BACKSWING: City Council rethinks golf cart ban

Two years after banning golf carts from Destin streets, the City Council has decided they might be OK after all.

Monday, the council voted 4-3 to have city staff draft a one-year test program — which the council would then review and vote on — allowing golf carts on certain city streets south of U.S. 98, to see if they can mix safely with traffic and pedestrians.

Councilor Sandy Trammell said for the program to prove that, it would need a measurable standard for success: “Right now a ‘test’ to one person may mean ‘Well, nobody got killed on a golf cart.’ …. There’s nothing to measure it by. If we’re going to have a study, we have to have something to measure.”

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Reporter Fraser Sherman offers live updates from City Hall during Monday's council meeting. Click on http://frasersmind.freedomblogging.com/ for more on this topic, a play-by-play of the meeting and to join the discussion

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Florida law bans golf carts from streets and sidewalks unless a city designates some roads, with speed limits under 25 mph, as usable by carts. Otherwise, carts are only allowed if owners turn them into “low speed vehicles,” with rear-view mirrors, headlights, seat-belts and other modifications.

Despite the law, golf carts see wide use in Destin on both sidewalks and streets. In 2006, the council rejected proposals to designate cart-friendly streets and gave owners two years to either give up their carts or upgrade them into low-speed vehicles.

Two months ago, however, the council asked the city’s Public Works/Public Safety Committee to review a proposal for new rules allowing carts on some streets, and the possibility of allowing them on multi-use pathways around the city.

“We have spent more time on this in the past two years than any other issue,” committee chair Tim Krueger told the council Monday. “There are people out there who love golf carts.”

However, Krueger said, the committee opposed them because the risk to “joggers, walkers, bicycles, strollers” on multi-use pathways and sidewalks was too great, and putting slow-moving carts in the streets would make Destin traffic worse.

Golf-cart dealer Scott Lightsey objected that he fields dozens of calls every day from tourists who want to rent golf carts, and that the city was driving them away to Sandestin, where the carts can be used legally. Lightsey said that renting low-speed vehicles instead would add too many business expenses.

“If you don’t think people make a determination to stay in Sandestin or Crystal Beach based on their ability to get to the beach, you’re kidding yourself,” Councilor Jim Bagby said.

Bagby said that if the city allowed carts in Crystal Beach, some drivers would undoubtedly cross U.S. 98 — where carts still wouldn’t be allowed — to reach Destin Commons or Wal-Mart, but that could be fixed with strict enforcement.

“You’ve muddied the water so bad for the sheriff’s department, they won’t be able to begin figuring out if someone should be stopped or not,” Councilor Sam Seevers said, adding that letting carts on the streets was too risky.

“In my mind, the strongest voice of advocacy for the golf cart issue is a man who sells and leases them,” Councilor Kelly Windes said. “I can’t let that trump the safety factor.”

Bagby proposed a trial program for Crystal Beach streets where the speed limits were less than 25 mph. At the suggestion of other councilors, he modified this to include all such streets south of U.S. 98, and to require anyone driving a cart to have a driver’s license. An issues in past debates has been that some parents allow children as young as 12 to drive their carts.

Bagby, Dewey Destin, Tom Weidenhamer and Jim Wood voted to have staff draft a trial program; Seevers, Windes and Sandy Trammell voted no.

City Manager Greg Kisela said the program wouldn’t be ready for the council to review until the fall. Bagby said he’d rather start the program during the off-season.

The council also voted 6-1 to incorporate a request from Destiny East — for a multi-use pathway on Scenic 98 they can use to drive carts to the beach — into the ongoing redesign of that section of the road. Bagby said staff should come up with two or three options for accomplishing that.

Wood pointed out that until the program is approved, the 2006 ban and state laws still make unmodified carts illegal on all city streets.