Chairman, Five-Year Budget Projection Committee
Re: User fees for recreational paths
As requested by the Five Year Budget Projection Committee,
the Sanibel Bicycle Club thoroughly investigated the use of User Fees for
bicycles in various communities. We contacted the League of American
Bicyclists,
-Incentives: Communities should be encouraging bicycle use, not introducing dis-incentives through user fees.
-Fairness: Many different constituencies use the recreational paths, walkers, joggers, rollerbladers, etc. and only resident bicyclists and rental agencies would be expected to pay the user fees. In the case of Sanibel, there is also the issue of people bringing their bicycles onto the island to ride “free”. It appears impossible to bridge this unfairness issue.
-Enforcement: Enforcement of a user fee would be either costly and effective or voluntary and ineffective. In either case the actual amount collected would suffer.
-Income: The amount of income realized thorough user fees offset by administration and enforcement cost would be trivial. Other sources of funding for recreational paths offer far more possibilities. Please refer to the attached document.
As the result of our research on user fees, we have come to the conclusion that this is not a viable option for funding recreational paths; therefore we withdraw our recommendation that user fees be considered.
Sincerely,
George Sousa
President
PS: Attached, please find the supporting information concerning user fees as well as a survey of additional funding methods used in other communities.