Peachtree City begins effort to help navigation, emergency response on cart path system

The concept of “pathfinder” takes on a yellow hue with Peachtree City’s plan to mark the city’s nearly 90 miles of paved golf cart paths with locator numbers every one-tenth of a mile, each marker tagged with GPS coordinates.

A city news release Monday explains the plan:

Peachtree City’s hallmark feature is its 90–mile network of multi-use paths that connect the community. Most of the paths wind through beautiful wooded areas and between neighborhoods to connect residents with shopping, dining, education, recreation and business in the city. But how do you really know where you are on the path system? What do you do if you have an accident or want to report a problem on a path but don’t know what to call it?

The city recently started a new program to assist citizens, staff, and emergency response personnel to help navigate the path system. City staff is publishing a numbering system for each of the city’s paths. Additionally, small yellow markers are being placed in specific distances on each path to help users know what path they are on.

City I.T. Systems Administrator Matthew Robinson commented, “The markers show a path number, followed by two digits locating where they are in relation to the beginning of each section of path. Each of the markers is supposed to face north to help in setting direction. The markers are generally spaced every 520 feet (or every 1/10th of a mile) when space is available; shorter paths will have a marker placed in the centerpoint of the path or at a visible point along the path. The markers are also being GPS located, and the GPS locations will be available to both emergency response personnel and the general public.”

The cost of the 1,100 markers ($4,750) was funded through existing cart path maintenance funding in the 2008 budget, and markers are being put out through the City’s I.T./GIS Department and Public Works Department as time permits. Volunteer groups to assist in this effort are also being considered.

Robinson said, “We have a fairly good process in place, and we’ve made initial contact with Keep Peachtree City Beautiful in conjunction with the Adopt-A-Path program and Peachtree City’s CERT teams. We’re approaching the process slowly to ensure the markers are placed well and GPS located so we can make the information available to everyone through our mapping website.”

Citizens may track the status of the path marker project on the city’s maps website, maps.peachtree-city.org, winner of the 2008 ARC Create Community Award for Innovation in Technology.

The city is also finalizing the publication of new, accurate street and path maps that will be available in mid April. The new map will also show the path IDs for a majority of the city’s paths, and this information will be available to city staff as well.

“We encourage citizens to begin using the path IDs if they need to contact Public Works or call 911”, said Robinson. “By having an identification system, our hope is the city will be able to respond to citizen needs faster and more accurately, and we hope this will lead to a few less people wondering where they are on the path system.”

If you are interested in assisting with this project, the city asks that you contact Keep Peachtree City Beautiful at 770-632-3195 or the city’s Public Works Department at 770-487-5183 to sign up for the Adopt-A-Path program to help the city keep the path system clean and litter-free.

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