April 2005
City Council
City of
Dear City Council Members:
The Sanibel Bicycle Club wishes to thank the Sanibel City Council and City Staff for their continuing efforts over the past year in support of our common goal of improving bicycling safety and infrastructure on Sanibel. The Club congratulates the three new Council members elected last month, and looks forward to working with this Council in the coming year.
This past year has been a very difficult one for the community, as it recovers from Hurricane Charlie. The Club is proud of the way our City government handled the hurricane planning and post-hurricane recovery, which has been recognized by national and local awards. We especially appreciate the City’s efforts to bring the shared-use path system back in operation as soon as it was feasible. Understandably, since August, many of the City’s plans have had to be altered to address the urgent recovery efforts; therefore, some of the planned shared-use projects were deferred. We are hopeful that in the year ahead, many of these deferred efforts to repair, improve, and expand the path system can move forward.
The Sanibel Bicycle Club is proud of its strong working partnership with the City. Over the past year, the Club has been active in the City’s deliberations on shared-use path issues, attending and speaking at Council and Planning Commission meetings. This past year we participated the City Council’s budget deliberations and in the Planning Commission’s public hearings on the review of the Sanibel Plan. The focus of our participation was on incorporating the City’s adopted Master Plan for the Shared-Use Path System into the updated Sanibel Plan, as well as on the city’s short and long-term budget plans.
In addition, in February we spoke before both the Council and the Planning Commission about our views on the Segway issue. Because of the safety concerns associated with adding these devices to the already crowded condition of our paths, the Club recommended that the City deal with the underlying problem, which is the narrowness of the paths and recommended that the City start an immediate program to widen them.
We also continued to identify safety problems and suggested
solutions to the City. The Club also assisted
the City in getting the paths back on line after the hurricane by partnering
with the City to clean up the paths on
The Periwinkle Way Corridor Restoration Project is of great interest to the Sanibel Bicycle Club, since the shared use paths are a major component of this corridor. The Club notified both the City and the Periwinkle Partnership in November of its interest in this project and in March, almost a dozen members of our Club participated in the City’s Community Input Planning Workshop on March 31st. We believe this Restoration Project provides an opportunity to both enhance the safety of the path system as well as the user’s experience in this corridor. We also see the project as an important opportunity for seeking grant funds to assist in the financing of this effort.
In last year’s report to Council, we applauded the City’s efforts to explore innovative financing approaches for the path system. Last year the Sanibel Bicycle Club recommended to the Council that a way be found for Tourist Development Council grants to be used to contribute to the maintenance and improvement of the Sanibel path system. At the Council’s urging, the Director of the Lee County Visitor and Convention Bureau agreed to work with the City Manager to come up with a creative way to cover more of the City’s beach-related costs with TDC grants so that city funds could be freed up for investments in the path system, resulting in an additional $240,000 that was available to the city for potential path system expenses.
Last March, the Council approved the City staff’s proposal to use beach parking revenues to fund some path system improvements. In July 2004, the City’s announced plan for the 2005 budget was to continue to budget $250,000 a year for path system repairs and improvements, with $50,000 to come from the Public Works Capital Fund and $200,000 to come from the Enterprise Fund. In the Club’s April 2004 annual report to Council, the Club “strongly recommends that this new funding source be used to increase the overall funding level for the path system, i.e., to supplement, not supplant the funds that the City currently includes in its annual Capital Improvement Plan for the path system.”
The Club was disappointed to discover in October that the final budget that the City presented and that Council approved in September only included $50,000 from the Public Works Capital Fund for path system expenditures, and no funds were provided from the Enterprise Fund for the path system, resulting in an 80% reduction in the funds that have been available for path system expenditures for each of the past several years. We understand that the elimination of funds from the Enterprise Fund resulted from the major reduction in beach parking fees due to the bridge construction and then the hurricane. However, these lost revenues were not restored to the Public Works Capital Fund budget, leaving a huge hole in funding for the path system. The financial needs for the path system have increased due to the hurricane, the costs of the work have increased due to the bridge construction and weight limits, and the demand for path expansion and improvement has grown with the Council’s adoption last year of the Master Plan for the Shared Use Path System. The path system that has been valued as an island treasure by residents and visitors alike is in serious danger of deteriorating and posing a serious safety situation for users.
