Drawbridge Operation Regulation; Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, Fort Lauderdale, FL

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>Coast Guard</SUBAGY> <CFR>33 CFR Part 117</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. [USCG-2025-0464]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1625-AA09</RIN> <SUBJECT>Drawbridge Operation Regulation; Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, Fort Lauderdale, 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 changing the operating schedule that governs the SE 17th Street (Brooks Memorial) Bridge, across the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway (AICW), mile 1065.9, at Fort Lauderdale, FL. This action will assist with vehicle congestion during weekday rush hour periods by limiting drawbridge openings. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective February 19, 2026. </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-2025-0464) 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, Southeast 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">§ Section </FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">U.S.C. United States Code</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">FL Florida</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">TD Temporary Deviation</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">AICW Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background Information and Regulatory History</HD> On June 16, 2025, the Coast Guard published a Notice of temporary deviation from regulations; with a request for comments, entitled “Drawbridge Operation Regulation; Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, Fort Lauderdale, FL” in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (90 FR 25148), to test this operating schedule for the SE 17th Street (Brooks Memorial) Bridge. During the comment period that ended July 31, 2025, we received 157 comments, and those comments are addressed in Section IV of this Final Rule. On July 24, 2025, the Coast Guard published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking entitled “Drawbridge Operation Regulation; Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, Fort Lauderdale, FL” in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (90 FR 34778). There we stated why we issued the NPRM and invited comments on our proposed regulatory action related to this regulatory change. During the comment period that ended August 25, 2025, we received four comments, and those comments are addressed in Section IV of this Final Rule. <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. SE 17th Street (Brooks Memorial) Bridge across the AICW, mile 1065.9, at Fort Lauderdale, FL, is a bascule bridge with a 55-foot vertical clearance at mean high water in the closed position. The normal operating schedule for the bridge is set forth in 33 CFR 117.261(bb)(8). The City of Fort Lauderdale requested the Coast Guard consider additional opening restrictions during weekday rush hour periods to assist with vehicle congestion. The drawbridge currently opens twice an hour for navigation. This change adds additional opening restrictions during weekday rush hour periods. <HD SOURCE="HD1">IV. Discussion of Comments, Changes and the Final Rule</HD> The Coast Guard provided a 45-day and 30-day comment period during the temporary deviation and NPRM and received a total of 161 comments. Most of the comments, 145, were in favor of the proposed change. The majority of commentors in favor of the proposed changes, feel over development and the proximity of the convention center are major aggravating factors in vehicle congestion as little to no improvements to roadway infrastructure are occurring. They state when the drawbridge opens during rush hour, it exacerbates vehicle congestion. Additional concern was raised for seasonal traffic and drawbridge operations. South Florida has a temporary increase in population from September through May. The proposed changes will assist with vehicle congestion during rush hour, however, improvements to roadway infrastructure should be considered by state and local agencies. There were four duplicate comments and two comments that were outside the scope of the proposed rule. Two comments were against the proposed rule stating they feel the drawbridge should remain on its current opening schedule and that due to other factors surrounding the drawbridge further restrictions should not be imposed. This will be addressed in the following paragraph. Alternate operating schedules were suggested by eight commentors. The alternate schedules included having the drawbridge open only once an hour, daily, allowing the drawbridge to remain in the down/closed position during the designated rush hour times and extend designated rush hour times. The AICW is a Federal Project Waterway that extends over 1,500 miles from Boston to Florida Bay. It is the main waterway artery for all commercial and recreational marine traffic that are unable to safely transit offshore. While not always convenient, land traffic has multiple alternate routes to cross the AICW. The Coast Guard has established a fixed security zone within Port Everglades. This restricts vessel movements within the vicinity of the drawbridge and the ability to allow vessels to safely pass is necessary. This area has strong currents which make it challenging for larger vessels to maintain steerage while waiting for the drawbridge to open. The Coast Guard is not currently imposing further restrictions beyond the proposed rule for the reasons stated above. The current operating schedule allows the SE 17th Street (Brooks Memorial) Bridge to open at the top and bottom of each hour. Under this rule, the bridge will continue to open at the top and bottom of each hour, except that on weekdays, the bridge will open only at the top of the hour from 6:50 a.m. to 9:10 a.m. and from 3:50 p.m. to 6:10 p.m. At all other times the bridge will open at the top and bottom of each hour. Vessels that can pass beneath the bridge without an opening may do so at any time. Vessels exempted from specific requirements can still request an opening any time. This rule changes the specific requirements for the SE 17th Street (Brooks Memorial) Bridge at Fort Lauderdale, FL. Additionally, this rule will republish § 117.261 to reorganize the paragraph structure to follow current regulatory drafting requirements. <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. Impact on Small Entities</HD> The Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980, 5 U.S.C. 601-612, as amended, requires federal agencies to consider the potential impact of regulations on small entities during rulemaking. The term “small entities” comprises small businesses, not-for-profit organizations that are independently owned and operated and are not dominant in their fields, and governmental jurisdictions with populations of less than 50,000. The Coast Guard received zero comments from the Small Business Administration on this rule. The Coast Guard certifies under 5 U.S.C. 605(b) that this rule will not have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities for the following reasons. This regulatory action determination is based on the ability that vessels can still transit the bridge during the scheduled times and vessels able to pass without an opening may do so at any time. Under section 213(a) of the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 1996 (Pub. L. 104-121), we want to assist small entities in understanding this rule. If the rule will affect your small business, organization, or governmental jurisdiction and you have questions concerning its provisions or options for compliance, please contact the person listed in the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section. Small businesses may send comments on the actions of Federal employees who enforce, or otherwise determine compliance with, Federal regulations to the Small Business and Agriculture Regulatory Enforcement Ombudsman and the Regional Small Business Regulatory Fairness Boards. The Ombudsman evaluates these actions annually and rates each agency's responsiveness to small business. If you wish to comment on actions by employees of the Coast Guard, call 1-888-REG-FAIR (1-888-734-3247). The Coast Guard will not retaliate against small entities that question or complain about this rule or any policy or action of the Coast Guard. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Collection of Information</HD> This rule calls for no new collection of information under the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. 3501-3520). <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. Federalism and Indian Tribal Government</HD> A rule has implications for federalism under Executive Order 13132, Federalism, if it has a substantial direct effect on the States, on the relationship between the National Government and the States, or on the distribution of power and responsibilities among the various levels of government. We have analyzed this rule under that Order and have determined that ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 21k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━