LeeDOT's response to Cyclists Safey Concerns on Estero Blvd. in Fort Myers Beach

Thinking of biking on Fort Myers Beach?  Read this first.

Background
In December, BWL was made aware of serious safety concerns for cyclists riding on Estero Blvd. in Fort Myers Beach during the ongoing construction project, with numerous crashes being reported.  We issued a blog post in December about our concerns: BWL blog Dec. 22, 2016: Warning to Cyclists: Don't bike on Fort Myers Beach until the Estero Blvd. Improvement project is completed.  

We have also been working with LeeDOT to address the problems identified by cyclists.  Below is the press release that LeeDOT put out Jan. 9th (just received) that urges caution in the construction zone.


We continue to hear from cyclists about how dangerous it is to bike out there, including Fort Myers Beach residents.

BikeWalkLee continues to be very concerned about cyclist safety during this construction project.  If you do choose to bike out there, please report any problems you encounter to Kaye Molnar:
239-337-1071; kmolnar@cella.cc.

Below the press release is this week's project update.  If you want to sign up to receive these weekly updates, you can sign up at http://www.refreshfmbeach.com/.  Just click on the "Contact Us" button to fill out the form, be sure to select the “Please add me…” button at the bottom of the page.

Lee County Press Release on Jan. 9, 2017 (received by BWL on Feb. 1st)

Estero Boulevard Improvements Project
Reminder to use caution in construction zone

Contact: Kaye Molnar, Project Public Information Officer

Cella Molnar and Associates, Inc.

239-337-1071

kmolnar@cella.cc

Fort Myers Beach, FL, Jan. 9, 2017 – As cooler temperatures and sunny days prompt outdoor activities such as bicycling, walking and running, many enthusiasts are heading to Fort Myers Beach. The Lee County Department of Transportation reminds bicyclists, pedestrians and motorists that construction continues on Estero Boulevard from Lani Kai Resort to Publix, and caution should be used when traveling through the construction zone.

One of the two major goals of the Estero Boulevard Improvements Project is to improve safety for bicyclists, pedestrians and motorists. The second goal is to improve the storm drainage on Estero Boulevard. During construction bicyclists should obey traffic laws and ride for the travel conditions. In some cases, bicyclists may feel safer walking through the construction zone. Pedestrians should be aware of bicyclists and motorists around them. Motorists should watch for pedestrians and bicyclists on roadsides, side streets, and boulevard crossings.

Crews monitor and sweep the work zone routinely to make bicycle and pedestrian travel as safe as possible during construction; however, Estero Boulevard is an active, ever-changing construction zone. Conditions change daily, hourly and minute-to-minute. Bicyclists and pedestrians may experience changes in roadway surfaces and elevations, steel plates and loose gravel.

Once construction of Estero Boulevard is complete, most of the boulevard will provide travel lanes with designated bike lanes and wide sidewalks on both sides. Bicyclists will share the travel lanes from Crescent Street to Lovers Lane due to the limited right-of-way. In the meantime, all travelers may need to change their habits during construction, and all need to stay aware and use caution. The end result of this much-needed, very challenging project will be a boulevard that provides improved stormwater drainage and treatment and an improved roadway design for motorist, bicyclists and pedestrians.

Details about the Estero Boulevard Improvement Project are available online at www.reFRESHFMBeach.com or by calling (239) 337-1071.

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Estero Boulevard Improvements:  February 1, 2017 Bulletin
Traffic shift scheduled Monday night (2/6)
North of Chapel Street to south of Lovers Lane
Beginning Monday night 2/6, crews will start shifting traffic to the outside lanes of Estero Boulevard to begin construction in the center turn lane from north of Chapel Street to south of Lovers Lane. During this work, barrier wall or construction barrels will be necessary on both sides of the center lane due to a 1 to 1 ½-foot difference in elevation between travel lanes and the work zone.

Vehicles, pedestrians and bicyclists will be able to cross Estero Boulevard (from north of Chapel Street to south of Lovers Lane) at the following locations.

· Fort Myers Beach Town Hall
· Tropical Shores Way
· School Street
· Bay Road

Want to make your neighborhood safer? Take a walk

BikeWalkLee column, the News-Press, 2/1/2017
by Ken Gooderham

Billy Hattaway, center, is pictured with his Complete
Streets Champion award presented by BikeWalkLee
leaders Darla Letourneau, left, and Margaret Banyan.
(Photo: Special to The News-Press)

Want to make your neighborhood safer for walking and cycling – and help build a little community spirit? Consider setting up a walking audit.

