I understand the great traffic control debate is again simmering on Sanibel Island. The issue of installing a traffic rotary at the Causeway Boulevard/ Periwinkle Way/ Lindgren Boulevard intersection has come back around. Fifty years ago, when I sat on the first Sanibel City Council, we studied the same proposition. Our consultants, first-class traffic engineers of the day, deduced a traffic circle was impractical and would not work at peak loads. Have engineering standards magically produced a solution that can be applied now? If you think so I wouldn’t count on it.
In my opinion during peak in-season the causeway is the culprit when the line of vehicles back up. Drivers can’t move fast enough across it. The causeway speed limit should return to its original setting — 45 miles per hour with an added minimum of 35. For the record I’m the person responsible for getting the speed limit lowered to 35 back in 1964. But that’s another story.
Here’s a bit of nostalgic and forgotten history I want to share. I’ve written this piece based on over 90 years of great memories, well over 70 of them here in Southwest Florida and nearly 50 as a Sanibel Island resident. Anyone who wants to research the issues I present herein further please do. I neglected to include the following stories in any of the books I have written that discuss Sanibel Island history. And, I know of no one else who has included it in their written work. There are very few of us left around who remember how the Lee County commissioners shoved the Sanibel Causeway down the throats of we who lived on Sanibel and Captiva islands back then. At the time I led a Sanibel Island conservation organization and we opposed construction of the causeway. From some points of view the events I present herein were among the cases of poor and short-sighted leadership and planning skills that were all talk and no action that were commonly exhibited by county officials back in the day.
Soon after the opening of the (first) Sanibel Causeway, on May 26, 1963, the Lee County Commission fantasized a never-completed concept to use the roadway as a hub for two connecting intersections. One brainstorm was for them to build another causeway/road. If it had happened it was to leave from a point at the Sanibel Causeway’s curve and span upper San Carlos Bay to reach Saint James City on Pine Island. This never materialized and Pine Islanders can thank their “lucky stars” for that. But they must never let their guard down.
The other proposed intersection was on Sanibel Island proper. It was to make a connection with Causeway Boulevard near the Sanibel-Captiva Chamber of Commerce building. This roadway would have extended straight west from that point and would have connected with the intersection of today’s Sanibel-Captiva and Tarpon Bay roads. It would have been aligned parallel to and situated about a quarter mile north of Periwinkle Way. The road would have spanned a total distance of close to two and three quarter miles, but the idea wasn’t taken seriously enough. Such a road would have certainly created a bypass for folks enroute to or leaving Captiva Island and reduced traffic on Periwinkle Way. Then, as usual, before the idea could get any traction the Lee County Commission shot themselves in the foot. First, they approved three large subdivisions directly in the path of their dream bypass — The Dunes, Gumbo Limbo, and Palm Ridge. Anyone could see that acquisition of a possible right-of-way was thereafter financially difficult. I think that generally Sanibelians of the time would have accepted this alternate route because at that brief point in time there were not any entities interested in obtaining the wild lands for either development or conservation purposes. Lee County did not follow through with a good idea and look at the traffic mess we have resented for over 50 years.
Then, circa 1967, the County Commission took their eyes off of Lee County’s traffic load when they failed to review the “big picture” as the commissioners approved the acquisition boundary for the expanding J.N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge. This was a good thing, but it would forever block any future consideration for installing a Captiva bypass after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service finalized their land acquisition program within that boundary by the early 70s. Federally owned lands cannot be taken by eminent domain.
Fifty years ago, we had a curious and briefly timed chance to improve traffic flow on Sanibel Island but our county politicians of the time failed to grasp the opportunity. I’m pleased they didn’t because since a parcel of the land, a refuge-acquired tract, that Lee County would have originally had to acquire by condemnation to relieve vehicular traffic strains is now part of our National Wilderness Preservation System.
Charles LeBuff was a longtime Sanibel resident, former Sanibel City Council member and founding board member of the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation.
This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: How a Sanibel traffic solution was conceived, then lost | Opinion
Reporting by Charles LeBuff / Fort Myers News-Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Charles LeBuff | USA TODAY Network
