MCA, FDOT discuss proposed shared use path
Representatives from the Florida Department of Transportation agreed to meet with the Matlacha Civic Association at its Feb. 15 meeting regarding the possibility of building a shared use path on County Road 78 (Pine Island Road) from Burnt Store Road through Matlacha to Stringfellow Road at the island’s Center, approximately 5.5 miles in total.
MCA president Mike Hannon identified the core values of the project as, travel safety, keeping existing righted of way in Matlacha, maintaining parking in Matlacha, minimization of environmental impact and preserving the character of the community, emphasizing that he believes each value to be un-debatable.
FDOT Project Manager Richard Oujevolk said the project is still in the stages of feasibility determination.
“It’s a tight area. Our main focus is to get a pathway, basically from Veterans all the way across to Stringfellow … and to do it with a combination of a bicycle, pedestrian, pathway — shared use path and also recognizing the unique nature of Matlacha — probably working more as complete streets, which is trying to put as many people in the same spot as we can, as safely as we can do, and that’s our main goal for the department- to provide safe access for different modes of transportation to go back and forth — bicyclists, pedestrians, both the hardcore bicyclists, recreational bicyclists, family and also to hopefully draw attention to the area and make it easier to get around. We’re not going to fix the traffic problem. It’s a two-lane road that comes out of here. We’re trying to work on better amenities and different choices of transportation,” Oujevolk said.
Currently, FDOT trying to determine how the path will work in conjunction with pedestrians, parking spaces, vehicular traffic and more importantly, emergency vehicle traffic, he said. Hopefully, he added, there will be a consensus reached within the community as well as local partners, such as the city of Cape Coral, Lee County, the MPO (Metropolitan Planning Organization) and local residents.
Comments from the community included concerns that businesses and residents in Matlacha will lose parking and that the already busy traffic condition will worsen. A solution of compromise was offered by Island Bikeworks owner Judd Payne.
“I don’t want to ruin Matlacha. We do have narrow streets here. If we can get a path to Matlacha and out of Matlacha, that fixes 95 percent of the problem — if people have to walk their bikes three city blocks through Matlacha, that is not the end of the world. It gives them time to look at the shops,” Payne said.
FDOT requests all questions, comments, and inquiries regarding this project be directed to the website for reference history: http://www.swflroads.com/pineislandroad/sharedusepath/about_the_project.html
The FDOT website link is Floridacompletestreets.com
MCA also noted that The Matlacha Green Gala will be held in March (the 20 or 27) at Wild Child Gallery.
Interested islanders can register for the MCA newsletter at Matlachacivic@gmail.com.
To reach PAULETTE LeBLANC / pleblanc@breezenewspapers.com, please email