Frequently Asked Questions

The Bridge of Lions is a state owned and controlled transportation facility; it is a segment of State Road A1A.  The Florida Department of Transportation owns, controls, and regulates the use of the bridge.  They have complete authority over it, not the City of St. Augustine.

The Florida Department of Transportation did allow the City of St. Augustine to run a flag program on the former Bridge of Lions.   The City’s program was found unconstitutional by the federal court in 2005.  In a nutshell, the court found that the City had created a public forum by allowing various private flags to be placed on the bridge’s flagpoles, and therefore the City could not limit the free speech rights of anyone wanting to place any type of flag on the bridge.  Once the City created a public forum, it could not then limit that public forum to only the flags the City chose, including just allowing American flags. 

The former Bridge of Lions was closed the following year (2006), and the new Bridge of Lions was completed in 2010 by the Florida Department of Transportation.  The new bridge was designed to follow the historic design that included the old electric trolley train overhead cable stanchions.  They did not include the line of flagpoles that had been added over time to the old bridge.  The poles that are visible on the current bridge are a reproduction of the cable stanchions and not flagpoles. 

The Florida Department of Transportation owns and controls the Bridge of Lions.  The City would not be involved in whatever new State-run program the FDOT would create regarding flags on the bridge.  In legal terms, the State of Florida has the right to what is called government speech, and can choose to limit what it says, symbolically, on its own facilities.  

No, for a number of reasons.  Firstly, the bridge is not City property; the government speech for the bridge belongs to the owner of the bridge, the State of Florida.  Secondly, if the City were to try to create content-based regulations regarding flags on the Bridge of Lions, those regulations would be challenged in federal court again.  The 2005 federal injunction against the City would be revisited, and this time newer and stricter U.S. Supreme Court case law barring content-based regulations for flags and signs would be argued against the City.

Yes, the City Commission passed Resolution 2021-21, that provides for the City’s government speech only on its owned and controlled light poles and flagpoles.  You can read the resolution here: RES 2021-21 (DOC) or RES 2021-21 (PDF)