Golf carts may soon cruise Cleveland streets – just don’t expect Put-in-Bay vibes

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Golf carts may soon be allowed on Cleveland’s streets — but only for businesses offering tours and short rides for patrons looking to skip a walk.
Mayor Justin Bibb has proposed legislation that would allow businesses to operate golf carts on city streets. Those carts would be subject to yearly inspections, traffic restrictions and a $150 fee per vehicle.
City Council, while cautious, approved an amended version of the legislation at Wednesday’s public safety meeting. It still must go through another committee meeting and a full council vote before any golf cart regulations become official.
Bibb’s safety and city planning officials faced dozens of questions from council members, who wanted to make sure allowing golf carts didn’t lead to a bigger issue down the road.
“I want to make sure we’re not opening Pandora’s box here,” said Councilman Mike Polensek, who chairs council’s public safety committee. The city has long had problems with nuisance drivers, whether they be street-legal dirt bikes or street takeovers.
City planning director Calley Mersmann said the city is considering new golf cart rules because businesses have shown an interest in using them.
One business was Bob’s Bike Tours, a company that takes customers on bicycles through neighborhoods like downtown, Ohio City and Tremont. Bob Polk told council at the meeting he wants to offer golf cart tours for those who can’t ride a bike.
There’s also The Golf Cart Girl Cleveland, which wants to use golf carts for short rides, similar to how an Uber or Lyft would work. Owner Chris Taylor said he wants to pick up people downtown and shuttle them to events, like Browns or Cavs games. Some businesses are also interested in making it easier to hop from one entertainment district to another.
Taylor told cleveland.com he had briefly operated, taking patrons to Browns’ games in 2023, but was shut down by the city. He said starting in June 2023 his company has worked with Cleveland to legalize this kind of golf cart business.
The legislation would do the following:
Any business that wanted to use golf carts would apply to city officials for a permit. Each golf cart would be inspected and licensed at a fee of $150 per vehicle annually.
Each cart must have safety features like brake lights, seat belts and turn signals. They’d be allowed on any street with a speed limit under 35 mph, but the carts themselves can’t go over 25 miles per hour.
Only drivers who worked for approved businesses could operate carts. Carts can’t be rented out to drivers.
Public safety officials can create no-go zones where carts can’t travel, similar to restrictions that currently exist for electric scooters and bikes on gamedays.
Council also amended the legislation to make sure that any golf carts were marked with the name of the business that operated them.
Additionally, Cleveland could implement drop-off fees for carts in the future. So, a golf cart company may have to pay $5 each time they unload patrons at Willard Park, for example.
State law allows golf carts to be street legal but leaves it to the cities to create rules and regulations, Mersmann told council. She said Cleveland thought it would be best to start with businesses and see how that works, before considering whether personal golf carts should be allowed throughout the city.
Your feedback matters
Would you take a golf cart ride in downtown Cleveland?
Gordon Holmes, Cleveland’s traffic commissioner, said city officials would reserve the ability to impound golf carts and pull permits from businesses if rules are being broken.
He said other cities like Columbus, which have instituted similar golf carts rules, had reported no traffic fatalities involving golf carts. Holmes said he was initially apprehensive about things like golf carts and electric scooters, but he’s come around, since they help take congestion off the roads.
Councilman Richard Starr made a point that the golf carts could hurt Cleveland’s bottom line, since some city-owned lots charged high prices for gameday parking near the stadium or arena.
Taylor, owner of Golf Cart Girl Cleveland, countered that more patrons could start using cheaper city-owned parking options further away from the stadium, helping negate any revenue loss. Mersmann said other options already exist, like electric bikes, Uber, RTA and walking, for those who wish to park far away from events.
And while technically, golf carts would be allowed across the city, they likely won’t venture that far from downtown.
Because the electric carts are slow and have limited batteries, it’s not smart to go out very far.
“Most times it’s not feasible for us to get to the outskirt neighborhoods of Cleveland,” Taylor said. “It just doesn’t make sense from a financial perspective or a battery perspective.”