WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 1 00:00:00.090 --> 00:00:02.090 Some American cities have buses. 2 00:00:02.090 --> 00:00:05.340 Some use trams and trains. And there's one... 3 00:00:06.350 --> 00:00:08.410 that uses golf carts. 4 00:00:09.240 --> 00:00:11.040 - My name is Vanessa Fleisch 5 00:00:11.040 --> 00:00:14.480 and I am the mayor of Peachtree City, Georgia. 6 00:00:14.480 --> 00:00:21.370 It's a small city of about 35,000 people that is about 20 minutes south of Atlanta. 7 00:00:21.370 --> 00:00:24.950 It's asphalt paths, we have over 100 miles of them. 8 00:00:24.950 --> 00:00:30.020 They range from 8 feet to 10 feet wide in some places. 9 00:00:30.020 --> 00:00:33.040 They're used for golf carts mostly. 10 00:00:33.040 --> 00:00:37.180 We have over 11,000 registered golf carts in the city. 11 00:00:38.190 --> 00:00:43.860 Obviously, pedestrians, bicyclists, all kinds of traffic is on these paths. 12 00:00:43.860 --> 00:00:44.690 Morning! 13 00:00:45.680 --> 00:00:48.520 - You do have to register them? - Yes, you do. 14 00:00:48.520 --> 00:00:50.820 The people in the city do register them. 15 00:00:50.820 --> 00:00:54.010 - There's someone else approaching us now. I assume it's like regular roads. 16 00:00:54.010 --> 00:00:55.540 You pass on the right and... 17 00:00:55.540 --> 00:00:55.540 - Correct. 18 00:00:55.540 --> 00:00:56.480 - Correct. - Yeah? 19 00:00:56.480 --> 00:00:59.080 - Yeah. - It's a parallel road network, basically. 20 00:00:59.080 --> 00:01:03.050 - The majority of the city is accessible by carts 21 00:01:03.050 --> 00:01:06.760 and that's a huge attraction because parents 22 00:01:06.760 --> 00:01:09.970 can pick up their kids at school if they want to. 23 00:01:09.970 --> 00:01:12.220 - And some of the kids can drive themselves? 24 00:01:12.220 --> 00:01:19.190 - Yes, the younger kids or the sophomores at the local high schools are allowed 25 00:01:19.190 --> 00:01:23.070 with their learner's permit to drive their carts to school. 76 00:01:23.070 --> 00:01:23.900 - Wow. - It's very quiet... 27 00:01:23.900 --> 00:01:27.070 - It's a bit of freedom that they enjoy. 28 00:01:27.070 --> 00:01:28.390 - And I guess if it's limited to 20 miles an hour, 29 00:01:28.390 --> 00:01:30.570 there's less of a chance of a bad bump. 30 00:01:32.450 --> 00:01:33.460 So, this is the high school. 31 00:01:33.460 --> 00:01:34.290 - This is. 32 00:01:34.290 --> 00:01:39.270 There's parking at the high school for 615 carts. 33 00:01:40.170 --> 00:01:44.210 - That is a lot of golf carts. Do all the students leave at once here? 34 00:01:44.210 --> 00:01:46.400 Is it just a traffic jam of golf carts? 35 00:01:46.400 --> 00:01:50.400 - It is a traffic jam of golf carts and it's not always pretty. 36 00:01:50.400 --> 00:01:51.230 - Some of them have a limiter? 37 00:01:51.230 --> 00:01:53.520 - They do, but sometimes they can be removed 38 00:01:53.520 --> 00:01:58.240 and they go faster than they should, which isn't good. 39 00:01:58.240 --> 00:02:01.130 - No, that's exactly what I'd have done at age 15 with my own golf cart. 40 00:02:01.130 --> 00:02:02.360 I would have removed the limiter on it. 41 00:02:02.360 --> 00:02:06.490 - Some of the carts have heaters inside them and radios. 42 00:02:06.490 --> 00:02:09.670 You can soup them up as much as you want really. 43 00:02:09.670 --> 00:02:13.500 After they saw the popularity in the '70s what they did 44 00:02:13.500 --> 00:02:18.120 was they required, whenever there was a new subdivision of houses built, 45 00:02:18.120 --> 00:02:21.200 that they connected the paths. 46 00:02:21.200 --> 00:02:25.050 For the most part, the cart paths are laid out 47 00:02:25.050 --> 00:02:27.050 at the same time they lay out the roads. 48 00:02:27.050 --> 00:02:28.830 - So, what are the road rules here? 49 00:02:28.830 --> 00:02:29.770 It's like you're in a regular vehicle, 50 00:02:29.770 --> 00:02:31.680 you've just got more paths that you can go on? 51 00:02:31.680 --> 00:02:34.130 - Yes, and if there is no path, 52 00:02:34.130 --> 00:02:36.820 you are allowed to be on the road, but that's why 53 00:02:36.820 --> 00:02:39.180 we've expanded the paths because we're trying 54 00:02:39.180 --> 00:02:42.300 to keep people off of them as much as possible. 