Dear editor,
There were a number of miscalculations regarding the Garcon Point Bridge. The first was the reasoning behind building the bridge in the first place. It was not built to accommodate the city of Milton's traffic to Pensacola Bch., or that of Gulf Breeze residents traveling to the county seat of Milton. It was built to accommodate the Pensacola Beach's hotels' access to a high-end golf course located on Avalon Blvd. formally known as "the Moors." The failed business model of the Moors highly relied on daily green fees from Pensacola Beach hotels' vacationers including wintertime "snow birds."
What confirms this is the Moors was very resistant to having a local membership unless buying within the small number of Moors' owned properties for home sites. I can't vouch for this but I'll bet the estimated traffic flow across the bridge was tied to Escambia County's Pensacola Beach Hotels for tourist golf packages. That is why the PGA's undercard Nike Tour was first brought in as was later the Senior Tour for exposure, not only for the Moors but for those locally owned (which I won't name) hotels.
Unlike the Choctawhatchee Bay toll bridge connecting east Niceville to the much more populated Destin, including west of Sand Destin, with that toll route to Okaloosa's county seat of Crestview delivering more traffic to the bridge as by far the closest route. The toll price is similar but there is special pricing as low as $2 when purchasing a $20 SunPass. I couldn't find the financial figures or traffic numbers but it will offer some insight into a bad situation of increasing the toll versus trying to increase the traffic with a lower toll, or removing the cost of collecting those tolls with a low cost self pay system.
Regardless, it is what it is, a bloodless turnip, and trust me there is enough blame to go around for all involved!
STEVEN KINGÂ
Milton
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This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Over estimated, under delivered