Wooden bridge plan is a winner

Fresh from a not-so-steady crossing of Moccasin Creek, Oldsmar officials vote 3-2 to build a permanent bridge as part of the future Oldsmar Trail.

By ED QUIOCO

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 27, 2000

OLDSMAR -- It could have been the scraps of lumber that neighborhood children used to bridge the little-known creek.

It could have been the way the rickety passageway disappeared at high tide.

Whichever, the makeshift bridge over Moccasin Creek clearly did not impress City Council members when they came across it this month. So when the council spent three hours Monday night talking about its proposed city budget, members spent more time discussing whether to put a bridge over Moccasin Creek than any other issue.

Council members got a firsthand look at the existing bridge -- actually several pieces of wood thrown into shallow water -- during their July 8 hike along what will one day be the Oldsmar Trail.

One at a time, they gingerly walked across the planks, which tended to dip beneath the water's surface and tilt precariously when stepped on.

"At low tide, it's a fine bridge," Mayor Jeff Sandler quipped.

With the memory of that crossing still fresh, council members voted 3-2 to build a new permanent bridge as one link in the Oldsmar Trail. Plans call for the trail to run along the southern end of the city and connect R.E. Olds Park, Sheffield Park, Harbor Palms Nature Park and Canal Park. Moccasin Creek runs on the west side of Forest Lakes Boulevard behind the Village at Old Tampa Bay apartments and the Eastlake Oaks subdivision.

Parks and Recreation director Lynn Rives told council members it could cost about $20,000 to build a pedestrian bridge. That sounded extravagant to some council members.

"Could we build a small wooden bridge there without making it a monument?" council member Ed Manny asked. "Why can't we send a couple of guys out there with 2 by 4s?"

Sandler and council member Ed Richards voted against the proposal. Sandler said he didn't oppose building a bridge, but thought the city needed to do more planning for the Oldsmar Trail, which has not been developed despite being on the books for years.

"If you build it, they will not come because they do not know it's there," Sandler said. "To me, I'm not prepared to spend $20,000 to put in a bridge that for one reason or another may essentially be a bridge which stands there with a small number of people ever using or even knowing about it."

Without a permanent bridge, the creek will continue to be a dead end for two small trails that could one day be part of the Oldsmar Trail. One of the small trails is a dirt walkway behind the Village at Old Tampa Bay complex. The other, of which a portion is paved, runs behind the Eastlake Oaks subdivision.

The trails are mostly used by residents of the two housing developments, council members said.

On the Saturday morning of the City Council's hike, Jim and Stacey Koutrodimos were walking and pushing a stroller with their 8-month-old son, Peter. They didn't mention the bridge specifically but welcomed any improvements the city wants to make to the trail.

"The development backs right up to this trail," Jim Koutrodimos said. "Everybody in the neighborhood uses it."

Council member David Tilki, who brought up the issue of building a bridge, said he just wants to give the people who already use the trails a better way to cross the creek.

Sandler said that if the city were to build a bridge, it should get input from the residents who live near the walkways and make improvements to the trails so that more people could use them.

"I think we need to look at it in terms of the entire scope of the project rather than just putting in a bridge," Sandler said. "Other than some vague long-range plan to create this trail, we have never really talked about things like how much it would cost us to do it.

"These are concerns that I have that lead me to believe that while the project is a wonderful idea, we really haven't begun to deal with some of the major issues of how we are going to make it work."

- Times staff writer Richard Danielson contributed to this report. Ed Quioco can be reached at (727) 445-4183 or quioco@sptimes.com.

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