{"id":284055,"date":"2026-05-25T21:17:06","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T21:17:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/284055\/"},"modified":"2026-05-25T21:17:06","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T21:17:06","slug":"cape-tourism-numbers-are-up-and-the-city-says-a-new-form-of-transportation-could-be-in-the-waterfront-communitys-future-lee-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/284055\/","title":{"rendered":"Cape tourism numbers are up and the city says a new form of transportation could be in the waterfront community\u2019s future | Lee County"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>CAPE CORAL, Fla. (WINK) \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.winknews.com\/search\/?l=25&amp;s=start_time&amp;sd=desc&amp;f=html&amp;t=article%2Cvideo%2Cyoutube%2Ccollection&amp;app=editorial&amp;nsa=eedition&amp;q=cape+coral\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Cape Coral<\/a> is exploring ways to use its more than 400 miles of canals to move people around the city.<\/p>\n<p>Sharon Woodberry, Cape Coral economic development manager, said the city is looking into long-term plans to utilize the canal system more efficiently. That could include moving people by water.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They [transportation department] have looked at how we structure mobility fees, and how that can support revenue that&#8217;s coming in, and use those funds to provide infrastructure for that transportation that we&#8217;re talking about,&#8221; Woodberry said.<\/p>\n<p>The City of Cape Coral tells WINK News\u2019 Bella Line they counted 2.2 million trips\/visits from April 2025 to March 2026.<\/p>\n<p>Line spoke with people at Horton Park who said they support the idea of water transportation.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think it&#8217;d be pretty great,&#8221; Joey Gregory said. &#8220;I mean, gas prices are getting pretty crazy, traffic&#8217;s rough, so any kind of better ways to get around are always a great option.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>                        <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAQAAAAe\/WZNAAAAEElEQVR42mM8U88ABowYDABAxQPltt5zqAAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==\" alt=\"vlcsnap-2026-05-25-16h14m08s440.png\" class=\"img-responsive lazyload full default\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" data- data-\/><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think it&#8217;d be a great\u00a0idea, and allow more people to be on the water that probably can&#8217;t get on the water a different way,&#8221; Stephanie Hooker said.<\/p>\n<p>Woodberry said visitors are a large portion of people who utilize the canals. However, she said only 10% of the city&#8217;s economy is from tourist dollars.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Honestly, I thought it would be a little more, but that, that&#8217;s kind of nice,&#8221; Nichole Clements said.<\/p>\n<p>Gregory said he expects tourism numbers to continue improving.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Things are coming back together from the hurricanes and whatnot, so I would expect to see numbers start to go back up,&#8221; Gregory said.<\/p>\n<p>Woodberry said the city does not have any solid plans as to when public transportation on the water could be implemented.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CAPE CORAL, Fla. (WINK) \u2014 Cape Coral is exploring ways to use its more than 400 miles of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284056,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210],"class_list":["post-284055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}