Opinion ID: 1848369
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Mainland Road Improvements

Text: The authority of counties and municipalities to issue revenue bonds is given in the Revenue Bond Act of 1953, Chapter 159, Part I, Florida Statutes. Section 159.08(1) of the Act authorizes counties and municipalities to issue bonds for paying all or part of the costs of a self-liquidating project, or of improvements to such a project. The word project is defined to include bridges and causeways, Section 159.02(4), Florida Statutes, and the words bridge and causeway are both defined to include ... the approaches thereto and approach roads. Sections 159.02(7), (8), Florida Statutes. Thus under Chapter 159, the Lee County, Sanibel Bridge Improvement Bonds may be issued to pay the cost of improving the roads only if they are approaches or approach roads to the bridge and causeway. Chapter 159 does not, however, provide a definition of approaches or approach roads, and no Florida case construes those terms as used in the Act. In the absence of such legislative guidance, appellants urge this Court to join certain other states in adopting a narrow definition of approaches and approach roads. See, e.g., In re Harlem Bridge, 174 N.Y. 26, 66 N.E. 584 (1903), and Shope v. City of Des Moines, 188 Iowa 1141, 177 N.W. 79 (1920). The definition appellants would have us adopt is basically the one given by an Ohio appellate court in State ex rel. Schaefer v. Zangerle, 43 Ohio App. 30, 182 N.E. 644 (1932): ... `[A] way, passage, or avenue by which a place or building can be approached; an access.'       ... `The approaches to a bridge comprise the traffic arteries leading to the ends of the bridge proper and such adjustment of the alignments and grades of said arteries in the immediate vicinity of such ends as is necessary to afford the maximum convenience of access and render available to the public the entire capacity of the bridge proper.' 182 N.E. at 646. Were we to adopt this definition, all but one of the roads in the instant case would be excluded as approaches or approach roads as a matter of law. Only SR 867 (McGregor), identified as priority 6, leads to the end of the bridge proper. The others cannot reasonably be said to be within the immediate vicinity of the bridge. Indeed, according to testimony, one road, Colonial, comes no closer than twelve miles to the bridge. Appellee Lee County contends that the question as to whether the roads are either approaches or approach roads is basically one of fact and has already been answered affirmatively by the trial court. According to appellee, we are bound by the trial court's findings. Both Lee County and the City of Sanibel maintain that appellants' restrictive definition of the terms approaches and approach roads is not supported by case law, and offer different interpretations of the cases cited by appellants. Basically, however, appellee and the City fault appellants' insistence that approaches and approach roads must by definition be within the immediate vicinity of the bridge. Instead, appellee contends that we must look to the road's function in relation to the bridge to determine whether it is an approach or approach road, and quotes with approval the testimony of consulting engineers in the Zangerle case: ... `The approaches to a bridge comprise the necessary traffic arteries and adjustment thereof, to develop its maximum traffic capacity.' 182 N.E. at 646. In the Revenue Bond Act of 1953, the Legislature authorized municipalities and cities to pay for the cost of constructing and improving self-liquidating projects, in this case a toll bridge and causeway. Moreover, the Legislature chose to extend the concept of a bridge or causeway project to include approaches and approach roads. The Legislature was not required to make that extension. It could have limited the issue of revenue bonds to fund the construction or improvement of only the bridge proper. On the other hand, the Legislature could have allowed the bonds to be issued for projects totally unrelated to the bridge or causeway, including the improvement of all roads within the municipality or county. The Legislature did neither of these. In attempting to determine what roads may serve as grounds for the issuance of the revenue bonds, we find that the Legislature did not intend to make an unlimited extension of the concept of a bridge or causeway project when it included as part of that concept the approaches and approach roads to the bridge or causeway. In short, we conclude that some roads  as a matter of law  are not approaches or approach roads within the meaning of the Revenue Bond Act of 1953. Inherent in the legislative scheme for funding self-liquidating projects is the principle that those who directly benefit from the project should bear a substantial portion of the cost and that those who bear the substantial cost should benefit from the expenditure of money on the project. To allow bridge tolls to finance improvements of approaches and approach roads to the bridge does not violate this principle, for those paying the tolls will benefit by having access to the bridge made more convenient. We conclude that in determining if a road is an approach to a bridge it is necessary to ask about the road's function, not its location. Essential to this finding is the factor that the amount of traffic the road feeds to the bridge determines whether a road functions as an approach to the bridge. A road or a segment of a road is an approach or approach road if a significant portion of its traffic moves onto the bridge or causeway, or if a significant portion of the traffic moving across the bridge or causeway came from the road or road segment. Although this is a functional view of approaches and approach roads, it is not incompatible with the proximity test suggested by appellants. The closer an access road is to a bridge or causeway, the more likely a significant portion of its traffic will use the bridge. Indeed, in most cases the functional test need not be relied on where the roads to be improved are within the immediate vicinity of the project. But where a governmental body contends that revenues from a toll bridge or causeway should fund improvements to roads distant from the facility, the functional test should be used. This functional approach will ensure that the benefits and burdens of the proposed project will be fairly imposed. The record reflects that all but one of the roads, McGregor from the toll bridge to SR 869, are distant from the bridge and causeway proper. As noted earlier, Colonial comes no closer to the bridge than twelve miles. Also, according to the map submitted by appellants, SR 869 comes no closer than three miles to the bridge, Gladiolus Loop Road no closer than five miles, and Cypress Lake Drive no closer than eight. And finally, the synchronization of lights on U.S. 41 to facilitate the flow of the 60,000 vehicles that travel the road each day is to be along a segment that comes no closer than ten miles to the bridge. The record on appeal does not reflect, however, any attempt in the court below to establish the amount of traffic the roads in this case carry or will carry to the Sanibel bridge and causeway. Although it appears that one of the roads in the project is an approach road, we reverse the trial court's finding as to all of the roads for failure to apply an appropriate standard.