Sharing the streets with golf carts appears to be a good idea for Lake Mills, Iowa — or any other of the small cities in the area.

Lake Mills is considering allowing golf carts on its streets as long as the owners register with City Hall and as long as they don’t use the carts on highways.

At first glance, people might be quick to say in a town like Lake Mills, residents should just walk or bike for short trips. But some people cannot or will not walk or bike that short of a distance. Yet it seems a waste of precious gasoline to fire up an automobile when they could just hop in a golf cart and zip over to, say, the Pizza Ranch.

Iowa law does allow cities to ordinate the use golf carts on streets.

So does Minnesota’s.

That begs the question: Should Albert Lea pass such an ordinance?

It’s worth a discussion, but in the end the conclusion likely would be that Albert Lea has too many streets with high traffic counts for golf carts — which take up more space than pedestrians and bikers.

For safety purposes, the golf carts in Lake Mills will be encouraged to drive in the flow of traffic, not on the edges of the streets, said the police chief.

There are many highways in Albert Lea, but there are many busy non-highway streets, too.

Imagine golf carts on Hammer, Lakeview, Fountain, Clark, Hawthorne, Front, Garfield, Marshall, Ninth, Frank, Plaza or Sunset.

Trouble.

Perhaps golf carts could be allowed in certain segments of the city, such as the new Wedgewood Cove development, but not the entire city.

As for other cities in the area, such as Freeborn or Emmons, it seems like the idea would work well. In many towns, people sometimes zip around in them. Such an ordinance would register vehicles already in use on the streets. It would legalize an existing use.