BikeWalkLee letter in support of Fort Myers' Complete Streets Resolution

As reported in our Sept. 17th blog story,the Fort Myers City Council will vote on the Complete Streets Resolution at their October 3rd meeting. Today BikeWalkLee sent a letter to Council members in favor of the resolution (see below).
We urge Fort Myers residents and everyone who uses Fort Myers streets and roadways to communicate your support to City Council members. If you can make it, please come to the council meeting in the Council chamber (2200 Second Street, Fort Myers)on Monday October 3rd, starting at 4:30 p.m. Public input occurs at the beginning of the meeting so you should arrive before 5 p.m. if you plan to speak.

If you can't make the meeting but want to communicate your support, please e-mail the council members:
mayorhenderson@cityftmyers.com
councilmanstreets@cityftmyers.com
councilmanbanks@cityftmyers.com
councilmanflanders@cityftmyers.com
councilmansimms@cityftmyers.com
tleonardo@cityftmyers.com
councilwomanwatkinsbrown@cityftmyers.com

BikeWalkLee's 9/22/11 letter:

Dear Honorable Mayor and City Council Members:

BikeWalkLee is a citizen based community coalition that works to raise public awareness and advocate for complete streets within Fort Myers and all of Lee County--streets that are designed, built, operated and maintained for safe and convenient travel for all users: pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists, transit riders, and persons of all ages and abilities. We wish to make known our endorsement of the City of Fort Myers’ Complete Streets Resolution that comes before you on Oct 3rd. As a coalition with a large number of diverse stakeholders, we offer our full support for this resolution and its future implementation within the City of Fort Myers.

This resolution is a significant step forward for the city. It is comprehensive in its vision, practical in application and wholly oriented towards a healthier, safer, economically vibrant and socially sustainable future for Fort Myers. The adoption and implementation of a Complete Streets Resolution will provide the basis for comprehensive linkages and continuity, tying together various city land use, transportation, and bike/ped policies. It is a natural extension of the city’s current Bicycle/Pedestrian Plan and the elegant improvements to the streets downtown.

Complete streets save taxpayers money. By addressing the needs of all road users at the front-end of all road projects (new construction as well as road improvements) in the routine process of planning, design, construction, maintenance and operations, costly retrofits can be avoided. In these tough economic times, it is important to spend public resources in the most cost-effective and efficient way possible. "Doing it right the first time", addressing the needs of all users at the front-end, is key to this cost-effective approach.

This Complete Streets Resolution positions the city, in alliance with Lee County and the recently adopted MPO Bike/Pedestrian Master Plan, as a leader within southwest Florida in developing the highly desirable “livable communities” sought by people from across the nation and the world. Its adoption lays the groundwork for a new level of collaboration between city departments, the county and the MPO, each with their own areas of knowledge and expertise, bringing together parts to make a far greater whole. Complete Streets are most effective when contiguous governments can work together in achieving the principles and goals; for example, this resolution will offer benefits to the city in grant funding such as the MPO’s upcoming submission of an application for the federal TIGER III grant for a Bicycle /Pedestrian /Transit Complete Streets Project which includes a City of Fort Myers component.

Click here to continue reading the letter.

To read the background memo/"blue sheet" that went to City Council members, click here.

To read the Complete Streets Resolution, click here.