55 00:02:42.300 --> 00:02:46.550 Sometimes people who have never been here have been caught 56 00:02:46.550 --> 00:02:48.980 on cart paths with their cars 57 00:02:48.980 --> 00:02:52.130 thinking that that's the right thing to do. - Wow! 58 00:02:52.130 --> 00:02:55.580 - I wanted to take you through a drive-thru. So up here is McDonald's. 59 00:02:55.580 --> 00:02:59.440 - I'm still getting over the fact that I'm in a drive-thru in a golf cart! 105 00:02:59.440 --> 00:03:00.960 - Thank you. 61 00:03:00.960 --> 00:03:04.010 - Should point out, not sponsored. This is not product placement. 62 00:03:04.010 --> 00:03:08.770 - The brakes on this are very good. I'm sorry, it's very abrupt on them. 63 00:03:08.770 --> 00:03:10.460 - Better than the alternative. 64 00:03:10.460 --> 00:03:12.700 Peachtree City was a planned community, right? 65 00:03:14.220 --> 00:03:16.580 - How did it go from "we're gonna build some houses here" 66 00:03:16.580 --> 00:03:18.780 to we're gonna have something that 67 00:03:18.780 --> 00:03:20.520 that I don't think any other city in America has? 68 00:03:20.520 --> 00:03:28.420 - It got started originally as a lake retreat for Atlanta residents. 69 00:03:28.420 --> 00:03:32.640 And the people who were here, basically only on the weekends, 70 00:03:32.640 --> 00:03:39.300 they started taking their golf carts on the roads leaving from playing golf. 71 00:03:39.380 --> 00:03:44.420 This whole separate network came up as a result of that 72 00:03:44.420 --> 00:03:47.420 to get them off the roads on their way home. 73 00:03:47.420 --> 00:03:49.220 - So, this was founded in the 1950s. 74 00:03:50.210 --> 00:03:52.960 - 1959 by Joel Cowan. 75 00:03:52.960 --> 00:01:23.070 He was a college student when he designed and founded this city. 76 00:01:23.070 --> 00:01:23.900 - Wow. - It's very quiet... 77 00:04:03.880 --> 00:04:04.720 See what I mean? 78 00:04:07.060 --> 00:04:08.460 - Death wish, good grief! 79 00:04:08.460 --> 00:04:12.200 - Along here, this is Lake Peachtree-- 80 00:04:12.200 --> 00:04:14.860 - Sorry, I got distracted by ducks. 81 00:04:14.860 --> 00:04:18.660 - The Founder, Mr. Cowan and his cousin were the ones 82 00:04:18.660 --> 00:04:21.590 that put up the dam and spillway originally 83 00:04:21.590 --> 00:04:22.880 that made this lake. 84 00:04:22.880 --> 00:04:28.380 100,000 gallons a second goes over this. 85 00:04:28.380 --> 00:04:32.460 People do pay taxes to pay towards these roads. 86 00:04:32.460 --> 00:04:37.700 It costs us $1.8 million a year to maintain what we have 87 00:04:37.700 --> 00:04:40.880 as well as the 29 bridges and 29 tunnels. 88 00:04:40.880 --> 00:04:42.920 - This is a pretty affluent city, which I guess is one 89 00:04:42.920 --> 00:04:45.820 of the reasons that the golf cart paths work, 90 00:04:45.820 --> 00:04:49.310 but there are a lot of cities like that in America 91 00:04:49.310 --> 00:04:53.740 and I'm trying to work out why it's worked here 92 00:04:53.740 --> 00:04:55.320 and it hasn't elsewhere. 93 00:04:55.320 --> 00:04:59.700 - Most mayors when they see or hear about us and they think 94 00:04:59.700 --> 00:05:04.640 "oh, we can do that", well, they've got older cities, 95 00:05:04.640 --> 00:05:06.320 so they really can't. 96 00:05:06.320 --> 00:05:08.540 - And I guess part of it is cost. 97 00:05:08.540 --> 00:05:12.440 Part of it is you need a huge amount of upkeep and tax 98 00:05:12.440 --> 00:05:15.790 and everything to make this work, but it's also because 99 00:05:15.790 --> 00:05:20.130 you need to set the whole thing up or it doesn't work. 100 00:05:20.130 --> 00:05:22.560 You can't have a quarter of a cart network 101 00:05:22.560 --> 00:05:24.720 because no one will buy a cart and no one will use it. 102 00:05:24.720 --> 00:05:28.820 You need to connect everything or it's not worth it. 103 00:05:28.820 --> 00:05:29.720 - Right. 104 00:05:31.010 --> 00:02:59.440 - Lovely! Thank you very much. 105 00:02:59.440 --> 00:03:00.960 - Thank you. 106 00:05:33.840 --> 00:05:37.070 - You can find out more about Peachtree City in the links in the description. 107 00:05:45.620 --> 00:05:47.890 I've just realised there's no seat belts on this. 108 00:05:47.890 --> 00:05:48.720 - No.