Lee County's team one of 10 communities across the country selected to participate in prestigious Sustainable Communities Leadership Academy

BikeWalkLee is honored to be invited to be part of Lee County's leadership team participating in the upcoming national Sustainable Communities Leadership Academy.

In September, Lee County was invited to apply to participate in the Sustainable Communities Leadership Academy sponsored by the Institute for Sustainable Communities.  Through a competitive process, teams of 5-7 representatives apply to participate in peer-learning and training workshops to study best practices in how to create and sustain multi-modal transportation network that contributes to economic prosperity, sustainability and social equity.  The workshops explore the challenges of creating an interconnected multi-modal system, including building public support for transit, integrating transportation investment with land use and economic development and financing transportation projects and programs including the implementation of the new federal transportation bill.   

Lee County's team is one of 10 teams around the country selected to participate.  Other community teams participating are from Portland, OR, San Francisco, CA, Provo, UT, Roaring Fork, CO, Twin Cities, MN, Gulf Coast, MS, Knoxville, TN, Southeast Florida (Miami-Dade, Broward County, etc.), and Chittenden County, VT.  The Sustainable Communities Leadership Academy in held in Minneapolis, MN November 14 -16.  BikeWalkLee is honored to have been invited by the County to be on the team!

The Lee County’s team members are:

1.       Carmen Monroy, Transit Financial Business Manager, Lee County Transit

2.       David Loveland, Transportation Director, Lee County Department of Transportation

3.       Tessa LeSage, Sustainability Program Manager, Lee County Office of Sustainability

4.       Paul O'Connor, Planning Director, Planning Division

5.       Darla Letourneau, Steering Group Member, BikeWalkLee

This is a great opportunity for Lee County to learn from other communities as well as national experts about how to create and sustain a multi-modal transportation network.  As the county works on the critical task of turning the vision of the Horizon 2035 Plan into Comp Plan amendments and begins the process of developing the MPO 2040 Long Range Transportation Plan (LRTP) in ways that integrate land use and transportation planning, the timing for this workshop couldn't be better. 

By Darla Letourneau