Boat Traffic Infrastructure

Navigation (especially for deeper draft boats) is confined to dredged channels given the shallowness of the bay. Channels have been dredged along the shores of Sarasota Bay in the last few decades specifically to provide boat access, but many more canals and basins have been dredged originally as borrow pits for shorefront land development, as summarized in figure 1.4.

  

Figure 3.2: Waterway network in Sarasota Bay

  

Figure 3.3: Trafficsheds in Sarasota Bay

Some 83 miles of primary, secondary and tertiary canals (arterials, collectors, and residential canals and basins) have been identified as part of the bay's waterway system (figure 3.2). Most of the channels correspond to the dredged areas shown in figure 1.4. The local collectors generally possess a single or a few access channels through which all boat traffic must pass to access the bay from their moorings. These collectors, called trafficsheds (as illustrated in figure 1.7), are a major feature of boat traffic networks in Sarasota Bay: 97% of the boats are berthed in these source areas (figure 3.3). Recent proposals for waterway management have called for maintenence dredging the entrance channels to these trafficsheds, where minimal dredging can have a comparatively large, beneficial effect on boat accessibility.

  

Figure 3.4: Boating facilities in Sarasota Bay (graduated circle sizes are proportional to number of berthed boats). From Antonini and Box (1996)

 

 

|t:=t=t=:t| Type Number

||-|-|-|| Residential with Dock 2167

Marina/Yard/Club 22

Motel/Restaurant/Shop 12

Anchorage 7

Other 48

Unclassified 41

||-|-|-|| Total 2297 |b:=b=b=:b|

Summary of boating facilities in Sarasota Bay. The 41 boats in the ``unclassified'' category could not be identified for satisfactory grouping into the other five categories. Source: Antonini and Box (1996)

Boaters enter the bay either by three passes (inlets) from the Gulf of Mexico or the Intracoastal Waterway, a federally maintained inland water route from the north (Palma Sola) to the south (Little Sarasota Bay) (figure 3.1). Boats also can enter the bay by launching from public or private ramps. There are some 5000 boats permanently or seasonally berthed in the bay at private or commercial facilities (figure 3.4). Ninety percent of the boats are berthed or moored at single and multi-family residences; the remainder are at marinas, yacht and boat clubs, motels, anchorages, etc. (table 3.1 and figure 3.4).