I am an owner of a gas cart and live in Peachtree City. I’ve lived here since 1987, and have had my Yamaha cart just about the same length of time.
I am amused at all the justification for the elimination of the carts. Most of the talk settles around the fact that they are noisy and stinky.
There is an element of truth to that, and I agree that we would probably be better off without them. The burning coal at some far off stinky Georgia Power plant is not in our back yard, so that is okay … right?
The opposition claims that the banning is a violation of our constitutional rights, and there may be a smidgen of truth to that as well.
I can agree that fossil burning is bad for our health, and there is a whole lot of truth in that.
What I find ironic, however, is when I have brought up the issue of the superfluous barrage of garbage/trash trucks that invade our streets striving to keep our households clean.
When it is pointed out that there are too many of those large and stinky vehicles, which burn a heck of a lot more fossil fuel and pollute the air a heck of a lot more than the few golf carts, to say nothing of the damage their weight and hydraulic oils do on our streets, our political leaders go numb. They say that we need to preserve our right to choose who we want to pick up our trash.
Instead of ONE truck, making ONE run on our ONE street, we have four or five trucks running up and down preserving our freedoms. What is wrong with this picture?
I would gladly give up my gas cart if the city would take the leadership position in demonstrating a solution to a more costly and polluting factor over which they have control.
Playing politics over a nuisance and ignoring or ducking a serious health and infrastructure issue is ludicrous.
Juan Matute
Peachtree City, Ga.
