Pinellas residents unhappy with proposed bike trail

The house was built in 1938, back when Franklin D. Roosevelt was president.

The reason Schaun Weingart bought it 23 years ago, when Ronald Reagan was president, was that it sat in what looked like one of the last parts of Old Florida left in densely-populated Pinellas County.

Oak trees loom above the half-dozen houses on this dead-end street, a stone's throw away from a bayou. As he spoke outside his home recently, a gopher tortoise waddled on some undeveloped land across the road. Not far away, a white egret stood like a sentinel.

But Weingart is about to lose his little piece of paradise.

Despite Weingart's objections and his neighbors', the city plans to widen their street and put a bicycle trail on it. The concrete trail will be 13 feet from the steps that lead to Weingart's front door, Weingart says.

It is part of a plan to create an offshoot from the southernmost stretch of the Pinellas Trail. On the offshoot, bicyclists, rather than continue east on the trail, into downtown St. Petersburg, could ride south — to the beaches, if they prefer, to Fort DeSoto Park, or to a bicycle trail that runs along the approach to the apex of the Sunshine Skyway bridge.

As it jogs south, the new trail would pass that bayou off the Intracoastal Waterway – called Clam Bayou – which is northwest of Weingart's house, and which is undergoing a restoration project of the Southwest Florida Water Management District.

At some point, the new trail had to dart east a short spell before continuing southward. Under one proposal, it would have darted east on 35th Avenue South, with dense oak and pines on the riders' left, and, on their right, walls erected at the back of apartment complexes. This would have been one block south of Weingart's home.

Under this scenario, no homeowners would have been affected. The only house the trail would have passed is a $3.5 million waterfront home owned by the city of St. Petersburg and which is leased to the University of South Florida for marine education.

But the St. Petersburg Police Department had a problem with the 35th Avenue South option, city officials say. After conducting a safety audit, officials concluded the thick vegetation would serve as hiding places for thieves ready to prey on passing bicyclists and pedestrians, Weingart said. Crime along the Pinellas Trail in the southern part of the county has been an intermittent problem.

Partly because of this audit, city officials concluded the short east-west segment of the new bicycle trail should run one block north, along 34th Avenue South, in front of Weingart's house.

There was an unexpected development, however. As part of the restoration project, those trees along the 35th Avenue stretch were cut down, and retention ponds were built in their place.

This did two things. It reduced the number of hiding places where police thought predators would lie in wait. But it also removed the natural barrier separating Weingart's Old Florida neighborhood from those apartment complexes, resulting in a new exposure to the outside world, and an influx of crime, Weingart and his neighbors said.

The police department conducted another safety audit, and concluded that, while the changes made 35th Avenue safer, 34th Avenue was still the most desirable route. Joe Kubicki, the city's director of its Transportation & Parking Management Department, has also said the 35th Avenue route would cost $170,000 more than the 34th Avenue option.