Cape Coral City Council asked staff to bring back example policies for residential “traffic calming” after a presentation on Wednesday, opting not to hire a consultant.
Mayor John Gunter said the city should look at other organizations and use their policy, something that would not cost the city anything.
“I am not in favor of spending a half a million dollars for a policy someone else has that we could utilize,” he said.
Councilmember Bill Steinke said the matter has been brought forward many times in the past and the funding has not been approved.
“We just had the opportunity with mobility fees to let growth pay for growth. We didn’t take that to the max. Unless we are prepared to fund the solutions, I don’t see why we need a plan,” he said.
The traffic calming measures were brought forward after city staff received more than 160 speed-related complaints from residents last year. Traffic issues on residential roads include high vehicle volume, cut through traffic and excessive speeds.
All the requests have been looked into as far as safety hazard goes and the city works the Cape Coral Police Department to conduct targeted enforcement.
In addition the CCPD has education programs, and posts short-term police radar speed trailers. There has also been the installation of pavement markings, which includes centerline and edge line striping.
The city uses the three E’s of traffic safety – education, enforcement and engineering.
Driver behavior is very important as drivers react to competing traffic and level of service measure from an engineering perspective. Education comes into play as it confirms that motorists operate within the confines of the law.
The last piece of the puzzle is engineering, and this comes into play if the first two are not working and a redesign needs to happen.
Common traffic calming measures include speed humps, speed cushions, vertical and horizontal deflections, all of which have significant price tags.
There are four key pieces for traffic calming policy – project initiation, plan development, plan approval and plan implementation. If a policy is developed and a program initiated, a funding source would need to be implemented to carry out the traffic calming measures.
“We need to be looking to cut costs. This is a feel good, not a must have,” Councilmember Rachel Kaduk said.
Councilmember Laurie Lehmann said she has seen traffic calming measures and it has accomplished absolutely nothing.
“A traffic calming policy I have already seen what it doesn’t do — why bother,” she said.
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