FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                   

Contact:   Steve Myers or Jeff Shuler, LeeTran
                (941) 277-5012, ext. 2223

NEW BUS TRANSFER CENTER IN CAPE CORAL SET TO OPEN

 FORT MYERS, Fla. (April 18, 2002) – The Board of Lee County Commissioners will officially open the new bus transfer center in Cape Coral on Monday (April 22). 

The ribbon cutting ceremony will be at 1 p.m. at 820 S.E. 47^th Terrace, north of Cape Coral Parkway between Del Prado and Coronado boulevards.  Commission Chairman Bob Janes will be the master of ceremonies. 

The LeeTran Cape Coral Transfer Center cost $913,000 and provides a central location downtown for riders to easily board and transfer buses.  The previous downtown transfer point on Leonard Street had only one small shelter and the buses had to wait on the street. 

The new facility – which took seven months to complete – has bays for each of the four routes servicing the Transfer Center and buses will be able to pull off the street, improving traffic flow and pedestrian safety.  It also has 57 parking spaces.  The center complements recent improvements in bus service, including improved service between downtown Cape Coral and Edison Mall via Route 120. 

By riding Lee Tran between the two cities, residents can easily avoid both tolls and wear and tear on their vehicles – saving money and decreasing traffic congestion along one of the county’s main east-west corridors.  The center was designed with the future in mind.  One of the bays is large enough for an inter-city bus to use, in the event that Greyhound or another bus company decides to make a Cape Coral stop. 

This is the second such intermodal transfer center to be built.  In November, the 21,000-square-foot Lee County Intermodal Transfer Center opened in downtown Fort Myers offering similar services as well as ticket counters for LeeTran and Greyhound. 

The new LeeTran Cape Coral Transfer Center is made possible through the cooperation of a number of government agencies, including the United States Federal Transit Administration (FTA), Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT), Lee County government, the City of Cape Coral and the Cape Coral Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA).  The project if being funded through a $511,000 FTA grant, a $370,000 FDOT grant, and $32,000 from the Cape Coral CRA.  The City of Cape Coral has generously allowed Lee County to use the land where the transfer center is being built. 

LeeTran operates 20 bus routes in Lee County and its cities, as well as a trolley service on Fort Myers Beach.  The system operates 43 buses and eight trolleys, employs 163 people and has an annual budget of $15 million.  This month, the system introduced new electronic fareboxes on its buses and trolleys that read magnetically encoded passes and speed up the time it takes to pay fares.