Recommendations for City Consideration
The City faces a financial crisis this year, precipitated by
the fallout from Hurricane Charlie, as well as the budget and economic fallout
from the Causeway construction and subsequent loss of toll revenues. The Council will have the difficult job of
making tough choices in the 2006 budget process. We believe that the path system is such a
central part of Sanibel life, that even with the current fiscal constraints,
investments in the shared-use path system should be high on the life of city
priorities.
In addition, if we are to keep pace with the increasing usage of the island’s popular path system, the schedule for implementing planned improvements/expansions must be accelerated. Without this acceleration, the path system could quickly become stressed beyond its capacity, resulting in an increasingly unsafe path system for its many users. The Sanibel Bicycle Club offers for your consideration the following recommendations to the City for the coming year and beyond:
- Path System Funding Structure. The most critical path system issue before the Council this year is to put funding for the maintenance, improvement, and expansion of the path system on sound, stable, and solid long-term footing, at levels consistent with the Master Plan and the expectations of this community and its guests. The City Council should continue to search for ways to have the island’s visitors bear some of the costs of the path system, since they are major users. In order to ensure that needed path maintenance and improvement funds are not dependent on the vagaries of the beach parking situation, the base funding should be reinstated in the Public Works Capital Improvement Budget. Enterprise Funds should be dedicated to the path system, but reserved for supplemental expenditures.
- Periwinkle
Way Corridor Restoration Project.
The community’s focus over the next year will be on the restoration
of this corridor. We look forward
to continued participation in this community-wide effort, with an emphasis
on enhancing the safety of the paths in this corridor. Creative efforts and innovative funding
ideas to improve this important segment of the path system are needed. As
part the development of the Master Plan for this corridor, we hope that
the City will include the pending Periwinkle Bypass Path along the
·
Speed up the timetable for widening all paths. Prior to Hurricane Charley, the City was in
the process of implementing a plan to widen all sections of the path system to
a minimum of 8 feet. Currently, only 55% of Sanibel’s path system is 8 feet or
wider. This widening plan stopped in
August and no further plans have been announced. The Club recommends that whenever the path
widening begins, the paths should be
widened to 10 feet, where physically feasible.
Having wider paths is critical to improving the safety of the path
system. The safety concerns with respect
to the 45% of the path system that is less than 8 feet wide, are as critical as
those concerns associated with areas in need of repair.
The recent
City debate on Segways and whether they should be allowed to be rented on
Sanibel once again highlighted the serious safety problems created by our
narrow paths given the high usage of the path system.
Necessary funds should be provided in the FY 2006 budget and beyond to widen the remaining 10 miles (or 45%) of the system. Until such widening has been completed, the City needs to find ways to measure and monitor the carrying capacity of the path system and limit the safety vulnerabilities due to the system’s heavy use.
· Implementation of the Shared Use Paths Master Plan. The adoption of a Shared-Use Path Master Plan in 2003 was a major step forward for the City; however, it is simply a plan. To become a reality, the expansion plan must be funded. The first step is to ensure that the Capital Improvement Plan is designed to ensure implementation of the Shared-Use Master Plan. We recommend that the City provide funds in its annual budgets, as well as pursue grant funds, so that the Master Plan can become a reality within a shorter timeframe. However, as much as an expansion of our path system is needed, first priority must go to the maintenance and improvement, esp. widening, of the existing path system.
- Connecting the Sanibel Path System to Other
Closing
The Sanibel Bicycle Club believes that investments in the shared-use path system should be a high priority for the City, even under the current fiscal constraints. The paths are an important part of the “quality of life” attraction for current and future residents of the island. Path usage by visitors, who consider our paths one of the major reasons they visit our island, also provides important economic benefits for our community and the City. The path system is also important to the promotion of healthy and physically active lifestyles.
It is critical to all segments of the Sanibel community—residents, owners, visitors, and businesses—that we continue to live up to our reputation as a community that appreciates the value of installing and maintaining safe paths. Our island-long path system through a lush and tropical setting allows users to have a greater appreciation of Sanibel’s natural environment.
The Club greatly appreciates the efforts of the Council and the City staff in furthering our common goals, and we look forward to continuing and strengthening this productive partnership in the future. Thank you for your consideration of our views.
Thank you for your long-standing commitment to Sanibel’s treasured path system. The Club’s 260-plus members offer to assist the City and the Sanibel community in moving forward on improvements in the shared-use path system. We look forward to working with you over the coming year.
Sincerely,
Ted Gasteyer, President
cc: Judie Zimomra, City Manager
Ken Pfalser, Acting Planning Director
Armand Ball, Chair, Parks and Recreation Committee
Chair,
Five-Year Budget Committee