St. Johns County is going to spend an afternoon in October asking people who live along the north end of its shoreline what they think of a trolley. The reason it is asking has nothing to do with buses and everything to do with how the federal government decides what a beach is worth.

The county says it is working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to establish a long-term federal partnership for beach restoration at South Ponte Vedra Beach, and that to move forward it has to find a sustainable way to pay the local share. Then it says the part that sets up the meeting. One of the primary factors the Corps uses to determine that local cost share is the amount of public beach access available within the project area.

So the county is looking at ways to add access. One of them is a public transportation system with designated trolley stops serving county-owned property inside the project area, with the possibility of stops at existing public access points through Vilano Beach as well. The county’s own words on where this stands are that no decisions have been made regarding the location of trolley stops or whether it will ultimately pursue the option.

What is on that shore now

The county publishes a list of beachfront parks with off-beach parking, and it runs north to south. Read down it and the corridor in question is thin.

Mickler’s Landing, at the north end, carries 202 spaces and 7 ADA spaces. South of that come four accesses to the Guana Tolomato Matanzas reserve, at approximately 60 dirt spaces, at 94 spaces and 5 ADA, at 80 spaces, and at 70 spaces, and the page notes on each that this is not a St. Johns County managed facility. The next county entry down the page is the South Ponte Vedra Recreation Area, at 24 spaces and 2 ADA spaces.

Below that the shoreline reaches the Vilano end and the numbers pick back up in small pieces. Usina Beach Access lists 5 spaces and 1 ADA. The Euclid Avenue lot lists approximately 50 spaces and 2 ADA. Mussallem Beachfront Park lists 48 spaces and 2 ADA, Nease House Park 14 spots and 1 ADA, Surfside 35 spaces and 2 ADA, and Vilano Beach 37 spaces and 3 ADA with a note that there is additional parking throughout the area. North Beach Oceanfront Park, between Euclid Avenue and Mussallem on the page, is marked closed until further notice.

Add those seven county entries up and the run from the South Ponte Vedra Recreation Area down to Vilano Beach comes to roughly 210 spaces. The county does not publish that as a total, and the arithmetic is the Tattler’s. The page also notes that reaching the sand from the Euclid Avenue lot, from Mussallem and from Nease House Park means crossing Coastal Highway on foot.

The sand the trolley is attached to

There are two separate beach projects on that stretch and they answer to different agencies.

The one that already exists is the South Ponte Vedra and Vilano Beach Coastal Storm Risk Management project, which the county describes as a fifty-year partnership with the Corps with periodic nourishments. It runs from Serenata Beach Club to about 250 feet north of the front park at Nease Beach. The design rebuilds the dune to what the county calls generalized 2015 conditions and widens the flat beach by 60 feet from where it was in 2015. The first nourishment went in over 2020 and 2021 and was severely impacted by a nor’easter. The second went in over 2023 and 2024, and the Corps repaired the project with Flood Control and Coastal Emergency money between the fall of 2023 and the spring of 2024. The county names four pots paying for it: the Corps, the state, the county tourist development bed tax, and MSTU funds.

The other is not a Corps partnership at all. The South Ponte Vedra FEMA Category G project is a rebuild funded through FEMA with state money from the Department of Environmental Protection and the Division of Emergency Management, running between 2539 and 3175 South Ponte Vedra Boulevard, and it ties into the north end of the Corps project. Its design calls for a dune with a minimum crest width of 15 feet and a crest elevation varying from 14 to 16 feet NAVD88 alongshore, and a berm 40 feet wide at 11 to 12 feet NAVD88. NAVD88 is the vertical datum the design is drawn to, so those are heights above an agreed zero rather than above the sand that is there now.

That one has a number on it worth carrying. The county’s announcement says it is still working to obtain 12 remaining easements within the project area, and that construction is expected to begin in the spring of 2027. Sand does not go on a private beach without the owner’s signature. The page also says the county is currently in the process of solicitation for the project, so the easements are not the only thing outstanding, but they are the only part of it the county puts a count on.

The pier is the other thing on that page

The same coastal projects page carries the county’s standing notice on the St. Johns County Ocean and Fishing Pier, which closed on May 13 for work to repair and strengthen the pier pilings and is anticipated to be completed by the end of November 2026. The northern St. Augustine Beach access point is closed for the duration of that project, and swimmers and surfers are asked to stay 500 feet away from the pier.

The county will offer the same trolley presentation three times, at 4, at 5 and at 6, each one followed by breakout stations. It says the presentation will be recorded and a transcript of the questions and answers published at sjcfl.us/CoastalProjects afterward, and that it may schedule more meetings if there is interest. Questions can go in ahead of time to Coastal Management at 904-209-0260 or coastalprojects@sjcfl.us.

Wednesday, Oct. 7, 4 to 7 p.m., the Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve, 505 Guana River Road, Ponte Vedra Beach.