BikeWalkLee comments on County Commission's proposed transportation plan in the FY 2016-17 budget

 It's budget time again, and BikeWalkLee communicated its comments on the County's proposed 2016-17 budget to the County Commissioners for their consideration during the September public comment period.  Below are highlights of our recommendations, and a link to the complete BWL letter which contains detailed comments and recommendations on each of these four topics, along with a link to the draft detailed CIP.

September 8, 2016

Dear Commissioners:

BikeWalkLee, a coalition working to complete Lee County's streets, works for a balanced multi-modal transportation system that values transportation choice, connectivity, economic opportunity, livable communities, community character, safety, and quality growth.

On September 5, prior to the Sept. 6th public hearing, we sent you our letter with comments on the proposed 2016-17 budget.  On Sept. 6th, we received an email (also sent to the Board) from Assistant County Manager Pete Winton, stating that there was an error in the "Bicycle Pedestrian Facilities" line item in the County's detailed CIP table that he provided to BikeWalkLee for its analysis.  We have now revised our recommendations based on this corrected County information, and are submitting this revised letter for your consideration as you finalize the proposed 2016-17 budget.

Here are the highlights of our recommendations: 

1. Bike/Ped Facilities

• Begin planning now for increased investments in bike/ped facilities in next year's five-Year CIP to build on the federal investments of the Lee MPO TIGER Complete Streets Initiative grant.

• Push for completion of already funded projects in a more expeditious timeframe.

2. CIP Road Projects

•  Demonstrate your commitment to accelerate the schedule for the completion of the Estero Blvd. Improvement project within the 5-year CIP, by moving the $19.5 million now shown in the outyears (years 6-10) into the 5-Year CIP Plan. The Board's decision to delay the Hickory Bridge projects ($33.8 million originally planned for FY 21-22) to the outyears, means that there are projected revenues available NOW that can be budgeted for the Estero Blvd. project. While the County Manager's memo states the change of the bridge projects "will allow for potential acceleration of Estero Blvd.," without including funds in the 5-year window for this purpose, there is no commitment to accelerate this project.

3. Transit

• Before next year's budget cycle, develop public transportation options for the growing workforce and projected county population by ensuring (and funding) a robust transit system with frequent and reliable service.
• In the coming year, implement low-cost and innovative measures to increase ridership, learning from other successful communities.

4. Public participation in budget process

• Provide complete, accurate, accessible, and timely information to the public on the budget proposals under discussion throughout the budget process.
• Provide an opportunity for the public to comment during Board workshops on budget issues.

Click here to continue reading BikeWalkLee's letter, which includes details on each of these four topics. Click here to view the County's detailed draft transportation CIP (as of 9/12/16).  Note that it does not yet reflect the BoCC's decision to pay 100% of the cost of the Estero Parkway Project.

May 24th: Estero Public Workshop on capital improvement projects

Estero residents, mark your calendars for May 24th and plan to attend this public workshop, gathering citizen input for the Village's first 5-year CIP (Capital Improvement Plan).  The transportation CIP will reflect the Village's priorities for what roadway and walking and biking facilities to funded over the next 5 years. Check out the FGCU Infrastructure Study (linked below) to review their recommendations. If you have any questions, contact BWL's Estero rep, Doug Saxton at dpsaxton100@gmail.com. Village of Estero announcement:       SAVE THE DATE! TUESDAY, MAY 24, 2016 What improvements would you like to see in the Village of Estero? This question will be asked of Estero residents at a public workshop to be held at 5:30 p.m., Tuesday, May 24, at the Legacy Church, 21115 Corkscrew Road, across from the entrance to the Estero Community Park and Village Hall. The Village Council will be reviewing Capital Improvement Projects as part of the overall budget process and wants to hear what projects the community believes to be most important so that Council can set priorities and put together a complete plan. Some of the projects proposed by Council members are sidewalks, lighting, and road improvements along Estero Parkway; landscaping throughout the community; access to the Estero River, and a bike trail study.  However, they want to hear what improvements the community wants to see happen before putting an action plan together. The Capital Projects would be paid from a portion of the unallocated general fund, gas taxes, impact fees, community park impact fees and regional park impact fees. By identifying projects based on a 7 year term vs 5 years, the projects could be paid on a cash basis instead of borrowing funds. The Village intends to follow conservative fiscal practices in order to have a significant amount of money in the reserves, setting aside monies for emergencies. The Village continues to seek community input into how Estero grows in the future.  Please plan to attend this important meeting and make your voice heard. See results of studies conducted to date: (FGCU Infrastructure Study) (Estero Community Improvement Foundation Needs Study) (Residents respond to Village Center planning)

