Villagers were frustrated and angry Tuesday morning at what they saw as inaction on the issue of golf cart safety following a nearly three-hour summit on the issue at Eisenhower Recreation Center.
“It’s ridiculous,” said Villager Gregory B. Wildridge after the Multi-Modal Path Discussion Group Workshop. “Nothing’s happening even though they know what the problem is.”
The meeting of supervisors from 10 Community Development Districts, the chairman of the Amenity Authority Committee and an audience of Villagers, representatives of the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office, The Villages Public Safety Department and other Villages officials heard a variety of opinions on the topic of multi-modal path safety.
At the heart of the debate is striping.
The District’s engineer, Richard Busche of Kimley-Horn and Associates, made it abundantly clear, once again, that he would not recommend striping.
He repeated his stance that striping would fundamentally change the paths into “golf cart highways.”
He said that the parties who would be most at risk would be bicyclists and walkers, who Busch described as the most-vulnerable of multi-modal path users.
“If you put a centerline stripe down the multi-modal path, golf cart drivers are going to think they own it. They will feel emboldened,” Busche said.
He said that is already happening in CDD 4, which put down striping and has been labeled as “rogue” for doing so.
But CDD 4 Supervisor and AAC member Don Deakin disagreed.
“When we put in the striping in District 4, it served as a traffic calmer,” he said.
He noted that he believes golf carts are going slower in CDD 4.
If the meeting proved anything, it showed there is still no consensus among elected officials. It also showed there is a divide among what the public appears to want and what the engineer continues to recommend to the District.
One thing that everyone seems to agree upon is that The Villages, with its miles of multi-modal paths and co-mingling of golf carts and automobiles, is like none other in the nation.
“The Multi-Use Trails are unique. There is very little like it in the country,” Busch said in his presentation to the group.
What are your thoughts on striping the golf cart paths? Share them with us by taking our poll!
But Villager Susan Ray had a beef with Busch’s reliance on the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) for his rationale.
“That doesn’t take into account golf carts,” she said.
She said she is frustrated that elected officials continue to debate the issue, but have taken little action.
“You have to wonder, what’s the holdup?” she said.
Some elected officials expressed the same frustration.
CDD 2 Supervisor Bryan Lifsey called the meeting “historic ” and he tried to spur his fellow elected officials into action.
“Our residents want to feel comfortable using our multi-modal paths. Get a decision today. We’ve talked long enough,” Lifsey said.
The workshop was conducted under the leadership of the Project Wide Advisory Committee and ultimately the group opted to look at the placement of markers at islands in the multi-modal paths and sideline striping “where appropriate.”
Golf-cart safety will no doubt be the topic of debate at two more meetings this week.
The AAC meets at 9 a.m. Wednesday at Savannah Center.
PWAC meets at 9 a.m. Thursday at the District Office at 984 Old Mill Run.