What is that, you may ask? Just as it implies: It’s a group of neighbors walking around their neighborhood to document issues and instances where something makes that area unsafe to walk or ride.

That something can be poor signage or a mistimed signal, lack of street crossings or obstructions to seeing oncoming traffic. It can be something as major as no sidewalks or lanes on which to walk or ride, or something as minor as vegetation or delivery vehicles blocking the way.

The point is to look around the place you know, but with eyes (and cameras and clipboards) alert to things that reduce safety and increase hazards for non-motorized vehicles. Then, you document those problems and see what can be done about them.

Sometimes the solution is easy – asking a property owner to trim the bushes or seeing that a crossing signal is adjusted to allow sufficient time to safely traverse the roadway. Sometimes, it can take more work – such as installing a traffic or crossing signal, changing speed limits or constructing sidewalks or side paths.

But if you can document the problems, and get the community to rally behind the solution, sometimes great things can happen. A lot of local communities have successfully improved the walking and riding safety on their streets, and more such projects are underway today.

It all starts with identifying a problem… and that can be as easy as simply getting a few neighbors together to take a walk. Make sure to include ALL the neighbors you can, as it makes a difference to have very different perspectives looking at the same situation. Age and ability change what you see (and need) in walking and riding.

AARP has a very easy-to-use walk-audit toolkit that walks you through all the steps necessary for a successful audit; they also offer a guide for those who are willing to lead an audit to help with planning and organization. Both are available online at aarp.org/walk-audit.

And if you want to see a local (and ambitious) series of audits encompassing the Tice and Dunbar communities, a new report has just been issued documenting all its details.

The audits were organized by BikeWalkLee, FGCU, and Goodwill Industries, with funding from the Southwest Florida Community Foundation and the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. Eleven audits in all were conducted, and the report shares their findings and documentation.

The audits revealed a number of issues impeding safe walking and riding, of course. But they also uncovered a sense of community and engagement, with those participating in the audits engaging other members of their community (often for the first time) and happy that someone simply asked their opinion about these conditions.

You can download the full report (and the AARP toolkit) at the BikeWalkLee website (bikewalklee.org) and find out more about the audits (and a lot of other walking and riding information) at the BikeWalkLee blog (bikewalklee.blogspot.com).

Sometimes the steps to a better neighborhood in which to walk or ride start with a few people taking a few steps of their own. Look into it today.

A Complete Streets champion

Speaking of the Tice/Dunbar audits, one of the leaders who helped move the process forward was  Billy Hattaway, the Florida Dept. of Transportation district serving Southwest Florida, who  championed a number of complete streets efforts that have made a big difference to area walkers and bicyclists. Such leadership, especially on the state level, is crucial to making our roadways safer of ALL users.

That’s why BikeWalkLee recently honored Secretary Hattaway as its Complete Streets Champion for 2016, as a way to honor his many efforts and underscore how crucial leadership on these issues is to successfully implementing a more all-user-friendly approach to transportation. Hattaway has since moved on from FDOT to work for the city of Orlando as its transportation director, but the initiatives he initiated and implemented while leading FDOT's statewide efforts to implement complete streets and improve bike/ped safety should continue to mean safer streets into the future.

Ready to ride or run?

Run: Had your fill of 5Ks yet? There are more on tap, including Strides for Education this Saturday at Florida Southwestern, a Runs the Arts on Sunday in downtown Fort Myers, and races in Cape Coral and Naples the following weekend (plus the Edison Festival Junior Fun Run). Details at ftmyerstrackclub.com, runtothearts.com, gcrunner.org and 3dracing.com.

Ride: Critical Mass is back, with the original downtown Fort Myers ride Friday night, the NE Lee ride Feb. 10 and the Sanibel ride Feb. 11. All are at night events, so bring lights (and a good attitude, of course); helmets recommended for all, and details are at http://www.meetup.com/Biking-SWFL/events.

-- Ken Gooderham writes this on behalf of BikeWalkLee, a community coalition raising public awareness and advocating for complete streets in Lee County — streets that are designed, built, operated and maintained for safe and convenient travel for all users: pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists, and transit riders of all ages and abilities. Information, statistics and background online at www.BikeWalkLee.org.

TELL US ABOUT YOUR RIDE

Have a favorite route you like to bike, or a unique walk you’d like to share with others? Tell us about it at info@bikewalklee.org, and maybe we can feature it in an upcoming column.

