Cape Coral residents got a chance this week to provide feedback for the city's new mobility plan, which will improve intersections, sidewalks, and promote walking and cycling. The 20 year plan involves road widening, lane repurposing, and additional paths pedestrians, funded by a mobility fee.
The proposed fee will replace Cape Coral’s existing road impact fee, which has not been updated in nearly 20 years. It will be calculated based on location, square footage, and land use.
Many attendees were concerned that the budget for this project will come from their pockets, but it will only be applied to new construction.
“If you’re a new home, new business, new apartment complex, you pay a road impact fee that is supposed to mitigate the impact and help pay for road rules… The road impact fee is not a tax on existing residents, It’s a fee for new development,” mobility planner Jonathan Paul said.
Attendees voiced concerns over capacity for road expansion, slowing road speeds, and high renovation costs. Cape Coral resident Anne Berchtold had an issue with traffic congestion and high accident rates.
“Their focus is something happy and green where we’re all walking and riding our bikes, and that’s great for development. But the real world is, how do we do something where we are increasing speed and lowering risk?” Berchtold said.
The City of Cape Coral won’t be the first to implement a mobility plan. Over 40 Florida counties are transitioning from road impact fees to mobility plans to create a safe and accessible network of roads across the county for all modes of transportation. There will be a second meeting on July 23 with an updated plan taking community feedback into account.
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