August 6: Upcoming running/walking/bicycling/tri events

Upcoming events


Running/walking:

• 
  Saturday, Aug. 11: Cape 5K, 7 a.m., Jaycee Park, Cape Coral (3dracinginc.com)
• Tuesday, Aug. 14: Fort Myers Track Club Summer Social, 7 p.m. at Lazy Flamingo, Fort Myers (ftmyerstrackclub.com)
• Saturday, Aug. 18: Inaugural Omega Youth 5K, Jaycee Park, Cape Coral (3dracinginc.com)
• Saturday, Aug. 25: North Collier Regional Rampage, 7 a.m., North Collier Regional Park (elitevents.org) 
• Tuesday, Aug. 28: Fort Myers Track Club Summer Social, 7 p.m. at Millennial Brewery, Fort Myers (ftmyerstrackclub.com)
• Monday, Sept. 3: Labor Day 5K, 7 a.m., Lowdermilk Park, Naples (gcrunner.org)
• For more running events visit gcrunner.org/calendar.html; ftmyerstrackclub.com/race-calendar; and 3dracinginc.com

Cycling:

• Friday, Aug. 10: NE-Lee Critical Mass ride, gathers at 7:30 p.m. at the Winn-Dixie, 14600 Palm Beach Blvd. Lights required, helmets recommended. (meetup.com/Biking-SWFL)
• 
  Saturday, Aug. 11: Sanibel Critical Mass ride, gathers at 7:30 p.m. at Jerry’s Shopping Center, 1700 Periwinkle Way, on Sanibel. Lights required, helmets recommended. (meetup.com/Biking-SWFL)
• Sunday, Aug 12: Wakey, Wakey! Weekly Sunday Morning Ride. All levels, all bikes, leaves from Fort Myers Trek store at 7:30 a.m. on a different route each week (mostly on bike paths). The ride is sanctioned by the Caloosa Riders Bicycle Club, so helmets are required, no ear buds, and no aero bar use while in the group. (meetup.com/Biking-SWFL)
• Sunday, Aug. 19: Wakey, Wakey! Weekly Sunday Morning Ride. All levels, all bikes, leaves from Fort Myers Trek store at 7:30 a.m. on a different route each week (mostly on bike paths). The ride is sanctioned by the Caloosa Riders Bicycle Club, so helmets are required, no ear buds, and no aero bar use while in the group. (meetup.com/Biking-SWFL)
• Saturday, Aug. 25: Saturday Slow Roll 8 a.m. meet-up at 2160 McGregor Blvd. Recommended for inexperienced/young riders. Distance is 6 miles, includes group ride instruction. (meetup.com/Biking-SWFL)
• Friday, Aug. 31: Cape Coral Critical Mass ride. Gather at 7:30 p.m. at 4706 SE 11th Place for a family-friendly ride through the Cape. Lights required, helmets recommended. (meetup.com/Biking-SWFL)
• Saturday-Monday, Sept. 1-3: Tour de Sebring, three days of riding in and around Sebring. Ride of varying lengths and skills (caloosariders.org)
• Ongoing: Join the Caloosa Riders Bicycle Club on one of their many weekly rides for members and potential members, with an array of paces and routes to choose from. Check them out online at www.caloosariders.org.
• For more Lee County cycling and tri events, visit Caloosa Riders Bicycle Club (caloosariders.org); Florida Mudcutters (mudcutters.org); and SW Florida Biking Meetup Group (meetup.com/Biking-SWFL).

Triathlons:

• Saturday, Aug. 11: Naples Junior Tri, 8 a.m., North Collier Regional Park (gcrunner.org)
• Saturday, Sept. 8: Venice Sprint Triathlon, Sharkey’s on the Pier, Venice
• Saturday-Sunday, Sept. 15-16: Galloway Captiva Tri. Kids’ events Saturday morning (three age groups), sprint tri Sunday morning (captivatri.org) 
• Saturday, Sept. 22: (“The Original”) Siesta Key Sprint Triathlon, Siesta Key (trifind.com)
• Check trifind.com to find regional and state tris.

Where do we stand with safety?

BikeWalkLee Column
The News-Press, 8/2/2018
by Ken Gooderham


What makes an area a safe area to bike? Two recent reports share some insights into the matter.

Your Local Security, a blog for home security company ADT, compiled the safest and most dangerous cycling cities. Using data gathered from the U.S. Census Bureau, People for Bikes, the League of American Bicyclists, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Association for 790 U.S. cities, they weighed local cycling laws, fatalities, infrastructure, and more.

