To the editor:<\/p>\n
Cape Coral taxpayers deserve a better explanation before the city spends $1 million installing sidewalks on Orchid Boulevard.\u00a0The stated rationale is \u201cSafe Routes to School.\u201d \u00a0But according to Lee County School District, there are only four students total living in the relevant area enrolled at Cape Elementary.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Before the City spends this kind of money, taxpayers should be told whether any of those four students actually walk to Cape Elementary.\u00a0 That matters because Orchid Boulevard already has bike lanes that pedestrians commonly use, the street is not a high-traffic commercial corridor, and there are no crosswalks at Orchid Boulevard or Southeast 44th Street across busy Del Prado Boulevard.\u00a0A child walking to Cape Elementary would need to go out of the way to cross safely at another location, making the \u201csafe route\u201d rationale far less persuasive.<\/p>\n
The city has said Orchid Boulevard is a \u201cmajor collector road\u201d and that this sidewalk would complete a missing link between existing sidewalks.\u00a0Maybe that is technically true on a planning map.\u00a0But policy labels should not substitute for common sense. This is a short residential stretch with limited pedestrian demand, existing bike lanes, and very few school-age children.<\/p>\n
There are also real impacts on property owners and residents. The planned sidewalk appears to require driveway modifications, swale regrading, and placement close enough to existing driveways that ordinary parking may become more difficult without blocking the sidewalk.<\/p>\n
At a time when Cape Coral\u2019s budget has increased sharply in recent years and property-tax reductions are being discussed statewide, the city should be looking harder at whether every project is truly necessary. \u201cThe money was programmed\u201d or \u201cit completes a link\u201d is not enough.<\/p>\n
Cape Coral should pause this project, disclose the traffic counts, disclose the actual student-walking data, and explain why Orchid Boulevard is a higher priority than other needs \u2014 or why the money should be spent at all.\u00a0 Taxpayers deserve sidewalks where they are genuinely needed, not expensive projects justified by thin assumptions.<\/p>\n
Robert J. Lauson<\/p>\n
Cape Coral property owner and former Orchid Boulevard resident<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To the editor: Cape Coral taxpayers deserve a better explanation before the city spends $1 million installing sidewalks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120266,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210],"class_list":["post-337798","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\/337798","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=337798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337798\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}