{"id":50096,"date":"2021-08-17T16:21:49","date_gmt":"2021-08-17T20:21:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=50096"},"modified":"2021-08-17T16:22:01","modified_gmt":"2021-08-17T20:22:01","slug":"new-park-and-ride-facility-planned-for-lehigh-acres","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2021\/08\/new-park-and-ride-facility-planned-for-lehigh-acres\/","title":{"rendered":"New park-and-ride facility planned for Lehigh Acres"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Gas prices are up, and now that school is back in session, the driving headaches are worse. Lee County commissioners hope to alleviate your commuting nightmares by bringing more public transportation to Lehigh Acres via a new park-and-ride facility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"764\" height=\"400\" src=\"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/parkandride.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-50097\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/parkandride.png 764w, https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/parkandride-300x157.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 764px) 100vw, 764px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>LeeTran says bus ridership has risen 30% in the last decade, so the county is looking to build a park-and-ride facility adjacent to Lehigh Acres Park on Village Lake Boulevard. A lot of Lehigh residents work or visit places outside of town, and the new spot would give residents the ability to park their car and take a bus to those stops. It would include up to four new bus bays, a covered area with benches and restrooms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This would come with the benefits of less traffic on our roads and lower fuel costs for drivers. But&nbsp;will people actually use it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI just don\u2019t see it being an option that people will support right now in Lehigh,\u201d said Lehigh Acres resident Ricardo Lampkin. \u201cI think people just prefer to use their vehicles.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI know a lot of people who ride the bus, and it would be really good,\u201d said fellow resident Hugh Ryan. \u201cMore shelters, more buses, more parking.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The population of Lehigh Acres has increased by around 30,000 people since 2010, many of whom must travel in their own vehicles on busy roads like SR-82 day after day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAs traffic continues to increase on those roadways, that means that the population is growing out there,\u201d said Robert Codie, director of transit for LeeTran. \u201cSo that means there\u2019s an additional service that\u2019s needed in that area, to which we are trying to really put a footprint down in Lehigh Acres.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The design process is expected to take 11 months and cost more than $350,000. County commissioners awarded the design contract to Johnson Engineering Inc. during the Tuesday meeting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gas prices are up, and now that school is back in session, the driving headaches are worse. Lee County commissioners hope to alleviate your commuting nightmares by bringing more public&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":50097,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,32],"tags":[590],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50096"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50096"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50098,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50096\/revisions\/50098"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}