frodus
10 kW
[edit] Survey is finished, thanks guys!
Daily Transportation survey
- Thread starter frodus
- Start date
deardancer3
10 kW
make accomodations in survey for the retired
SamTexas
1 MW
Done. Looking forward to see the interpretations of your polls result.
frodus
10 kW
deardancer3 said:
Thanks, Didn't think about that. I have limited access to change since people already did the survey, but I added some "retired" options.
frodus
10 kW
I went and deleted the cost per day questions. No reason to keep them really, the answers were all over the place and It wasn't well explained. I wanted it to be quick and easy, so I kept the other 8 relevant questions.
lbz5mc12
10 kW
Did it. You should maybe put in an option for the unemployed as well. I just put down what my commute was like when I was employed or going to school.
Drunkskunk
100 GW
Done. Will be interesting to see the results.
e-biker
100 W
Done. will be waiting for results.
MikeFairbanks
100 kW
I completed the survey, but had to go back and double-check (or uncheck) where it says electric automobile.
We (my family) live in Peachtree City, Georgia. It's a community of 35,000 people that was planned from scratch when it was just a forest. It began construction in the late 60s, but really took off in the 70s and 80s. Then, during the 2000s it took off again, and now we're an almost-complete city (not much land left).
The cool thing about Peachtree City is that we have over a hundred miles of dedicated, paved paths for electric golf carts, bikes, pedestrians, and other similar forms of transportation.
The most common is the electric golf cart (gas golf carts are allowed, because apartment residents don't have easy access to electricity at the ground level). There are 12,000 golf carts in our city, and it's really a lot of fun.
First, the path system (generally about 6-8 feet wide) links every neighborhood, school, church, grocery store, big-box store (Walmart, Kmart and Target), along with light industry (Cooper Lighting, Panasonic, Renai, and more).
The path system is very unique in that it really is all-encompassing (if that's the right term). It covers our entire city. You can go anywhere you want with an electric golf cart, electric bicycle, regular bike, or walk. The only time you have to mix with standard vehicles is in residential areas (the path ends at the neighborhood, so you might have to travel a couple hundred yards down your neighborhood street to reach your driveway).
Where the large roads are we have bridges and tunnels. The electric vehicles never have to drive on any standard road with a speed limit greater than 25mph.
In the approximately 40 years that people have been using golf carts, there were only two deaths. One was a bicyclist who ran into a golf cart. Both were going full speed around a blind curve, and both were at fault. Obviously the golf cart won. The bicyclist was actually wearing a helmet, but I supposed it wasn't enough. The other death was a golf cart that went around a turn too quickly, and a woman fell out of the passenger side and hit her head on a utility box that happened to be in the line of her fall. Accidents are very rare because of the low speeds.
Living and cruising around this city is a treat. It feels a lot like Disneyland when driving the golf cart. Our whole family uses it as often as we can, and only use the van when we have to (heavy rain, thunderstorms, below-freezing days). It's similar to boating on a lake. People wave to each other, make eye contact, and you can feel/hear/see/smell the outdoors as you cruise along. One of our former mayors started a slogan that sticks to this day: "Life is better at 19mph."
I've brought up this city a few times on Endless-Sphere, and the reason I do this isn't to brag. It's just that I feel that any city could be retro-fitted, so-to-speak, with paved multi-use paths like we have. It would cost upfront, but the long-term benefits are really good: healthier people, happier people, friendly neighbors, a tight-knit community, and low crime. Yes, our path system means that there's always someone out and about, so the punks don't really have a lot of opportunity. Sure, we get some crime here and there, but we have (if I'm correct) the lowest crime rate in the entire United States for a city our size.
Peachtree city also consistently wins in the "Top-Ten Best Places to Live" by Money Magazine and other publications.
I believe our great way of life isn't about the people, the climate, or the economy. It really is the path system. It isn't a small system, or a "hey, look, we have a couple paths here and there for joggers and bicyclists" like a lot of towns.
This is a town that was planned and built around the concept of alternative transportation.
Photos:
The center of town (you can see the path in the background. This is one of the older, narrower paths.).
A typical path, winding its way through the woods (note: in Peachtree city, trees are a bit of a religion. It's ironic because most people are very right wing, but not when it comes to our trees. People get in serious trouble for cutting trees here). The first time my wife and I came here we said, "Where is the town? Where is everything?" That's how thick the trees are. It's old forest (which is rare in Georgia, due to pines being the dominant trees, and how often they are cut for lumber).
Another typical path winding alongside a standard road (note: We have a lot of one-way standard roads that meander through the woods. Makes driving a regular car enjoyable too. And the larger roads have pretty big medians. Not a lot of head-on collisions here between regular cars, and I've never heard of one between golf carts).
This is the main highway through town. The cart paths are to the sides, behind the trees.
This is a bridge that bypasses a four-lane state highway. No cars are allowed. It's one of the wider sections of the path system.
Another section of the path system.
This is pretty typical (not the rainbow, but the road) of our town. Look to the left and you'll see the cart path.