# # #

Ken Gooderham writes this on behalf of BikeWalkLee, a community coalition raising public awareness and advocating for complete streets in Lee County - streets that are designed, built, operated and maintained for safe and convenient travel for all users: pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists, and transit riders of all ages and abilities. Information, statistics and background online at www.BikeWalkLee.org.

Firsthand experiences are valuable

Florida Weekly 'Outdoors' column, 2/1/2017 
danMOSER
bikepedmoser@gmail.com

Organizers of Million Mile Movement, which is taking place until the end of March, have added a new element to the challenge. They’re seeking firsthand reports of the good, bad and downright dangerous aspects of our infrastructure as well as behaviors witnessed when out and about.

In fact, because this kind of information is so valuable, anyone is welcome to provide input - including photos and videos - whether or not you’re registered with MMM.

If this option is utilized as envisioned, it will prove useful in getting the Cape Coral-Fort Myers metro area off the top of the list of most dangerous places in the U.S. for pedestrians.

Your “field reports” of experiences will be collected, analyzed and sent to transportation and recreation decision makers with the intention to spark action, both in specific locations you’ve identified and for the bigger picture.

Beyond documenting user experiences, the hope is that a critical planning element will finally be undertaken as a result. Transportation professionals and Complete Streets advocates are well aware that one of the major shortcomings in our area’s planning process for accommodating pedestrians and bicyclists with the proper design is the almost total lack of any method of counting users on existing sidewalks, paths, trails and bike lanes. Knowing who is using a facility is crucial to making improvements when necessary.

Latent demand estimation is yet another missing aspect of our current process. Private road developers may sometimes build roads strictly on speculation but those who fund our motor vehicle transportation projects with public tax dollars would (almost) never consider investing a dollar without doing their due diligence of using well established (although sometimes flawed and outdated) methods of knowing how many vehicles can be expected. For bike/ ped accommodation planning, other than the existence of well-worn goat paths or when human tragedies make it abundantly clear there’s a need, formal latent demand data isn’t part of decision making, at least from my experience.

It’s easy to pass along your experiences and insights from navigating our roads, pathways and parks. You can go to healthylee.com to find details of the various options or simply tag @HealthyLeeCounty on FB and use the hashtag #MilllionMileMovement to record your observations and experiences.

Some input you may want to submit includes: Did you feel safe during your activity? Why or why not? Did you notice any recent improvements in infrastructure or the overall environment? What were they? What more would you recommend? Were you able to find you way with ease, especially if the area where you were is new to you? Were there particular intersections or traffic conditions that concerned you? What do you suggest to make them better/safer?

Any feedback you deem appropriate is appreciated. By the way, be sure to also report hazard you happen upon to the department responsible for addressing the problem. Finally, to provide input specific to the bike/ped master plan currently being developed by Fort Myers Beach you can find the link at fortmyersbeachfl.gov. Additional information for all of these are at bikewalklee.blogspot.org.

Area bike rides

Once again city of Cape Coral Parks and Rec staff and volunteers did a great job of pulling off this year’s Tour de Cape in challenging conditions. With sustained winds at 15-25 mph (with much higher gusts) all morning, and the threat of thunderstorms and possible tornadic activity looming, the prudent decision was made to forego the 100-mile ride and adjust the metric half-century (62-miles) to loop the 30-mile route twice instead. The 30- and 15-milers went on as normal. This decision meant no riders would be stranded many miles away in the northern part of the Cape and rest-stop volunteers wouldn’t be put in harm’s way. Based on what I heard from those returning form their respective rides, no one complained about the adjustments — they were just happy to be back after a tough ride. Extra T-shirts were given out and a discount on next year’s Tour de Cape was offered to those who had registered to ride the century as a goodwill gesture.

Next up is the annual Royal Palm Classic Ride, organized by Caloosa Riders Bicycle Club (caloosariders.org). It is Sunday, March 12. It’s being staged from Fort Myers Brewery in Gateway. Distances include 15, 40 and 62 miles. Proceeds will be donated to I WILL Mentorship Foundation (iwmf2.org), an organization that includes bike riding as part of its work with local young people. ¦

- Dan Moser is a long-time bicycle/pedestrian advocate and traffic safety professional who cycles, runs and walks regularly for transportation, recreation and fitness. Contact him at bikepedmoser@gmail.com and 334-6417.