Mathews County supervisors have asked the Virginia Department of Transportation to study the issue of allowing golf carts to use legally some public roads on Gwynn’s Island.

During Tuesday’s board meeting in the historic courthouse, Gwynn’s Island resident Dan Hill and civic league president Tom Edwards presented a petition to the board containing a reported 319 signatures of people who they said were in favor of the proposal.

In their written report, they said the island has 602 residents, while only 17 of them had signed a separate petition against the proposal.

Hill showed the board a map with 13 roads that he asked to have designated “golf cart friendly”—Wharf Creek, Callis Wharf, Risby Town, Cherry Point, North Bay Haven, South Bay Haven, Edwards Landing, Gwynnsville, Henry, Gum Thicket, and Buckschase roads, as well as Rose Lane and Chesapeake Drive.

He said that, while Old Ferry Road, the island’s main thoroughfare, is three miles lo...