRM. On May 20, 2024, we published a NPRM entitled “Drawbridge Operation Regulation; Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, West Palm Beach, FL” in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (89 FR 43797). The comment period ended June 20, 2024, with 1,153 comments received. Those comments will be addressed in section III. The Flagler Memorial (SR A1A) Bridge, across the AICW, mile 1021.8, at West Palm Beach, FL is a double-leaf bascule bridge with a 24-foot vertical clearance at mean high water in the closed position. The normal operating schedule is set forth in 33 CFR 117.261(u). The Royal Park (SR 704) Bridge, across the AICW, mile 1022.6, at West Palm Beach, FL is a double-leaf bascule bridge with a 21-foot vertical clearance at mean high water in the closed position. The normal operating schedule is set forth in 33 CFR 117.261(v). The Southern Boulevard (SR 700/80) Bridge, across the AICW, mile 1024.7, at West Palm Beach, FL is a double-leaf bascule bridge with a 25-foot vertical clearance at mean high water in the closed position. The normal operating schedule is set forth in 33 CFR 117.261(w). Palm Beach County and the communities surrounding the bridges have requested the Coast Guard consider placing additional weekday restrictions during peak traffic hours to assist with alleviating vehicle congestion. Vehicle traffic across these bridges is exceeding the roadway capacity during certain times of the day. The Coast Guard is proposing to limit drawbridge openings during high vehicle traffic times to assist with vehicle congestion while requesting state and local agencies consider alternate mitigation measures to improve traffic flow and roadway congestion. The drawbridges will open twice an hour at all other times or as outlined in each drawbridge operating regulation. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Discussion of Comments and Change</HD> Many of the comments received from the NPRM were similar to comments received during the temporary deviation. A total of 811 comments supported the proposed changes and included generic comments, such as “I support” or “I support this initiative.” The second highest group included 150 commentors who proposed alternate operating schedules. Those proposed alternate schedules included not opening during rush hour, only open once an hour always and changing the morning and afternoon rush hour times to various other intervals. The designated times included in the rule proposal to allow the drawbridge to open on the hour during rush hour was previously determined by local authorities. The Coast Guard feels that a modification to those time periods is not necessary because the blocks of time presented have been determined to be the best use of hourly openings. To allow the drawbridge to remain closed to navigation during the designated times or to only open once an hour always would result in an unreasonable obstruction to navigation on this waterway. The AICW is a Federal Project Waterway extending over 1,500 miles from Boston to Florida Bay. It is the main waterway artery for all recreational and commercial traffic that are unable to safely transit offshore. The Coast Guard has the responsibility to ensure reasonable access to this waterway is maintained. Allowing the bridges to remain closed to navigation or open only once an hour always would be contrary to our responsibility. We received 137 comments that were either outside the scope of the NPRM and/or did not provide an opinion on the proposed rule. Instead, the comments discussed adjacent drawbridges and school zones in the area. A total of 23 comments were against the proposed changes. Most felt that no change was needed as marine traffic was already placed on scheduled openings. The Coast Guard recognizes that vehicle traffic in the area appears to exceed roadway capacity, causing vehicle congestion. Placing additional weekday restrictions during peak traffic hours should assist with alleviating vehicle congestion. Other commentors stated that further limiting openings for marine traffic would cause longer delays when the bridge opened. Their concern was that more vessels would be waiting which in turn would increase the overall opening time. This action can be an unintended consequence of placing drawbridges on scheduled openings. The last concern was the proposed change would have an impact on charter and catamaran businesses in the area. The Coast Guard feels that the limited time the bridge will open once an hour will meet the reasonable needs of navigation. Lastly, 32 comments were duplicates and not considered actionable. It was discovered the Royal Park (SR 704) Bridge proposed schedule change conflicted with the operating schedule when the Mar-a-Lago Security Zone was being enforced. An explanation of the change is provided in the below section. <HD SOURCE="HD1">IV. Discussion of Proposed Rule</HD> In the NPRM we proposed to modify the drawbridge operating schedules for the three bridges to allow once an hour openings Monday through Friday, from 7:30 a.m. to 9 a.m. and from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. However, the proposed change for the Royal Park (SR 704) Bridge shifted the hourly opening from the half hour to the three-quarter hour. This shift did not take into consideration the alternate operating schedule authorized for the bridge when the Mar-a-Lago Security Zone is being enforced. We are proposing the Royal Park (SR 704) Bridge be placed back on the half hour opening schedule with no changes to the proposed operating schedules for the Flagler Memorial (SR A1A) and Southern Boulevard (SR 80) Bridges. Additionally, the operating schedules for Flagler Memorial (SR A1A) and Royal Park (SR 704) Bridges during the enforcement of the Mar-a-Lago Security Zone has been updated to show the proposed rule change. <HD SOURCE="HD1">V. Regulatory Analyses</HD> We developed this proposed rule after considering numerous statutes and Executive Orders related to rulemaking. Below we summarize our analyses based on these statutes and Executive Orders. <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Regulatory Planning and Review</HD> Executive Orders 12866 and 13563 direct agencies to assess the costs and benefits of available regulatory alternatives and, if regulation is necessary, to select regulatory approaches that maximize net benefits. This proposed rule has not been designated a “significant regulatory action,” under section 3(f) of Executive Order 12866, as amended by Executive Order 14094 (Modernizing Regulatory Review). Accordingly, the NPRM has not been reviewed by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). This regulatory action determination is based on the ability that vesse ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 20k characters. 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