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Street light improvements projected to cost town $400K

Fort Myers Beach council continues discussion
Posted at 8:26 AM, Apr 18, 2022
and last updated 2022-04-19 05:41:55-04

FORT MYERS BEACH, Fla. — The price of safety may be seeing an increase close to the beach.

Town council members on Monday discussed adding more street lights to Estero Blvd. in an effort to reduce the amount of pedestrian-involved crashes.

The town council has been talking about this for years, with their biggest concern being the number of crashes involving pedestrians.

Part of Estero Boulevard is county-owned and this year Lee County voted to spend $1.4 million on streetlights at crosswalks. But the town council wants more lights.

Right now, on town-owned parts of Estero, there are 22 lights. The town wants about 80 more.

Zachary Drill with Florida Power & Light said Monday the new amber lights, called Vision-Air, would provide higher wattage than existing lights. If testing meets with positive results, they could be available to install by October.

As for costs, FPL estimates the project would run about $1.8 million. After Lee County-allocated subsidies, the town's net cost would be $400,000.

A decision on the light proposal will be made at a later date.