This time every year, FDOT develops a 5-year project-specific funding plan for each county. This year, Lee County is scheduled to receive $625 million for the next 5 years, with $306 million of that programmed in 2011. This is about $300 million more than the county was expecting. As part of this plan, there are 19 stand-alone bike/ped projects worth about $10.6 million (approximately the same level as last year’s work plan). About 40% of these funds will be available in July 2011. In addition, there are 19 road projects, worth $124 million, that will include bicycles and pedestrian facilities. [Note: the FDOT Work Plan has to be approved by the State Legislature before it is final.]
Dan Moser, representing BikeWalkLee, spoke in support of the Work Plan, and emphasized the need to work together on the design of the road projects to ensure that the needs of bike/ped/transit users are fully integrated into the plans. We are pleased to see that Lee County will be receiving its first Regional TE grant, (worth $1.8 M)which will provide a new bike/ped trail in the SR 80 (Palm Beach Blvd) corridor, which will connect to Collier County. This project is not slated to begin until 2015. In addition, a pedestrian safety improvement project is funded (almost $1 million) on US 41 from Hanson St. to downtown Fort Myers.
Click here to see the list of all the bike/ped projects (thanks to Trinity Scott at FDOT for preparing this special analysis).
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