Educational Bike Tour in Cape Coral

Early last Saturday morning an enthusiastic group of bike-pedestrian safety experts and advocates left from Cape Coral City Hall on bicycles to see first-hand examples of some of the city's best and worse places to ride.  This included the challenge of navigating the dangerous intersection at Veterans Parkway and Santa Barbara Boulevard.  It was part of  a series of educational bike tours for municipal officials and others supported by Lee County EMS and facilitated by BikeWalkLee’s Dan Moser and Ann Pierce.

Dan Moser points to a dangerous blind corner on Veterans Parkway bike path

The group included two representatives from the Florida Department of Transportation:  Carmen Monroy, Director of the SW Area Office, and Providance Nagy, District 1 Bicycle/Pedestrian Coordinator.  Other participants included Mike Bacigalupo, BikeWalkLee's newly appointed Cape Coral representative, Pat Young and Steve Chupack of  Cape Coral Bike-Ped (CCBP), Mike Swanson from Caloosa Riders, Carlos Monroy, and Bob Gardner with the City of  Fort Myers.  Cape Coral City officials and staff were invited, but were either out-of-town or had other obligations that prevented their participation.  BikeWalkLee and CCBP hope to schedule other opportunities in the coming months so that these officials and staff can experience this valuable see-for-yourself educational experience.

There were frequent stops during the 11-mile ride when specific examples of particularly dangerous situations were analyzed.   Sometimes it was a case of poor road or intersection design, or blocked visibility, or bikeways with overhanging branches.   Dan and others made it a point to suggest solutions to problem areas so that this could be passed along to city staff for their consideration.