BikeWalkLee comments on Capital Improvement Element of Comp Plan at May31st LPA meeting

Note: this is blog post from 2012 which was inadvertantly reposted as new blog.  Message still relevant but is 2012 not 2015 blog story.  
As explained in numerous blog posts over the past year, BikeWalkLee is participating in this year-long process to ensure that the complete streets/sustainability focus in the EAR is carried through in the actual Comp Plan amendments.  This month's Lee Plan draft elements for review include the Capital Improvement Element, which touches on two transportation elements of interest--Level of Service (LOS) and funding.

Darla Letourneau, representing BikeWalkLee, spoke at the May 31st LPA meeting to highlight our comments on the Capital Improvement Element, which are summarized below:

BikeWalkLee made comments at the  Jan. 23rd LPA meeting on the Transportation White Paper.  At that meeting, we highlighted the three issues that must be addressed if we are to achieve a balanced transportation system that increases walkability, multi-modal transportation choice, and compact mixed use communities. 

 Those issues are transportation LOS, sustainable performance criteria and measures, and funding. The draft Capital Improvement element you have before you today touches on two of those issues--LOS and funding. While the bulk of these issues will be addressed in the Transportation Element that will be presented in July, the CI element is a glimpse at what is to come.  We are encouraged by what we see.

First, we are pleased to see the staff recommendation to end concurrency for transportation, schools and parks, as allowed under the 2011 state law changes. As we stated in January, it's important that Lee County use this opportunity to take back local control and support our local vision and our community plans, as reflected in extensive public input as part of the EAR process.

 However, eliminating transportation concurrency is just a first step in the needed changes to realize the vision in the EAR, as adopted unanimously by BoCC in February 2011.

 We're pleased to see proposals dealing with LOS that begin to move us towards the county's goal of a balanced transportation system. First, we applaud the statement in Policy 1.1.3: "The LOS for transportation facilities will be established through an assessment of all transportation modes including roadway, bike, pedestrian, and transit capacity and service volumes consistent with the standards established in the Transportation Element."

Since the Comp Plan was last amended, the Florida guidelines for determining LOS have been updated.  Beginning in 2009, the Florida LOS Quality Handbook provides LOS standards not just for vehicles, but also for transit,pedestrians, and bicycles.  Using this updated guideline, staff is proposing to establish LOS standards for these other modes and to use them in determining whether a road meets LOS standards for further development to move forward.

This means that the county can establish the LOS standard for a given road to be a transit standard, a bike/ped standard, or a vehicle standard or some combination of these. What this broader approach to LOS says is that the solution to a roadway"problem" needs to address the full spectrum of deficiencies that the lack of safe choices in modes of transportation can be addressed by enhancing transit services, sidewalks, paths, and bike lanes.

 It could allow for solutions that foster complete streets rather than assuming that any increased traffic requires roads to be widened. With a multi-modal LOS approach, the logical next step is a change in the way solutions are financed from the vehicle-only impact fee approach to a multi-modal mobility fee approach. 

This shift to newer alternative funding mechanisms was envisioned in the December 2011 FDOT report on "Proportionate Share" and two Florida counties--Pasco and Alachua--have each modernized their funding mechanisms to reflect the transportation demand changes.  In addition, Collier County is developing a mobility fee approach, the cities of Destin and Jacksonville have implemented it and Orlando and Kissimmee also have it under development.

We look forward to reviewing the Transportation element to see how the county plans to define and apply this new LOS approach in supporting a balanced multi-modal transportation system.  While this new LOS approach is a step in the right direction, we encourage staff to go further. 

In addition to changes in the LOS, we would like to see the staff and the various committees take a step back and look at the intersection of transportation and land use and ask the big picture vision questions--where in the county do we want to invest in transportation infrastructure and where do we not want to invest?  Then let's make sure that our LOS standards assist us in realizing this vision.

 To read our full comments (including some specific language change recommendations), click here.

Action Alert: Aug. 12th Lee Commission meeting exclusively for public input on draft 2015 budget

Your participation in the Aug. 12th BoCC budget workshop is important.  Below provides all the details about how to participate, along with the "why's" about what's at stake for the BikeWalkLee network.

