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

<RULE> 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> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Coast Guard is modifying 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. This modification will allow the drawbridges to operate in concert while assisting local communities with vehicle congestion during peak weekday traffic hours. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective March 31, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> To view documents mentioned in this preamble as being available in the docket, go to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Type the docket number (USCG-2023-0601) in the “SEARCH” box and click “SEARCH”. In the Document Type column, select “Supporting & Related Material.” <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> If you have questions on this 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">OMB Office of Management and Budget</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">§ Section </FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">U.S.C. United States Code</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1"> SR State Route </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 Information and Regulatory History</HD> On July 31, 2023, the Coast Guard published a notice of 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 address in the notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) discussed next. 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 were addressed in the Supplemental Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (SNPRM) discussed next. On November 6, 2024, we published a SNPRM entitled “Drawbridge Operation Regulation; Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, West Palm Beach, FL” in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (89 FR 87990). During the comment period that ended December 6, 2024, we received five comments, and those comments are addressed in Section IV of this Final Rule. Under 5 U.S.C. 553(d)(3), the Coast Guard finds that good cause exists for making this rule effective less than 30 days after publication in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . The drawbridges have been operating under a temporary deviation that is set to expire March 31, 2025. Delaying the effective date of the rule would be impracticable and contrary to the public interest as the drawbridges would be required to revert to operating schedules that do not meet the reasonable needs of all modes of transportation and would have a negative impact on roadway traffic. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Legal Authority and Need for Rule</HD> The Coast Guard is issuing this rule under authority 33 U.S.C. 499. The Flagler Memorial (State Route (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 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 has modified the drawbridge schedules to allow openings once an hour during designated times on weekdays. The drawbridges will open twice an hour at all other times or as outlined in each drawbridge operating regulation. <HD SOURCE="HD1">IV. Discussion of Comments, Changes and the Final Rule</HD> The Coast Guard provided a comment period of 30 days, and five comments were received. The first comment asked if there would be a change in vessel traffic and if so, would the vessels need to “park”. Also, would this cause additional environmental impacts. The Coast Guard feels the regulation change will not require vessels to “park” or moor or anchor in nautical terms. Vessels may have to adjust speed through the water to meet the new opening times or they may choose to temporarily anchor or moor at a facility. The Coast Guard states this drawbridge operation regulation action is one of a category of actions that do not individually or cumulatively have a significant effect on the human environment. The Marine Industries Association of Palm Beach County, Inc. expressed concern with reduced drawbridge openings during the Palm Beach International Boat Show. They have requested to be notified as soon as possible to any changes to drawbridge operations and consider input from marine interest on how changes may affect the flow of vessel traffic during the boat show. The Coast Guard will notify and work with marine interests during the boat show and any event that may increase vessel traffic and may require special consideration to waterway traffic to ensure the safety of navigation. The third commentor suggested an alternate opening schedule for what they considered the main bridge, the Royal Park Bridge. They stated that having it open on the three-quarter hour will continue his delay into work and suggested the Royal Park Bridge open on the half-hour, quarter hour, or not open from 7:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. The other two bridges, Flagler Memorial and Southern Blvd. Bridges can open one half-hour opposite the Royal Park Bridge. The SNPRM did propose to change the opening time for the Royal Park Bridge from the three-quarter hour to the half-hour and the other two bridges open on the quarter hour given their distance to the Royal Park Bridge. The fourth commentor suggested the three bridges should not open more than once an hour at all times unless instructed by the Coast Guard for official business. 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 only hourly openings at all times would not meet the reasonable needs of navigation and is contrary to our responsibility. The last comment received wanted more information on how the proposal would affect vessels during the proposed time changes. The commentor stated that some members of the community have stated that vessels should have more access to the waterway not the proposed less. They feel the changes that might need to be made should come from multiple forms so that no one group is overly affected by the impact of the new rule. The Coast Guard has published a temporary test deviation, NPRM, and SNPRM all with a request for comments from the public. In total we received 1,687 comments on the proposed rule from multiple sources. The Coast Guard feels ample opportunity was provided during the comment periods for different entities to provide input on the proposed rule. This rule modifies the operating schedule of the Flagler Memorial, Royal Park, and Southern Blvd. Bridges by allowing the bridges to open once an hour verses twice an hour during designated peak traffic times. The bridges will continue to open twice an hour outside of those designated peak traffic times as outlined in their respective operating regulation. <HD SOURCE="HD1">V. Regulatory Analyses</HD> We developed this rule after considering numerous statutes and Executive Orders related to rulemaking. Below we summarize our analyses based on a number of 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 rule has not been designated a “significant regulato ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 18k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━