Decatur Decides Not To Pursue the Golf Cart Option
Decatur Metro | August 31, 2011 | 12:35 pm
Patch reports this morning that – unlike its city neighbor to the east – Decatur will not pursue an ordinance to make golf carting around town legal because the state legislation makes it too restrictive. As a result of not being able to drive them on state highways “residents couldn’t drive them on such well-traveled routes as College Avenue, South Candler Street, parts of Commerce Drive, Scott Boulevard and Clairemont Avenue”, according to Patch.
Which – as the City Manager points out in the article – would essentially trap golf carts in their respective neighborhoods, limited from crossing the illegal state highway moats surrounding them.
With golf carts off the table, it is hard to see how Decatur will ever become the “city within a golf course” as detailed in the 2010 Strategic Plan or crack into Money Magazine’s coveted Best Places to Live issue, which each year generally features a blurb on cart cruisin’ Peachtree city residents! (Please note: both the facts and my exasperation in that last sentence are manufactured.)
Photo courtesy of Peachtree City’s website
It seems like common sense. Avondale is a suburb with a commercial fringe.
In that sense, yes, but in every other sense allowing these things in Avondale strikes me as strange, if not outright foolish. They’re totally unnecessary; the city is tiny, and if you want to get somewhere w/o taking your car, then ride a bike. Why do we want kids taking the golf cart to the pool or park rather than riding a bike? As things stand now, the bike racks at the pool are pretty full most weekends. Who wants to change that to filling Dartmouth Ave with parked golf carts? Are we really that lazy?
Are the carts more likely to replace the bikes or the SUVs on Dartmouth? I tend to think the latter, which will actually make for a better parking situation all around.
Imagine all the underage drivers driving these things, all the accidents due to no seat belts, no turn signals, and knowledge of the rules of the road. how are you going to park downtown? leave the golf carts at the golf course.
I’m just trying to imagine how the “sharrow” road graphic would have to have been modified to inclue golf carts…
Gosh, as someone who hopes to grow old in my sweet little Oakhurst bungalow, I wish there were a way to make golf cart paths or something similar. I’m not advocating them on our bigger roads, but an expanded bike/cart path would be nice. I think they have the potential to allow for more personal transportation options in the future. I would love to see more that resemble the PATH project in width and that keep bikes and skaters safer from traffic. I’d even give up another foot or two of my yard at the sidewalk to do it.
I would also like to see more “PATH-like” large sidewalks for bikes, skateboards, walkers and scooters.
Regarding golf carts – whenever I see them off the golf course the words rich, fat, drunk, and lazy come to mind (because at least 3 of them apply to the people driving them)
Yes, I am exaggerating. But I cringe at the thought of teenagers cruising around town in golf carts.
FYI, here are the Peachtree City rules re: who can drive a golf cart:
Carts may ONLY be driven by:
• Persons age 16 or older with or without drivers license (unless license has been suspended or revoked)
• Persons 15 years old with a valid learners permit (unless suspended or revoked) in their possession. If unaccompanied by a parent/grandparent, or person 18 or older, they may drive accompanied by up to one other person who must be at least 15 years old, or may be accompanied by up to 3 immediate family members.
• Persons 15 years old with NO learners permit must be accompanied in the front seat by a parent, grandparent, legal guardian, or a person age 18 or older with a valid drivers license.
• Persons 12, 13 & 14 years old must be accompanied in the front seat by a parent, grandparent, or legal guardian.
• No person under 12 years of age may drive a cart.
Darn…guess I jumped the gun fitting my new golf cart with growler holders.
+1
Glad I didn’t think of that. However, I do have an extra City of Decatur license plate holder for sale…
Build bridges over those pesky state highways to connect the cart paths!!
I thought the AE proposal included crossing points to get across the state highway. Using that option in Decatur would keep the carts to the more residential roads, but it would allow them to get from one neighborhood to another.
As someone who rides my bicycle almost everywhere, I think golf carts (or “low speed vehicles”) are a great idea. I would much rather share the road with someone in a golf cart than an overpowered SUV. It seems like a good transitional technology for people who haven’t quite figured out how to load groceries or kids on their bike. But I would allow them on state roads, and would not allow them on paths.
It’s a nice thought : people leaving the SUV at home in favor of a golf cart. But, I just don’t see it happening. People buy SUVs over minivans or even cars (smaller automobiles) because they like driving their SUV.
That MONEY magazine list baffled me. A lot of those places on it are dullsville…I think the list should be called “places to live that feel like a Novocaine high.”
+1
Where is the part where they are not allowed on state roads?
http://www1.legis.ga.gov/legis/2011_12/fulltext/sb240.htm
Is it buried somewhere in the Ga Code?
http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/gacode/Default.asp
I think I might have found it:
40-6-367.
(a) As used in this Code section, the term ‘highway’ means a state controlled highway.
(b) Personal transportation vehicles shall be operated only on any highway, road, or street where the posted speed limit does not exceed 25 miles per hour.”
Still not sure about how these crazy law things work:
House Bill 328
http://www.legis.ga.gov/Legislation/en-US/display.aspx?Legislation=33002
Senate Bill 240
http://www.legis.ga.gov/Legislation/en-US/display.aspx?Legislation=33570
Does the “Apr/14/2011 – Senate Agrees House Amend or Sub” mean that the Senate agreed to use the house version of the bill?
Perhaps a solution to the electric vehicle vs neighborhood island problem is setting speed limits on arterial roads such that Neighborhood Electric Vehicles are legally allowed to use them. My part of the city out in Tucker is an island from which NEVs cannot (legally) escape.
Almost all of my route to work has speed limits of 35 mph or less. The first exception to that rule is only a mile from my house and, if I had an NEV, that road would effectively block me from getting to work legally.
I would love to see most, if not all, surface streets inside the Perimeter have speed limits of 35 mph or less to allow the increased usage of NEVs.
(The difference between golf carts and NEVs is the inclusion of blinkers, horn, wipers, lights, and seatbelts in an NEV. NEVs have a maximum operating speed of 25 mph per the Federal Gov’t and are allowed to operate in Georgia on roads with speed limits of 35 mph or less).
Speed limits are not the problem. The problem is that golf carts are not allowed on state designated roads, which in Decatur includes, Clairemont, S Candler, College, Commerce, and (gasp!) Scott, among others.