[SIRE1]

Originally Posted by Michael 61

Been here 7 months now, and Lake Sumter has been my limit of how far north I have travelled by golf cart. Today, I finally decided to drive my cart up to Spanish Springs and over the original multi-modal bridge to the “historic section”. Was surprised how narrow the path was across Lake Sumter on Morse Blvd / the low clearance of the tunnel under Morse Blvd / the closeness that one shares the road with cars north of 466 on Morse Blvd / and then the very narrow width of the bridge over the highway to the “historic section”.

Interesting to contrast with the multi-modal paths south of Lake Sumter.

I had visited Orange Blossom once before briefly - and drove around Silver Lake today for the first time. It was interesting to see — very different “vibe” and look from the rest of The Villages, especially for me, living south of 44. Their deeds and restrictions are obviously very different from other parts of The Villages. I went inside the Silver Lake Rec Center - spoke with very nice elderly gentleman who was the front-desk person, who gave me a mini-tour and shared with me the history of the area. Nice big room with 8 well-kept billiard tables. Also, the Rec Center has the largest “jigsaw puzzle” library in The Villages.
I ended up over at Orange Blossom CC - they were having “Disco Night”.

Glad to have finally made the trip up North by cart, but now that I have done it, I think I will go back to my car for any travels north of Lake Sumter - the narrow paths are just a tad unnerving.

You are correct about the narrow MMP north of 466. But before we say "WHY DID THEY MAKE THEM SO NARROW", we have to look at a little history first. When we started visiting friends in The Villages in 2000 none of the carts had headlights and all carts had to be home before sundown. And there wasn't a Lake Sumter Landing or anything south of 466. There was just a rumor that something might be going in "down south" but it was just farm land.

So there was only minimal cart traffic on Morse Blvd from the few neighborhoods near 466 and the cart path was adequate. And there was minimal auto traffic going out that gate so crossing Morse Blvd in a cart was no big deal. Then Lake Sumter Landing and all of the development to south happened and all the traffic increased to what it is today. But, what is there was great at the time it was built.

As far as the bridge over Lake Sumter Landing, our friends told me that the narrow cart path was the result of an incident around Tampa (at least I think it was Tampa) where a walker was hit by a car crossing the bridge. So after The Villages started building the bridge, the government changed the regulations and required sidewalks to be installed on all newly built bridges. Even though the bridge was designed with a Multi Modal Path, which includes people walking, they had to put in a sidewalk. That meant the space originally defined as a MMP had to be reduced to the width it is today. And you go from a nice wide MMP on land to a VERY narrow MMP on the bridge.

But if you still want to explore the northern end of The Villages someday, try going up Buena Vista instead. All the paths leading up to that area are nice and wide and the landscaping is really nice. The Buena Vista area was built around 2001 -2003 when The Villages kept improving from what they had learned from the neighborhoods built when they jumped 441 and built Spanish Springs. And if you haven't seen it yet, there is even a POLO Field up there. And you can get into Spanish Springs and the historic section by taking El Camino Real from Buena Vista. So it might be worth another trip to the north country. Just a thought.