Golf Carts May Blaze a New Trail

Martha and Charles Hellmann have a special spot in their garage where they keep their little white Club Car plugged into an electrical outlet and parked next to their new champagne-colored Chrysler van.

Sure, it may be just a golf cart to some. But to the Hellmanns, it’s a second car. They use it to buzz from clubhouse to clubhouse and visit friends in the sprawling, gated community of Leisure World in southern Orange County.

And soon, they may be able to putter beyond the gates to the grocery store, bank or post office.

Laguna Woods, a city of 20,000, plans to build paths along El Toro Road, the city’s main thoroughfare, so that residents--most of whom live in Leisure World--can tool around town in their golf carts. Pedestrians and bicyclists would be able to use the paths as well.

The City Council this month approved the concept and is expected to complete a plan this summer.

The community is one of several nationwide to allow golf carts on public streets or special paths in an effort to increase convenience and reduce traffic, noise and pollution.

Already, the excitement is building at the thought of putting around Laguna Woods at 15 mph.

“The sooner the better,” said Martha Hellmann, 77. “I think it’s great. It opens more doors for us in Leisure World.”

There are about 1,200 registered golf cart owners in Leisure World, said Terri Quinlan, a Leisure World spokeswoman. And many use the carts for transportation, not golf.

For El McElney, 81, a golf cart means independence. Her husband, who died in December, did all the driving.

She gave up her driver’s license 15 years ago and now relies on friends to take her into town or to her weekly bridge games. But since a driver’s license isn’t required to operate a golf cart, McElney now envisions the day she can motor to the grocery store. “Wouldn’t that be so wonderful?” McElney said.

While Laguna Woods would be the first Orange County city to make special road provisions for golf carts, the concept is not unique. In Playa Vista, a new residential and commercial village near Marina del Rey, golf carts or electric cars could even come with the house.

“When people buy a home here, they’ll be able to buy one of these electric vehicles as part of their house--the cost will be built into the mortgage,” said Steve Soboroff, president of Playa Vista. “The question won’t be: ‘Do you want one?’ The question will be: ‘Do you want a blue one or a yellow one?’”

Soboroff envisions the streets of Playa Vista dominated by golf carts or their electrical cousins, such as the Ford Think Neighborhood Electric Vehicle or the Daimler Chrysler-owned GEM car, which look like golf carts but go faster.

As a rule, golf carts--which cost anywhere from $1,400 for a used model to $15,000 for a new custom cart--are banned from public streets. But low-speed electric cars, which can go about 25 mph, are allowed on roads with a posted speed limit of 35 mph or lower.

Palm Desert began building golf cart lanes along city streets nearly a decade ago, and 25 years before that cart lanes emerged as a key ingredient in the development of Peachtree City, Ga., a town southeast of Atlanta with about 32,000 residents. Roughly a fourth of Peachtree’s residents use the 80-mile network of paths.

“The beauty of it is that you can go virtually anywhere you want to in the city on these paths,” Peachtree City Mayor Steve Brown said. “From my house, I can go to Blockbuster Video, I can do my dry cleaning, I can go anywhere I want to go.”

Brown likens the carts to a horseless carriage and says people seem to be friendlier to one another when they’re riding in them. People smile and wave to each other as they pass by. And, he said, accidents are rare.

“We’ve had some accidents ... but about the worst is when someone doesn’t pay attention to where they’re going and maybe runs off the path and rolls down a hill,” Brown said. “But those accidents are almost insignificant compared to traffic accidents in regular cars.”

Still, some Laguna Woods officials are concerned about safety--particularly since a fair portion of the city’s golf cart users are elderly and may have eyesight or reflex problems. And the paths would run parallel to one of the county’s busiest streets.

“It’s a great concept, but when you look at the volume of traffic and the speed of the traffic along El Toro Road, there are a lot of safety issues that need to be figured out,” Laguna Woods Mayor Jan McLaughlin said.

The initial plans call for a short wall and landscape buffer that would separate the “alternative vehicle path” from the rest of the road. But officials might consider other options, including moving the path away from the street, City Manager Leslie Keane said.

“We’re plowing new ground here,” Keane said. “So we want to take some time, see if the golf cart path would work or see if we need to do something a little different and go off the street with a path.”

City officials expect to spend about $2 million on the path--start to finish--and will seek grants to cover the majority of that cost. Last year, the city received a $100,000 grant from the Orange County Transportation Authority that will go toward the project.

If the city decides to go ahead with the idea, the result could be a less congested El Toro Road.

“It’s always good when you provide a means to accommodate alternative transportation, be it bicycles or pedestrians or golf carts,” said Larry Wymer, a traffic engineering consultant with the firm of David Evans and Associates. “A golf cart, especially, would allow somebody to make a trip that’s too far to go on foot without clogging up the roadways.”

Charles Hellmann thinks it’s a good idea too.

“The golf carts are made to travel at a safe speed,” he said. “The only thing you have to be careful of is that you stay on the right paths and follow all the safety precautions. That way, you won’t get into any trouble.”

*

If you have questions, comments or story ideas regarding driving or traffic in Southern California, send an e-mail to behindthewheel@ latimes.com.