STORY TOOLS

• E-mail story
• Comments
• iPod friendly
• Printer friendly

More Local News

• Business Buzz: August 20, 2008
• Peak Your Profits: A terrific two-fer you won’t say no-no two
• Columbiettes collect school supplies for underprivileged

Share and Enjoy [?]

Maneuvering around Marco Island on a bicycle can be dangerous.

No one knows that better than Patrick “Pat” Neale, an avid bike enthusiast who a few years ago found himself on the losing side of a run-in with a car pulling out of Winterberry Drive.

“My worst accident was on Collier. I was riding along on Collier Boulevard and somebody pulled out of Winterberry. Next thing I know I’m in a helicopter on my way to the hospital,” said Neale, who now heads the city’s ad-hoc bike paths committee.

Created last year at the behest of bike-riding residents to make the island more bike-friendly, the committee recently went before the Marco Island City Council and presented six months’ worth of research and findings.

All of the conclusions point to Marco Island having a need for safe bike-riding sites in the city.

“Bike paths do a lot of positive things. There’s so much research, not just here in Marco,” Neale said.

“Aside from the fact that it makes it safer for cyclists, it adds to the city’s ambiance,” said Neale, who made the 20-minute presentation at Monday’s council meeting.

After giving a quick history of the committee, Neale briefed the council on some of the key problems currently plaguing the island’s biking community. These include inadequately marked signs and lanes, sharing narrow roads with cars and sidewalks with pedestrians, and drivers being unaware of bicycle riders’ rights on the road.

Neale also released the bike survey results of a March 31 public meeting at Mackle Park, when residents gave their feedback concerning bike routes on the island.

About 70 people attended the workshop, which broke down several proposed bike route segments by letter and number designations. Residents zeroed in on the same five thoroughfares — Winterberry Drive, San Marco Road, North Barfield Drive, Bald Eagle Drive and Heathwood Drive — as their top priorities.

Shared paths, bike lanes and the creation of a city-backed master plan were some of the steps proposed to tackle the issues.

“What we need to do now is come up with a full-blown master plan,” Neale said. “It’s not something that you just wave a magic wand and all of a sudden you have 50 miles of bike paths.”

In addition, Neale told council members that for Marco Island to become a bike-friendly community, it needs to educate residents, encourage the use of bicycles as an alternative mode of transportation and integrate a network of bike routes through the city.

He said it’s especially important now that the city is redoing all of the island’s roadways.

“It (cycling) needs to be considered as a serious part of a transportation plan, instead of having to climb into a car to go everywhere,” Neale said.

If asphalt is being put down for a road, it’s cheaper to add the bike path as the road is being done rather than at another time.

Also discussed was the need to secure money for the project, which grants might be available and what the city can do to try to secure them.

“The only way that it’s going to get done is to have some kind of a stable source of funding in the CIP every year,” Neale said of the Capital Improvement Project budget.

Council members agreed that although the committee might have started as a volunteer effort, it’s time to up the ante.

“This is something we can bring up in our CIP workshop,” Councilwoman Terri DiSciullo said. “To try to get an idea perhaps, of what it may cost to take it from the volunteer stage to the master plan stage.”

DiSciullo said that bike paths have been discussed back and forth since she moved to the city 12 years ago, but that not enough progress has been made.

Council Chairman Mike Minozzi, an avid biker, agreed, citing his experience on the newly opened Leland Way shared-use path.

“We’re way overdue,” he said.

Bike enthusiast Martin Duffner, 74, said he welcomed the council’s warm reception, but wished council members would have taken immediate action.

“I was hoping that they might vote to say, ‘We want to make Marco bike-friendly’,” Duffner said.

Neale said establishing bike paths won’t happen overnight, but the city is on its way.

“The fact is that it’s now gotten everyone’s attention,” Neale said. “It’s not something that is going to be easy to drop, because now it’s out in front.”

- - -

For more information visit www.cityofmarco.com.