Drawbridge Operation Regulation; Manitowoc River, Manitowoc, WI

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>Coast Guard</SUBAGY> <CFR>33 CFR Part 117</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. USCG-2024-0407]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Drawbridge Operation Regulation; Manitowoc River, Manitowoc, WI</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Coast Guard, DHS. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Temporary Interim Rule; request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Coast Guard is issuing a temporary interim rule from the operating schedule that governs the Eighth Street Bridge, mile 0.29 and the Tenth Street Bridge, mile 0.43, over the Manitowoc River, in the town of Manitowoc, Wisconsin. The City of Manitowoc has requested a full review of the current bridge regulations to alleviate vehicle congestion in downtown Manitowoc. The Coast Guard is seeking comments from the public regarding this deviation and specifically on whether we should make this drawbridge operation schedule permanent. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Effective May 22, 2025, 33 CFR 117.1089(a) is stayed until November 30, 2025. The revision of 33 CFR 117.1089(b) in this rule is also effective from May 22, 2025, until November 30, 2025. Comments and related material must reach the Coast Guard on or before July 31, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments and 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-2024-0407) 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 test deviation, call or email Mr. Lee D. Soule, Bridge Management Specialist, Ninth Coast Guard District; telephone 216-902-6085, email <E T="03">Lee.D.Soule@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">IGLD85 International Great Lakes Datum of 1985</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">LWD Low Water Datum based on IGLD85</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">NPRM Notice of proposed rulemaking</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">Pub. L. Public Law</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">SNPRM Supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">S.S. Steam Powered Ship</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">§ Section </FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">U.S.C. United States Code </FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">WISDOT Wisconsin Department of Transportation</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background Information and Regulatory History</HD> The Manitowoc River is 35.8 miles long and flows into Lake Michigan at the town of Manitowoc, Wisconsin. Large commercial vessels, along with powered and unpowered recreational vessels, use the navigable portion of the river that extends from the mouth of the river to the head of navigation at mile 2.33. There are two movable bridges over the river. The Eighth Street Bridge, mile 0.29 is a double leaf bascule bridge that provides a horizontal clearance of 120 feet and a vertical clearance of 12 feet above LWD in the closed position and an unlimited clearance in the open position. The Tenth Street Bridge, mile 0.43, is a double leaf bascule bridge that provides a horizontal clearance of 120 feet and a vertical clearance of 14 feet above LWD in the closed position and an unlimited clearance in the open position. Both bridges over the Manitowoc River have operated under a special regulation (33 CFR 117.1089) since 1920, with the last modernization to the regulation occurring in 1955. Since the last review, there have been several important changes to commerce on the river. Specifically, the Wisconsin Central Railroad Bascule Bridge and the Wisconsin Central Railroad Swing Bridge that previously crossed the river have been removed in their entirety. Additionally, the three ferries operated by railroad companies have stopped servicing Manitowoc, Wisconsin. The Coast Guard is issuing this temporary interim rule without prior notice and opportunity to comment pursuant to authority under 5 U.S.C. 553(b). This provision authorizes an agency to issue a rule without prior notice and opportunity to comment when the agency for good cause finds that those procedures are “impracticable, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest.” Under 5 U.S.C. 553(b), the Coast Guard finds that good cause exists for not publishing a notice of proposed rulemaking with respect to this rule because it is contrary to the public interest to delay the issuance of the rule and the beneficial impacts it provides to the local community and users of the waterway. The bridge is currently only required to remain closed to navigation for short 10-minute periods during commuting hours causing high vehicle congestion. This temporary operating schedule adjusts the designated drawbridge opening times to assist with vehicle congestion. We lack sufficient time to issue a proposed rule and consider comments prior to needing to begin the temporary deviation to the operating schedule. Also, 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> . Delaying the effective date of this rule would be impracticable because action is needed to respond to change in drawbridge schedule starting on May 22, 2025. The Coast Guard is soliciting comments on this temporary interim rule. If the Coast Guard determines that changes to the temporary interim rule are necessary, we will publish a temporary final rule or other appropriate document. If the Coast Guard determines that no changes are necessary to the schedule provided in this rule, we may finalize the operating schedule as permanent upon completion of the approved deviation. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Legal Authority and Need for Rule</HD> The Coast Guard is issuing this rule under authority in 33 U.S.C. 499. Public concern that vehicles unloaded from the ferry, the S.S. Badger, brought to downtown Manitowoc from Ludington, Michigan were causing vehicle traffic congestion at the Eighth Street Bridge, mile 0.29 and the Tenth Street Bridge, mile 0.43, prompted the City of Manitowoc, Wisconsin, to request special bridge hours when the S.S. Badger unloads vehicles. After a formal inquiry into the operations of the S.S. Badger, it was determined that their slow loading and offloading process did not cause vehicle congestion to downtown Manitowoc. Thus, to improve the flow of vehicles across the city, WisDOT, in cooperation with the City of Manitowoc, completed studies to make roadway improvements. The studies indicated that a combined 20,600 vehicles cross over the Eighth Street Bridge, mile 0.29 and the Tenth Street Bridge, mile 0.43, daily. Proposed solutions to traffic congestion include instituting one-way traffic on each bridge to facilitate efficient traffic flows. To further ease vehicle congestion, the state of Wisconsin has designed a roundabout to the north and south of the bridges to alleviate vehicles sitting at traffic lights or stop signs. This will help create a better flow of vehicles rather than several small surges of vehicles trying to cross the bridges. In order to try to minimize traffic congestion in downtown Manitowoc and to meet the reasonable needs of navigation, the Coast Guard will be authorizing a TIR for the Eighth Street Bridge, mile 0.29 and the Tenth Street Bridge, mile 0.43, to allow the public to test the proposed regulation and comment on its effectiveness. After reviewing drawtender logs for each of the two bridges, we discovered each bridge opens over 500 times annually, and most openings occur between May and October of each year. Of the total openings, approximately 237 openings were done to accommodate recreational vessels, and 263 openings were done to accommodate commercial vessels. This data provides a roughly equal balance of openings between the primary vessel types (recreational and commercial). Currently, the regulations provide that, from April 1 through October 31, the bridges provide two 10-minute periods (6:50 a.m. to 7 a.m., and 7:50 a.m. to 8 a.m.) and two 15-minute periods (11:55 a.m. to 12:10 p.m., and 12:45 p.m. to 1 p.m.) each day, during which the bridge need not open, to alleviate vehicle congestion at the bridges. The regulations also include a 6-hour advance notice required for openings during a 6-hour period between 10:30 p.m. to 4:30 a.m. The current regulation was drafted by the railroads and approved by the United States Department of War one hundred and four years ago. The regulation was groundbreaking when it was first conceived, but by modern standards, operations of the bridge are cumbersome, as the existing regulation does not account for the increase in population. It is also outdated by the loss of the original railroads. Four short periods to allow vehicles to cross the bridges is an antiquated process that does not meet the current need of land transportation. We reviewed the hourly vehicular traffic logs from the city and discovered each bridge handles over 10,500 cars daily with three hours that peak for vehicle crossings. The three periods are in the morning while people are traveling to work, mid-day when people are traveling for lunch, and evening when people tend to leave work for home. The vehicle counts provided by the city show 1610 vehicles on average cross the bridges in the morning rush hour from 7 a.m. to 8 a.m., 2370 vehicles cross the bridge a from 11 a.m. to noon, and 2855 vehicles cross the bridges from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. These three rush-hours combined for both bridges would facilitate 6835 vehicles throughout downtown. <HD SOURCE ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 22k characters. 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