The actual list matters less than the criteria and explanation to buttress their findings. Said the report: “The trends for the best cycling cities included more bike laws than the national average, a higher percentage of commuters, and a lower percentage of fatal cyclist crashes.”

(For those keeping score, the best biking areas were heavily West Coast and enlightened urban areas. The worst? Los Angeles, NCY and a mix of Midwest metropolises.)

How would our area score? Well, we know we’re among the top most dangerous places for pedestrians, so let’s look at the report criteria to see how we might be ranked:

Local cycling laws & support: Probably stuck in the middle. Our state has a 3-foot law for cyclists, but not much else. Lee County has worked to develop and connect bike facilities (which helps), but local municipalities have really carried the weight on this issue while unincorporated areas often lag behind.

Bike commuters: Weak. If there is safety in numbers (as most data suggests), then the very low number of regular (commuter) cyclists pushes the safety level down. The upside is that some of our communities – Sanibel and Cape Coral come to mind – have strong cycling infrastructure. That encourages more riders (especially during season, when you can make more headway on a bike than in a car), which translates into more cyclists on the roads and paths and more awareness of them by drivers.

Fatal cyclist crashes: Waxes and wanes. Some years we have a lot of fatalities, others years drop off… which probably means it’s driven by skills (or the lack thereof) for both cyclists and drivers, and not by safer facilities or more rigorous enforcement of laws.

A different report – Places For Bikes compiled by People For Bikes – weighed five categories:

    • Ridership: How many people in a community bike.
    • Safety: Fatalities and injuries to cyclists and pedestrians
    • Network: Connectivity and usefulness of the bike facilities.
    • Reach: How will all members of the community are served.
    • Acceleration: How fast is progress in infrastructure and safety being achieved.

For the state, St. Petersburg ranked the highest (just out of the Top 20 overall), followed by Miami and Tallahassee. The only local municipality included in the ranking was Estero, which came in slightly below the middle of the pack. It ranked higher in safety and lower in ridership and network, with no rating for acceleration. (Too bad Cape Coral and Sanibel weren’t included, as they should have come in higher than Estero… while the rest of Lee County would be lower.)

Again, look at the criteria as the key. More riders, a more connected network of facilities, more equitable benefits across the community spectrum and solid signs of progress are the way to make an area safer for cyclists – and, frankly, for any road user.

That’s good news for, as was mentioned in coverage about the first study, no city has to settle for today’s low ranking when it can invest, educate and encourage its way down the path to a better (safer) ranking.

That’s something our elected officials should find beneficial to our area and its residents and visitors. Safety sells, and good bike facilities are a good draw to visitors as well as residents.

 

Ready to ride or run?

Run?  Two runs upcoming: The Cape 5K at Jaycee Park Aug. 9 at 7 a.m. (3dracinginc.com); and the next Fort Myers Track Club Summer Social, Aug. 14 at 7 p.m. at the Lazy Flamingo in Fort Myers (ftmyerstrackclub.com)

 
Ride? Critical Mass rides ahead include the original SW Florida ride Friday night in downtown Fort Myers, the NE Lee ride on Aug. 10 and the Sanibel ride Aug. 11. Lights required for night rides, helmets recommended for all; details at http://www.meetup.com/Biking-SWFL/events/. You can also join the no-drop Wakey, Wakey! Sunday morning ride leaving from Fort Myers Trek. The ride is sanctioned by the Caloosa Riders Bicycle Club, so helmets are required, no ear buds, and no aero bar use while in the group.

Both? Upcoming events include:

• Saturday, Aug. 11: Naples Junior Tri, 8 a.m., North Collier Regional Park (gcrunner.org)
• Saturday, Sept. 8: Venice Sprint Triathlon, Sharkey’s on the Pier, Venice (active.com)
• Saturday-Sunday, Sept. 15-16: Galloway Captiva Tri, with the kids’ events (three age groups) Saturday and the sprint tri Sunday. (captivatri.org)
• Saturday, Sept. 22: (“The Original”) Siesta Key Sprint Triathlon, Siesta Key (trifind.com)

 

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. 


 

Efforts underway to make cycling, walking better in Lee County

Florida Weekly 'Outdoors' column, 8/1/18
danMOSER
bikepedmoser@gmail.com

Turning this unpaved pathway along Cleveland Avenue into a paved trail would connect the two neighborhoods on either side of Fort Myers Country Club. DAN MOSER / FLORIDA WEEKLY

Is the glass half-full or half-empty? Depending on many factors, such as where we come from, where we visit, or our individual everyday experiences, our perspectives on Southwest Florida’s bike/pedestrian infrastructure and overall environment can fall anywhere from excellent to horrendous. I regularly hear comments reflecting both extremes.