My kids about six years ago. It's very common to see golf carts in the drive through. And we hate to give up our golfcarts in the winter, so we have zip-up enclosures, blankets, and portable heaters.
We (my family) live in Peachtree City, Georgia. It's a community of 35,000 people that was planned from scratch when it was just a forest. It began construction in the late 60s, but really took off in the 70s and 80s. Then, during the 2000s it took off again, and now we're an almost-complete city (not much land left).
The cool thing about Peachtree City is that we have over a hundred miles of dedicated, paved paths for electric golf carts, bikes, pedestrians, and other similar forms of transportation.
The most common is the electric golf cart (gas golf carts are allowed, because apartment residents don't have easy access to electricity at the ground level). There are 12,000 golf carts in our city, and it's really a lot of fun.
First, the path system (generally about 6-8 feet wide) links every neighborhood, school, church, grocery store, big-box store (Walmart, Kmart and Target), along with light industry (Cooper Lighting, Panasonic, Renai, and more).
The path system is very unique in that it really is all-encompassing (if that's the right term). It covers our entire city. You can go anywhere you want with an electric golf cart, electric bicycle, regular bike, or walk. The only time you have to mix with standard vehicles is in residential areas (the path ends at the neighborhood, so you might have to travel a couple hundred yards down your neighborhood street to reach your driveway).
Where the large roads are we have bridges and tunnels. The electric vehicles never have to drive on any standard road with a speed limit greater than 25mph.
In the approximately 40 years that people have been using golf carts, there were only two deaths. One was a bicyclist who ran into a golf cart. Both were going full speed around a blind curve, and both were at fault. Obviously the golf cart won. The bicyclist was actually wearing a helmet, but I supposed it wasn't enough. The other death was a golf cart that went around a turn too quickly, and a woman fell out of the passenger side and hit her head on a utility box that happened to be in the line of her fall. Accidents are very rare because of the low speeds.
Living and cruising around this city is a treat. It feels a lot like Disneyland when driving the golf cart. Our whole family uses it as often as we can, and only use the van when we have to (heavy rain, thunderstorms, below-freezing days). It's similar to boating on a lake. People wave to each other, make eye contact, and you can feel/hear/see/smell the outdoors as you cruise along. One of our former mayors started a slogan that sticks to this day: "Life is better at 19mph."
I've brought up this city a few times on Endless-Sphere, and the reason I do this isn't to brag. It's just that I feel that any city could be retro-fitted, so-to-speak, with paved multi-use paths like we have. It would cost upfront, but the long-term benefits are really good: healthier people, happier people, friendly neighbors, a tight-knit community, and low crime. Yes, our path system means that there's always someone out and about, so the punks don't really have a lot of opportunity. Sure, we get some crime here and there, but we have (if I'm correct) the lowest crime rate in the entire United States for a city our size.
Peachtree city also consistently wins in the "Top-Ten Best Places to Live" by Money Magazine and other publications.
I believe our great way of life isn't about the people, the climate, or the economy. It really is the path system. It isn't a small system, or a "hey, look, we have a couple paths here and there for joggers and bicyclists" like a lot of towns.
This is a town that was planned and built around the concept of alternative transportation.
Photos:
The center of town (you can see the path in the background. This is one of the older, narrower paths.).
A typical path, winding its way through the woods (note: in Peachtree city, trees are a bit of a religion. It's ironic because most people are very right wing, but not when it comes to our trees. People get in serious trouble for cutting trees here). The first time my wife and I came here we said, "Where is the town? Where is everything?" That's how thick the trees are. It's old forest (which is rare in Georgia, due to pines being the dominant trees, and how often they are cut for lumber).
Another typical path winding alongside a standard road (note: We have a lot of one-way standard roads that meander through the woods. Makes driving a regular car enjoyable too. And the larger roads have pretty big medians. Not a lot of head-on collisions here between regular cars, and I've never heard of one between golf carts).
This is the main highway through town. The cart paths are to the sides, behind the trees.
This is a bridge that bypasses a four-lane state highway. No cars are allowed. It's one of the wider sections of the path system.
Another section of the path system.
This is pretty typical (not the rainbow, but the road) of our town. Look to the left and you'll see the cart path.
My kids about six years ago. It's very common to see golf carts in the drive through. And we hate to give up our golfcarts in the winter, so we have zip-up enclosures, blankets, and portable heaters.
e-biker
100 W
Very nice area Mike I can't wait to go riding with you around there!!
frodus
10 kW
I'm sorry this took so long. I forgot about the survey after a couple weeks!
I upgraded from the free service and got everyone's response (143 of them) and exported to a PDF and also an excel file for people to play with. Put the zip file with both on my website:
http://www.emf-power.com/shared/web/transportation-survey.zip
Take a look. I haven't had time to go through everything yet. Post comments and observations here!
I upgraded from the free service and got everyone's response (143 of them) and exported to a PDF and also an excel file for people to play with. Put the zip file with both on my website:
http://www.emf-power.com/shared/web/transportation-survey.zip
Take a look. I haven't had time to go through everything yet. Post comments and observations here!
