Photo by Eric Ayres Councilmen Ty Thorngate, left, and Dave Palmer this week at a Rules Committee of Wheeling City Council discuss the potential of allowing golf carts to be used on city roadways.

WHEELING – Officials in the city of Wheeling began preliminary discussions this week about the possibility of permitting golf carts to be used on city streets in the future.

Members of the Rules Committee of Wheeling City Council met this week to share ideas about the proposal and to consider whether it would be safe and feasible to allow residents to travel through neighborhoods on golf carts via city streets.

Although Ward 5 Councilman Ty Thorngate is not a member of the Rules Committee of Council, he brought the issue forward for discussion after a constituent had repeatedly inquired about it.

“About a year ago, a Ward 4 resident – who is a Ward 5 business owner – approached me and said, ‘wouldn’t it be great if we could take golf carts through Woodsdale?’ The state had recently passed the ordinance where you could take side-by-sides on the road,” Thorngate noted. “Shadyside does it in Ohio. If you’ve ever been down south, it seems to be everywhere.”

In the spring of 2021, the city of Wheeling passed an ordinance to allow certain utility vehicles – some all-terrain vehicles or side-by-sides – on city streets to fall in line with new state regulations that were approved the previous summer.

Thorngate said that in West Virginia, some communities have passed similar legislation to allow golf cart usage on streets, including Parkersburg, which approved it about a year ago. The councilman said Parkersburg’s ordinance provides an example of the rules and regulations that are included with such legislation.

“One thing that people need to understand is that if this were to be passed, a golf cart cannot be operating on a state highway or city street with a posted speed limit in excess of 25 miles per hour,” said Vice Mayor Jerry Sklavounakis, chairman of the Rules Committee of Wheeling City Council. “That’s sort of important.”

Officials noted that not only would golf carts not be permitted to travel on National Road, they would not be allowed to even cross most sections of National Road. For the most part, they would be restricted to stay within most residential neighborhoods.

“As we all know, we have trouble with parking in our neighborhoods,” Councilman Dave Palmer said. My concern is taking up parking spaces. There’s limited parking on the streets. I’m not against this, I just want to make sure we put some kind of guardrails for parking on the street.”

Palmer added that it would be ideal to have permitted, street-approved golf carts to have inspection stickers to make sure the carts have headlights, tail lights, are in good working order, and are driven by operators who know the rules and regulations.

Wheeling Police Chief Shawn Schwertfeger said he learned of this issue the morning prior to the meeting and spent most of the day researching it, speaking with officials from Parkersburg and Vienna, W.Va., where similar ordinances have already been approved.

According to Schwertfeger, one Parkersburg official said there were only about five residents using golf carts in the city and that there were no issues reported.

“Another individual said if they had to do it over again, they wouldn’t approve it just because of safety concerns,” Schwertfeger noted.

The police chief said national data reports around 600,000 crashes involving golf carts in the United States, with most of the accidents taking place on golf courses. However, about 20 percent of those crashes occurred on roadways in communities that do allow them to travel on the streets. These crashes resulted in 20,000 emergency room visits and a total of around 600 fatalities, the chief said.

The police chief in Vienna, W.Va., was opposed to the golf cart ordinance in that community, but it still passed, Schwertfeger indicated.

“Some of the concerns that the Wheeling Police Department would present to this body – instead of stickers, we would recommend registration,” he said, noting that low-speed vehicles such as tractors moving from farm to farm require such a registration through the state. “We require the UTVs that we approve to have the same registration.”

This registration would take care of many of the safety issues pertaining to the working condition of the vehicles themselves. However, there are other concerns, the chief said.

“There is a significant ejection risk,” Schwertfeger stressed. “If golf carts are going to be crossing state highways, I’m really significantly concerned about side (collisions). Those would be where your fatalities would result.”

In Wheeling, there are areas with mixed speed limits, busy corridors, and hills with steep grades. There are also enforcement concerns, the chief stressed, including parking issues and other potential complaints that law enforcement personnel would likely have to handle.

“Having said that, we don’t have an opinion one way or another,” the chief added. “The UTV ordinance that was passed, we’ve not have any significant issues with that. There haven’t really been any crashes or complaints that I’m aware of.”

If such an ordinance were to be considered or approved, Schwertfeger recommended that rules clearly state that golf cart speeds should not exceed 25 mph. He suggested that the carts require registration for safety concerns, that operators must be licensed and must have insurance, that protective gear must be worn by children, and that the carts only be operated in clearly designated areas.

City leaders elected to table the issue for a month to do further research into the issue and to gather feedback from the community.

Palmer suggested that while council members are looking into this topic, they should also consider roping in suggestions that pertain to the use of electric bikes, which have become more prevalent in Wheeling in recent years.