The future on Davis Islands

In your editorial "Pushing carts off the road" (July 20) you wrote it's "too bad Tampa City Council slammed the door on the idea of using golf carts on Davis Islands roads ..." There should be more innovative thinking in our transportation planning for our city, and a good start could be on Davis Islands.

A network of community roadways within the Islands could be developed and striped with pavement markings to allow for motor vehicles and safety-improved golf carts. Within the normal 12-foot lane striped by white pavement markings, yellow pavement markings could be added to demarcate the curb-side lane on which golf carts could be allowed to operate. Roads with left-turn lanes could be striped for the carts.

We are all aware that golf carts are not designed to have interaction with motor vehicles, but it does not mean that safety features could not be added to make it safer to co-exist with motor vehicles. In a small way, such an operational reality exists in the Lake Jovita development outside Dade City. Golf carts are allowed to interact with other motor vehicles. Golf carts owned by residents have head lights, turn signals and brake lights. Seat belts and other safety features could be easily added in the Davis Islands case as required.

In longer-term transportation planning for the bay area, such operational co-existence could be a preamble to how capacities for private-car transport can be designed to possibly quadruple if select lanes of existing roads could be striped to accommodate a smaller vehicle. Such a vehicle is under development by a well-known automobile manufacturer - a four-wheel vehicle about the width and length of a golf cart. Its top speed is expected to be about 75 mph, with a design expectation of about 200 mpg. It can carry a passenger and the driver in tandem.

This is a win-win situation for the future if we dare to think innovatively.

LANNEY WENN

Dade City