COTI submits recommendations for Sanibel Plan
As a part of the Sanibel Plan update underway by the city, the Committee of the Islands’ (COTI) Transportation Committee has submitted recommendations for updating the transportation element.
The COTI reported that in sharing the recommendations, its committee’s intent is to promote useful changes in the updated plan and encourage island residents to engage with the important process.
As part of its section-by-section review, the committee submitted recommendations for the “Background Discussion” and “Goals, Objectives and Policies” sections. They include:
– Data used, in many cases, are old and inaccurate reflections of current conditions and so incomplete that they preclude addressing key questions.
– The plan must consider a broader range of travel options and find strategies to reduce automobile use.
– The resilience of both the roads and adjacent shared-use path segments should be evaluated simultaneously.
– We should experiment with and assess small changes in the operation of specific segments of our road network as the basis for future planning.
– There is an ongoing and urgent need to develop a transit system, including a community circulator service.
The COTI reported that additional recommendations stressed the importance of encouraging environmental sustainability, with transportation being the largest contributor to climate-warming air pollution in Florida. Thus, the plan should reduce the need to travel by vehicle on the island and promote lower-polluting and group forms of transportation.
To view the complete recommendations submitted, visit www.coti.org.
For more information, contact committee Chair Bill Millar at wmillar106@gmail.com.