Time to rethink the CRA
To the editor:
The CRA spending thousands of dollars to have an empty trolley run around Cape Coral. Now they want to expand on a bad idea and contract for $6,000 a week for the next year, that’s over $300,000 folks. I’m sure that the police, fire, or Parks & Rec. would like to have that money in their budget. Or this money could instead help defray the cost of the new RO plant.
I have been living in Cape Coral for 23 years, and I’m tired of hearing about spending CRA money on “downtown.” Fort Myers, Orlando, Tampa, Jacksonville and many other cities have a downtown but Cape Coral has no downtown. We have a strip mall with a six lane expressway running through the middle of it. If that’s what you call a downtown then you might as well call Del Prado a downtown also.
Unlike most downtowns, there is no city hall, police station, or county buildings, they are all at the other end of the city. All we have to call downtown is Big John’s parking lot where many social events are held. Did you ever try to walk across Cape Coral Parkway to get to the businesses on the other side – it’s impossible without getting killed or moving your car. The closest we come to have a downtown is when they close off Cape Coral Parkway to Coronado for the Arts Festival in the fall. At that time people can walk safely up and down both sides of Cape Coral Parkway.
Until the CRA spends its money on an overpass (which would be very unsightly) or finds a way to permanently divert the traffic around Cape Coral Parkway, we will never have a real downtown. Take all the money that the CRA gets and put it back to good use in the city coffers, during these very bad economic times. We have lived without a downtown for all these years, and we can still do without it for many more years, until we again are in a healthy financial situation.
The CRA must go and take all their belongings with them on the empty trolley.
One other point I’d like to make regarding our “downtown.” How many people do you see walking on either side of the street on the sidewalks? Without foot traffic you don’t have a downtown.
Al Boyd Sr.
Cape Coral