On Tuesday, Feb. 19 the Boca Grande Community Planning Panel will meet to discuss Gilchrist Avenue landscaping and right-of-way issues, the restriping of streets in the village, land development regulations, and the possibility of stricter regulations on golf cart use on public roadways.
According to Lynne Seibert, the panel’s chairman, a meeting has been scheduled between herself, panel consultant Tom Smith, traffic consultant Ted Treesch, Lee County Principal Planner Jim Mudd and Paul Wingard, Lee County Department of Transportation deputy director, to discuss several proposed projects on the island. The information that comes from that meeting will be available at the February 19 meeting of the panel.
“We’re going to find out what the criteria are to get started,” Seibert said. “We need to tell Lee County what we have in mind for Gilchrist Avenue and see if they’ll go for it, and see what it takes to submit some sort of master plan. We don’t know the criteria, and we need to find out from them what they are before we go any further with this.”
Seibert said they were also going to discuss how Boca Grande can get in the “budgetary pipeline” for projects such as Gilchrist Avenue, and how they can get the downtown area re-striped.
When downtown streets were torn up this summer for drainage work, parking stripes, stop bars and other miscellaneous markings were never repainted. Seibert said the company who did the work should be responsible for re-striping, and she would be questioning Wingard as to how to get it done.
Seibert said she also wanted to discuss with Lee County officials possibilities of land development regulations, such as downtown zoning, village overlay and marine district overlay options.
“We haven’t yet begun to explore what we’re going to do, we just want to know what the procedures are to get it done,” she said.
The group will also discuss proposed golf cart regulations in Lee County that would require drivers to be 16 and have a valid driver’s license. The current age to operate a golf cart on public roadways is 14.
The ordinance would also require children who are passengers in carts to wear seat belts or be placed in child seats. It would also limit the number of passengers that can ride in a cart.
The proposed ordinance regulates the number of passengers in the cart to the number of seats the cart has. No standing in the carts or hanging from the back would be legal. All children under the age of 12 would need the same seat restraint systems that are used in cars.
This would not affect the Gasparilla Island Conservation and Improvement Association bike path, as it is privately owned. The posted age requirement on the path is 14.
The panel will be discussing these regulations at the February 19 meeting, and welcome public input.
The meeting will be held at the Crowninshield Community House, 121 Banyan St., on Tuesday, Feb. 19 from 2 to 5 p.m. The meeting is open to the public.
February 21, 2008 at 11:49 pm
My family has been visiting Boca for many years and we love it. The village has a real old time Florida feel to it. My wife and I plan to buy a home and retire here. Golf carts are and should continue to be allowed for many reasons which I’m sure you have all discussed.
Here’s why I think allowing 14 year olds is ok. They drive a golf cart better than many 70 year olds drive a car. That’s right and we all know it’s true. What nobody wants to have happen is someone killing a kid on a cart. It seems to me that we should be looking at rules and solutions to vehicle traffic issues as well as golf cart saftey issues.
The village has many blind intersections, I love trees and shrubs but this is a real problem and the city should deal with this immediately.
In Minnesota we have better marked snowmobile and ATV trails than your year round use golf cart trails. Get with the progam ans spend some money on this.
Have some rules and saftey procedures posted at locations around the village. Make sure that this information is available easily through internet, brochures, rental agents etc.
Last year I saw the locals driving very fast in the mornings and afternoons (to and from work). Makes sense they know the island well and have places to go. Not many complete stops for signs either. I know no one wants to see locals ticketed but if it is a problem you have to deal with it.
The kids that can’t drive a car yet can use the golf cart and frankly I think you would see more problems having the town flooded with 16 and 17 year old kids driving their brothers and sisters around town.
The reality is that the village needs to have better signage informing out of towners to look out for golf carts. Striping should be kept fresh. Rules should be made to make golf cart travel as safe as possible. Every year we visit I drive the kids to town in the cart, I review all saftey and traffic concerns with them before they get the keys so they know what to look out for. Accidents can and will happen, but even if you eliminated golf carts, accidents will continue to happen, now with cars and suvs. I’ll take my chances on a golf cart any day over a ton of truck.
February 15, 2008 at 3:17 pm
I would just like to speak up for the people they are banning the golf carts from. Most of the people on the island and good drivers and respect all of the elders in the area. Its the people who come from Englewood and North port that make us look bad. Just the other day I was driving slowly 25 feet behind an elderly man and I said “On your left, SIR” and I passed him with no problem and not yelling or any off this stuff and he started yelling at me and accused me of being underaged and then said that I have to be 16. Also police pull me and my friends over all the time for standing up in my 2 person golf cart, and threaten to write me up if they catch me agian, now I am finding out that I have been doing nothing wrong. I just think it is unfair, if I was slowly trying to pass a senoir citizen jogging with their iPod in, and I get yelled at, but if I was jogging down the bike path a senoir citizen will just skim me and yell at me for not paying attention.
Just the other day my friend was coming out of Boca Bay when an eldery women slammed on her brakes and fell out of her golf cart and crack her skull open, while her golf cart was still gouing into oncoming traffic.
I am just trying to make a statement that all “teenagers” are not bad drivers. I think some people can agree with me that the senoirs are just needing someone to complain to. But I think all the people at the meeting will vote to screw the teenagers.