Should golf carts be banned from Carolina Forest paths? Horry County has a solution
Even though John Giantoni is retired and uses a wheelchair, he stays on the move and active.
Mondays, he and his wife go to an Italian club and play cards. Tuesdays are for the beach and fishing, Wednesdays he plays Bocce and darts and Fridays they go to the Moose Lodge. And in between that full schedule, Giantoni plays basketball with other wheelchair users, and putters around Carolina Forest in his electric wheelchair. He said he’s put more than 700 miles on the chair in a year.
But Giantoni said he’s run into a problem when he’s traveling on the paved multi-use paths along either side of Carolina Forest Boulevard: Golf carts.
The pair of asphalt paths — part of Horry County’s widening of Carolina Forest Boulevard and meant for walkers, joggers, cyclists, wheelchair users and others — aren’t wide enough for both a golf cart and a wheelchair.
“If I go in the grass, I could flip over, and there’s places they can’t get off, so what do you do?” Giantoni said.
He said he’s seen young teenagers driving golf carts on the paths, and sees other residents driving their carts on the paths weekly. Because the speed limit on Carolina Forest Boulevard is higher than 35 mph, golf carts and other small, motorized vehicles aren’t allowed on the main road.
“That’s the problem, I’m not going to pull over because I’ve fallen in this chair once and I had to have the paramedics come and get me up,” Giantoni said. “There’s going to be a confrontation, that’s what’s going to happen, especially if it’s a young wiseguy kid. Maybe an adult would be reasonable and back up or something.”
Bollards would allow wheelchairs, not carts
In response to that problem, which Giantoni raised to Horry County Police officials at a community meeting Wednesday evening, Horry County council member Bill Howard, who represents part of Carolina Forest, said he’ll work to get bollards placed at breaks in the multi-use paths that would allow bicycles and wheelchairs to get through, but block golf carts.
“I’m going to try to get it done while there’s still funds available, there’s going to be excess money left over,” Howard said. “That’s why I’m trying to work on getting those bollards put in so you can’t get on the path with a golf cart.”
The county paid for the widening of Carolina Forest Boulevard with funds from its RIDE 3 penny-sales-tax program, which is expected to collect nearly $600 million between May 2017 and April 2025. The county budgeted $54.7 million for the project but ended up spending millions less than that, Howard said. Under county rules, the leftover money will be transferred to other projects on the RIDE 3 list, Howard said, which means the county would need to get the bollards installed before the Carolina Forest Boulevard project officially wraps up.
Howard suggested using standard steel pipe bollards that would be drilled two feet into the pavement at breaks in the path. He said doing so likely wouldn’t require official action from county council but could be handled by the administration since the county already has an active contract for the larger project. Howard said he’d ask County Administrator Steve Gosnell to get a price estimate from the contractor.
Would golf cart drivers say ‘hmm, pound sand’?
But even that seemingly-simple solution comes with a complication.
“It’s not against the law for a golf cart to be on a multi-use path and that’s the dilemma that we’re having is we want to be able to help (the residents),” said Horry County Police Capt. Tina Vaught, who spoke at Wednesday’s community meeting and oversees Carolina Forest. “The law includes motorized wheelchairs but it says nothing about golf carts.”
That would mean that in addition to installing bollards, county leaders may have to explicitly ban golf carts from multi-use paths.
“Until it becomes a law the most we can do is go up to somebody and say ‘Can you guys please take this cart off here,’ and they can pretty much tell us, ‘Hmm, pound sand,’ and we go, OK, and walk off,” Vaught said. “But I think it is something that we’re going to look into.”
Howard added that preventing golf carts on the paths could also deter other misuses. He said he’s also seen people drive their cars on the path.
“Kids, groups of kids, they’re driving their cars right on the path, and they’re probably going 20 mph,” he said.
Giantoni said it’s important that he and other wheelchair users retain access to the multi-use path, but worries that more houses and more new residents in Carolina Forest will mean more golf carts and therefore, more issues for him.
“I love (the path) because I have a friend I play basketball with, he’s a paraplegic who’s in Indigo Bay, so I come up the path, I go see him,” he said. “I don’t have to drive.”