What:  Lee Commission meeting exclusively for public input on draft 2015 budget

When: Tues. Aug. 12th, 9:30 a.m.

Where: Commission Chambers, 2120 Main Street, Fort Myers

 
On Tuesday, Aug. 12th at 9:30 a.m., the public will have an unusual opportunity to provide input on the outstanding budget issues prior to their finalizing its 2015 budget.  Our efforts, as an active participant in Lee Public Voice (LPV), have provided this opportunity. (See LPV's July 24th letter to BoCC on this issue.)  

The Board plans to make its final decisions at the budget workshop on August 19^th,although there will still be two legally required public hearings on the budget on September 3rd and 17^th.

We need your Action :  BikeWalkLee supporter organizations and interested citizens need to voice their opinion. You have two ways:

• Best: attend the Aug. 12th meeting and speak on any or all of the three issues highlighted below- Transportation CIP/impact fees, transit funding, and funding for the Conservation 2020 program.

• Next Best: email/call your commission members and urge them to address these concerns before the budget is finalized.

The three major budget issues of concern to BikeWalkLee:

Three of our four key priority areas--Integrated planning; quality of life, and transit--are impacted by the BoCC decisions on this year's budget, as outlined below.

1.  Impact Fees, the Transportation Budget in the Capital Improvement Plan (CIP):At the same time the Board adopts the $358 million general fund budget, it will adopt a 5-Year CIP budget of almost equal size...$331 million. Both budgets must be equally scrutinized and  based on the most accurate and up-to-date data available.

BikeWalkLee is concerned that the transportation plan is receiving little if any scrutiny by the Board and is essentially on "automatic pilot".  We have provided extensive comments on the draft transportation CIP, none of which have ever been considered. 

The figures being used this year are obsolete and inaccurate. They must be corrected.

See Letourneau Aug. 3rd report, Pierce Aug. 5th statement, and Aug. 6th LPV press release for details.)

The draft transportation CIP fails to accurately account for future impact fee revenues by not recognizing the Board’s direction that those fees are to return to 100% next March. This means many needed bike/ped/complete streets projects that have been recommended and prioritized by both the County's Internal Complete Streets Team and the County's Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Committee (BPAC)are never making it onto the CIP project list due to the supposed lack of sufficient impact fee revenues.  Currently 5% of road impact fees are allocated for bike/ped projects.  Accurate impact fee revenue numbers could mean an additional $750,000/year available for these important projects.

The Board has explicitly stated that the impact fee revenues will return to the 100% rate on March 13, 2015. Nothing in the county's revenue projections reflect this policy assumption.  Therefore, the draft budget provides an easy opportunity for the Board to attempt to continue the impact fee reduction policy without any accountability. The 2-year, $40 M loss to County taxpayers doesn’t appear anywhere, allowing it impact fee reduction to appear as “free” of consequences.

BikeWalkLee and Lee Public Voice are requesting the Board to ensure that the transportation budget is corrected before the budget is adopted in September.

2.  Transit funding:  This year BikeWalkLee's transit priority has been for BoCC to restore last year's LeeTran service cuts (which reduced evening and weekend service), to secure funding for the LinC bus line connecting Lee and Collier Counties (needed to replace the expiring FDOT grant), and for no further transit cuts to be included in the FY 2014-15 budget.

Throughout the year, BikeWalkLee, in partnership with other supporter organizations (including Southwest Florida Council of the Blind, Center for Independent Living Gulf Coast, Healthy Lee Coalition, Audubon Society of SWFL, Responsible Growth Management Council, and Spikowski Planning Associates), demonstrated to the Board that the cuts were having negative impacts on the transit system overall and on the individual lives of our citizens who rely on transit to get to work and lead independent and productive lives. 

The County's draft budget includes an option for restoring the FY 13-14 cuts to transit, adding $358K to the "continuation" budget. No further transit cuts have been included in this budget and continuation of funding for LinC has now been secured from the various contributors (including LeeTran, Collier County, Lee MPO, and Bonita Springs).  To date, the Board has been receptive to restoring last year's transit cuts but no vote has been taken so this is still an outstanding issue for the Board to decide.  

BikeWalkLee supports the adoption of the county's draft budget transit proposal and thanks the Board for being responsive to community-wide requests to restore transit service.  The next step is for the county to explore ways to expand and improve its transit services in order to meet the long-term needs of our community. [*See links below for previous BWL letters on transit funding.]

