Tom's Life Bits

The Legacy Trail pedestrian overpass will include an aesthetically pleasing design and will embrace the City of Venice Northern Italian architectural theme. The color was chosen to match the bridge tender house at Hatchett Creek Bridge.

Bikers, hikers and joggers who use the Legacy Trail face a treacherous crossing of multi-lane U.S. 41 near Bird Bay if they want to follow the full length of the pedestrian pathway. Related Links:

• Map: Legacy Trail detour during overpass construction | Graphics

But that hazardous trek will be made far safer and more scenic next year when a $3.1 million pedestrian overpass gets built to carry them over U.S. 41.

Legacy Trail users will be detoured from the southern end of the trail until next summer as work begins Monday on the overpass in Venice.

Coupled with two recently completed trestle bridges over Dona and Roberts bays, the Venetian-styled, 12-foot-wide overpass will allow trail users to bike and run from McIntosh Road for about 11 miles to the Venice Train Depot without having to worry about dodging vehicles on major roads.

Federal stimulus dollars bumped the project up about 10 years and will give Venice one of the few highway overpasses for pedestrians in Southwest Florida.

“It's iconic,” said County Commissioner Jon Thaxton. “You're going to see it as a significant feature of the trail.”

When the county and other government agencies started building the Legacy Trail in 2004, the trestle bridges were scheduled about 10 years out and the overpass was one of the last features planned.

The trail's popularity prompted the commission to bump up the timetable for the trestle bridges, which were completed earlier this year. With scenic bay vistas and overlooks so people can stop and take in the views, they have become among the most popular features of the trail.

The U.S. 41 overpass was so long-range, it was not on any capital improvement lists, Thaxton said. When the state was looking for shovel-ready projects to fund with federal stimulus dollars, the county submitted the overpass project.

“We gave it a shot and hit a home run,” said Thaxton.

The design, bidding and permit process, which can move at a glacial pace when involving multiple local, state and federal agencies, took only about six months.

When the Florida Department of Transportation redesigned the recently completed U.S. 41 Bypass near Venice, county officials asked that it be built to accommodate the overpass.

The county already owned the rights-of-way on both sides of the planned overpass, so all the pieces came together, Thaxton said.

But during construction, drivers and trail users will have to make some detours.

Drivers can expect temporary lane closures on U.S. 41, and park users will not be able to access the trail from the Venice Train Depot to Colonia Lane East until the bridge is finished next summer.

Other improvements are also in the works, including a Legacy Trail Park next to the train depot, paid for by the city of Venice and the county, and two trailheads on the northern end.

Yellow-vested “Friends of Legacy Park” volunteers now routinely patrol the trail, which had about 118,000 visitors last year.