I admit to looking at this subject very critically because I’m involved in so many aspects of it, from injury prevention to equitable transportation and recreation access for those on foot and bicycle. That being my point of view, our part of Florida rates a “C-”, with lots of room for improvement. That’s actually a generous grade, considering the Cape Coral/Fort Myers metro area is the most dangerous place in the country for pedestrians (smartgrowthamerica.org/dangerous-by-design).

Rather than dwelling on what’s lacking I thought I’d provide a sampling of what’s coming in terms of infrastructure projects and what other efforts are taking place to get us off the top of the Dangerous by Design list.


¦ Central and south Lee County: The last infrastructure element of Lee County’s $10 million TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery)(leempo.com) grant is wrapping up as wayfinding signage are being installed. The bulk of funding went to improve our bike/ ped/transit network from Colonial south to the Collier County line, mostly on U.S. 41 and points east.

¦ Lehigh Acres: Planning work continues for the Able Canal Multi-Use Trail (swflroads.com/ablecanalpathway) that will serve as a 5.5-mile linear park as well as linking existing parks and recreation areas in Lehigh Acres. There’s a way to go before the pathway is on the ground but funding to continue moving towards that end is in place.

¦ Cape Coral: The possibility of creating public use within the long-abandoned Cape Coral Golf Club property remains alive (saveourrecreation.us). After a developer’s plan to build homes on the site was denied by the city in 2017 the city council approved the reinstatement of the Park Master Plan Stakeholders Group in order to come up with recreational-use recommendations for the 175-acre former golf course. The city still doesn’t own the property but it is in negotiations with its owners.

¦ Fort Myers: A non-motorized link between Cleveland Avenue and McGregor Boulevard will likely run along Fort Myers Country Club property on Hill Avenue. A major benefit is the possibility of utilizing the canal berm along Carrell Road from Cleveland to points east, theoretically linking to both John Yarbrough (JY) Trail and North Colonial Linear Trail. Since the proposed trail from McGregor to U.S. 41 must run along a portion of the golf course property along Cleveland to get to the intersection with Carrell, the next logical addition to the plan would be to continue north along U.S. 41 to Halgrim Avenue, thereby connecting the two neighborhoods on either side of the golf course and giving residents access to the Carrell trail.

¦ Fort Myers: The extension of JY north of Colonial is also being studied. The ultimate plan is to reach downtown and the river, mainly utilizing the existing Metro/ Evans corridor. But the key missing link at this point — besides the pathetic segment of Fowler Street from near Hanson Street to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard (that’s a sad story in itself) — is from Colonial to the new Metro overpass north of Winkler. If properly designed and constructed (a big “if”) JY will also connect to the existing North Colonial Linear Trail and the proposed Carrell Road trail. Information about the two Fort Myers projects can be found at cfmpathwaystudies.com.

¦ Southwest Florida Critical Mass (meetup.com/Biking-SWFL): These well-established outings are not your usual group rides in that they truly represent the essence of having fun on a bike. And while the rides are entertaining they also raise awareness about traffic safety and the benefits of cycling.

¦ Streets Alive of SWF (streetsaliveswfl.org): This nonprofit that began as the creator of two Open Road/Cyclovia events has morphed into one that, according to its mission statement, will foster a livable community through activities, advocacy, education and service.

¦ BikeWalkLee (bikewalklee.org & bikewalklee.blogspot.com): With a mission similar to Streets Alive this community coalition that was established in 2008 works to raise public awareness and advocate for Complete Streets in Lee County. The main difference is that BWL works behind the scenes on governmental policy matters and posts information related to advancing Complete Streets on its blog and via e-newsletters.

¦ Bicycle/pedestrian master plans and bike map: Lee MPO (leempo.com) is the conduit for funding of local jurisdiction bike/ped master plans that identify needs and quantify required resources. Along with those slated to be funded in the near future is the revision of a countywide bike/ped safety action plan. As well, work on a new edition of Lee County’s bike map should be forthcoming from Lee MPO now that TIGER grant projects are complete.¦


- 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. 

For Lee County cycling and tri events visit Caloosa Riders Bicycle Club (caloosariders.org); Florida Mudcutters (mudcutters.org); and SW Florida Biking Meetup Group (meetup.com/Biking-SWFL). The Florida Bicycle Association (floridabicycle.org) is your source for statewide happenings. BikeWalkLee’s blog site has all the information you’ll need to stay abreast of advocacy efforts in Southwest Florida as well as statewide and nationally.