3.  Conservation 2020: BikeWalkLee's vision includes innovative and integrated land use and transportation planning to enhance our county's livability.  As part of this focus on quality of life, we support preserving green space, which is the goal of the Conservation 2020 program. With the county's projected 62% population growth by 2040, this green space will be essential to the economic and environmental health and overall livability of our community.

Action Requested:

• Attend the August 12^th Workshop and address one or all of these issues.

• If you can't come, e-mail or call commission members and urge them to address these concerns before the budget is finalized.

• Spread the word through your organization's communication channels about the importance of citizen participation in this Aug. 12th opportunity in some fashion.

Links to County draft budget materials:

The specific materials on the draft budget for the Aug. 12th meeting are found in the  Aug. 5th workshop package.

The Board has held a series of budget workshops over the past 4 months.  To see materials re: all those workshops, click here.

For details on the procedures for speaking at Board meetings,  check out the Guidelines for testifying before the Board of County Commissioners and other county meetings, as well as how to communicate with the members individually as well as the media.  As with all county public comment opportunities, each person is allowed to speak for no more than 3 minutes.

If you can't be there in person, please write a letter, an email or call County Commissioners

• John Manning:dist1@leegov.com, 533-2224
• Cecil Pendergrass:  dist2@leegov.com, 533-2227
• Larry Kiker:  dist3@leegov.com, 533-2223
• Brian Hamman: dist4@leegov.com, 533-2226
• Frank Mann: dist5@leegov.com, 533-2225

Next steps in budget process after Aug. 12th:

The following are the remaining commission meetings before the final budget is adopted:

Aug. 19th, 1:30 p.m.: BoCC budget workshop to discuss public input and any changes to the budget based on that input.

• Since the public is not being given an opportunity to speak at these workshops, the only opportunity to provide input to the Board prior to their reaching a consensus on these budget issues is to speak at the end of the regular BoCC meeting the morning of August 19th (9:30 a.m.).  The public can comment on any item not on the agenda during the last agenda item labeled "Public Presentation of Matters by Citizens".  Each person has a maximum of 3 minutes to comment during this period.  

• The agenda for the regular Aug. 19th meeting could include a "Consensus Memo" regarding instructions to staff on budget issues, so be watching the county's website for the posting of this important agenda package, hopefully no later than Tuesday, Aug. 12th.

Aug. 26th, 9:30-12:30 :BoCC workshop to finalize budget.(if necessary)

Sept. 3rd, 5 p.m.  First public hearing on the budget.

Sept. 17th, 5 p.m.  Final public hearing and approval of budget and millage rate.

Note:  All three of these meetings can be watched on Channel 97 or on the county's website either live or the recorded video. 

Background Materials for preparing your comments:

1. Transportation budget and impact fees:
   See Letourneau Aug. 3rd report(with links to 5 related reports), Pierce Aug. 5th statement, and Aug. 6th LPV press release. 
2.   Transit funding: BWL blog, July 26, 2014: LeeTran ridership numbers continue falling due to budget cuts , BikeWalkLee's May 25th blog post, BikeWalkLee's April 18th blog post, BikeWalkLee's April 10th blog post, and BikeWalkLee's April 8th letter to BoCC members, requesting the Board to restore the LeeTran service cuts in the County's "continuation budget" for FY 2014-15, and BikeWalkLee's Sept. 3, 2013 letter to BoCC urging them to reject proposed transit cuts in the FY 2013-14 budget:,BikeWalkLee's June 18, 2013 letter to BoCC recommending against proposed transit cuts.

BoCC approves changes to transportation CIP, making Estero Blvd. improvement project #1 priority

BikeWalkLee reports on Tuesday's BoCC decisions on several key road projects in the CIP, shares BikeWalkLee's comments on these transportation projects; and reports on public comments about the impact of LeeTran service cuts.

 Today was the annual reorganization of the Board, with Commissioner Kiker appointed Chair, and Commissioner Hamman appointed Vice-Chair.

Transportation Road Projects:

At the Nov. 19th County Commission meeting, the Board approved changes to the transportation CIP, as discussed at the November 4th Management and Planning meeting.  (See BWL's blog report from the Nov. 4th meeting.)

This item was not on the published agenda for the meeting (which is available to the public on the county's website), but rather, was handled as a "walk-on" item. (See walk-on agenda item now posted.)

As reported earlier, the Board agreed that the Estero Blvd. Improvement project on Fort Myers Beach is the #1 priority project, so they made slight delays in the Alico widening project construction schedule to allow Estero Blvd. to move a bit quicker.

