Sanibel Council To Vote on Roundabout Design Grant for Periwinkle Way Intersection

Sanibel City Council meets Tuesday, Jan. 13 to decide whether to accept grant money for design work on a roundabout where Periwinkle Way meets Causeway Boulevard. Lee County's Metropolitan Planning Organization will pay 30% of design costs.

Right now, the intersection works as a four-way stop with right turn yields. Cars pile up from every direction when traffic gets heavy, and people who live there say the worst backups happen in the mornings and afternoons around three o'clock.

"It's usually in the mornings, when they're coming in, people are coming for the day, and workers are coming in for the day. And it's usually in the afternoon, starting at about three," said Sharol Daltrui, according to WINK News.

Engineers studied traffic patterns in early 2024. They concluded that a roundabout would work best over time to get cars moving. City officials post traffic guards at the spot to help vehicles keep flowing through the clogged area.

Early in 2025, council members held off on paying for the design. They wanted to check if adding more lanes to the causeway might work instead. Later studies showed that wasn't going to happen, so the roundabout idea came back.

Residents can't agree on whether this plan makes sense. Deborah Costigan thinks the change would help cars move through faster. Ed Kothbauer pointed out that roundabouts in Wisconsin seem to speed things up.

Tom Daltrui isn't sold on it. "I'm not a fan of the traffic, but I don't think it will solve the problem right now. With the guard, there's one person making the decision. With a roundabout, there's four people making a decision, and I don't think that's a good idea," said Daltrui.

Wayne Pneuman worries that once one side gets going, there's no way to break in because there's never a pause. Brooks Martin thinks nervous drivers might cause more problems than they fix.

The grant would push the roundabout past the idea stage into actual plans. City officials have spent years trying to fix this intersection.