Executive Trail Fees - Why?
 

Just curious, since I walk the executive courses and have never paid the "Trail Fee" that enables one to drive their carts on the paved paths. I understand that the fee is somewhere around $140 per cart, per year. Does anyone know exactly where this fee goes and what it is supposed to do? In all the years I have been in The Villages, I've never seen a Executive cart path in need of repair, replacement or maintenance. We don't have "frost heaves" or wash-outs that damage paths in northern courses. So where does all this "trail fee" money go? Just curious.

Actually cart paths do have to be repaired at certain points. I know Hilltop and Silver Lake had some work done. I can't recall others I know were worked on and there are some that should definately be reworked. I normally pay the yearly fee and last calculation I checked had I not I would have forked over 300 other wise for all the play I did. I personally would prefer to walk them but my knees,back, and hips are shot.

I forgot to add that villages golf folk would be the best ones to ask.

Would the trail fees only be used for the cart paths? Why not buy sand with it, too? That's ok with me.

Since you walk, why do you care? When walking do you walk on the cart paths? By the way, the fee is per household.

It’s not per cart. It’s per residence.

As stated, just curious. I don't care. And why would I need to walk on the cart paths anyway? It just seems like a lot of money donated for what? Do you care?

I imagine it helps pay for starters, ambassadors, supplies. Think of all the pencils and score cards, maintenance.

during rainy weather, or after the storms from the hurricanes, it’s cart path only. If there is no path, there lies the problem.
There are many who enjoy playing golf, but due to health, can’t walk a path as you do. I am confused as to why it concerns you on how people allocate how they spend their money.

I run every morning, and I still have to pay for taxes on the roads.

I think most golf courses charge a trail fee of sorts if you use your own cart. The use of carts, a privilege, creates wear and tear on the courses. The trail fee is charged to help offset those costs. I think the fee is reasonable and I walk sometimes as well.

Remember that golf is free now on the executive courses if you walk, but golf is not without cost to someone. Someone is paying the grass cutters, the people who fertilize, the folks who work the shed and man the ambassador carts. Nothing is free. Anything can change and it will soon due to the awful economic repercussions of this global virus.

Bingo poster # 10

Never seen where golf carts riding on paved paths create "wear and tear" on the golf course itself. Neither have I ever seen much in the way of wear and tear on these paths either. So apparently these "trail fees" are being used for something else. If just half the households (50,000 units) pay the $140 yearly fee, that's 7 million bucks. Sorry - I don't see 7 million dollars of cart path work being done each year on the exec courses.

There are around 100,000 PEOPLE living in the Villages.
There are only around 50,000 HOUSEHOLDS.

Only around 2/3 of them are occupied year-round, and several households are occupied by people who don't play golf at all. Some members don't play golf regularly enough to warrant paying the yearly fee, and instead pay as they go, per trip (which I believe is $2 per person? Someone who plays the exec courses will correct me but it's beside the point). And some people walk the course, thus not having to pay the trail fee at all, ever.

Given that some of them are members of the country clubs, thus not having to pay that $140/year in trail fees at all (since country club membership waives that) -

do a little creative mathematics:

There's maybe 15,000 households that are actually paying that yearly trail fee.

So that comes to around $2,100,000. That covers the upkeep of the paths, throughout over 30 square miles of golf courses, every year.

The other way I've seen the money spent is where some golfers, for whatever reason, instead of driving slowly through a puddle on the path drive around it, in the mud and creating ruts and getting mud on their carts. The ruts get worse until the grass dies and needs to be resodded.