BikeWalkLee's Darla Letourneau spoke at the Nov. 19th BoCC meeting, tying two agenda items together--the annual Transportation Concurrency report and the CIP agenda item.

The annual Transportation Concurrency report provides a functional assessment of  the condition of our roadways, measuring roadway performance against the County’s established Level of Service or LOS standards--standards based exclusively on automobile congestion. Letourneau pointed out that this  exclusive focus on auto-LOS has resulted in over-designed roads to handle capacity that only occurs at the very heaviest travel periods - the most congested hour of the most congested month of the year. It is like designing shopping mall parking lots to handle the volume of traffic on Christmas Eve or Black Friday. Many states and communities around the country  are moving away for primary reliance on auto LOS for transportation planning.

Letourneau stated that the Concurrency Report tells us that 91% of our roadways are functioning at traffic volumes well below the capacity standard set for that road segment, i.e., our roadways are overbuilt.  This means our current roadways can carry a great deal more traffic than they are currently carrying before any new lanes or roads would be needed.

Specifically, here's what the report says about the four road projects being discussed in the CIP agenda item:  

• Estero Blvd. has traffic counts that are 83-90% of capacity. 

• Burnt Store Rd. traffic is currently at 55% of capacity.

• Homestead Rd. is at 48% of capacity.

• Alico Rd. is only at 18% of capacity.

Letourneau stated that the concurrency report confirms that the Board is making the right decision to make and keep the Estero Blvd. improvement project its #1 priority.  [Note that Estero Blvd. is constrained road, so the improvements are to provide multi-modal solutions to traffic, not expand lanes.]  On the other hand, the report also confirms the position of BikeWalkLee, LPA, CSAC, and others, that the Alico Rd. project is not needed at this time.

Letourneau argued that with scarce transportation dollars, funding priorities should be on projects addressing the most urgent need, as measured by the county's own standards.

Also making public comments on this agenda item were several developers from the Alico Rd. project. They spoke about the importance of this project for the Research Diamond and for FGCU and argued that the Board had committed to them that Alico would be widened in two years.  The original wording of the Alico project CIP description was amended to show the Board's support for the project, by adding the following sentence:  "These phases could be advanced in the future at Board discretion should conditions warrant to support economic development initiatives, and if funding is available through government sources or private development sources."  Commissioner Hamman suggested that the developers could advance fund the project and then the county could pay them back under some negotiated payback agreement.  He asked that county staff reach out to the developers to promote speeding up the project with advanced funding.

Impact of LeeTran service cuts

As we reported earlier, citizens now have the opportunity to speak on any topic at the end of the bi-weekly regular BoCC meetings.  At today's BoCC meeting there were public comments about the impact these service cuts, which went into effect Nov. 14th (see earlier blog) are having on Lee County residents.

BWL's Darla Letourneau shared with commissioners the real impact these cuts are having on Salus Transitional Living Center TLC clients.  For residents recovering from substance abuse, the key for transition back to the community is a job, and for these clients to get and keep a job, they are reliant on public transportation.  Many of the TLC clients work in local restaurants, and often don't get off work until 11 p.m.  According to the TLC Director, as a result of recent service cutbacks in buses after 6 p.m., some clients are now having to walk from downtown Fort Myers to the TLC center late at night (a safety concern), and other clients working at restaurants in Fort Myers Beach on weekends are finding themselves stranded for 4 hours between LeeTran buses.  It is a reminder of the real world impact of the commissioner's budget decisions on the lives of people in our community, esp. those who are most reliant on LeeTran services for their livelihood.

Mike Ulrich, President of the Southwest Florida Council of the Blind, spoke about concerns that the cutback in service hours for LeeTran would negatively impact Passport services for the disabled.  He reported that they will be tracking the experience of Passport service users to determine if there are negative impacts and will report back, as the Board requested during the September budget hearings.

Upcoming Opportunities for Public Comment

The next opportunity for public comment at County Commission meetings will be at the Dec. 2nd Management and Planning meeting (1:30- 3:30 p.m.).  The agenda should be available on the County's website by Nov. 25th.

 There are two regular BoCC meetings in December--Dec. 3rd and Dec. 17th.  At both these meetings, the public can speak both on items on the agenda (at the beginning of the meeting), or on items not on the agenda (at the end of the meeting).  Agendas for those meetings will be on the County's website the week before each meeting.

Report by Darla Letourneau