So, how much money is spent?

My wife and I are amazed at the amount of gates that are damaged by people that seem to be in a rush here in The Villages. The card reader at the St. James gate was completely demolished recently. How does one o abut doing that? We hope that cameras were able to capture the offending vehicle and bill the owner for damages and labor.

Speed bumps to slow the NASCAR drivers would definitely cut down the damage.

I'm all for speedbumps. There are places where gates are needed, perhaps, but they should rethink gates for the near future.

Are the gates able to gather data? If so, they would would provide extensive information about demand, traffic patterns, and road usage to TVLS, Inc.

In addition, if our gate cards are keyed to specific addresses, the gates would also provide individual data about our comings and goings. (I don't think they are linked to us and personally wouldn't give two toots what data was gathered about where I go -- just wondering.)

A person with a question can actually push the red button and have a conversation with the gate monitor on duty.

Surely you jest!
Village Community Development Districts

Why would the OP assume that it is only "impaired drivers coming back at night from LSL"? Our Summerhill gate is down quite often and it has to do with primarily impatient, not impaired, drivers. My big question for anyone is "why do they feel the need to piggyback through the gates?". They can't spare an extra maybe 10 seconds to reactivate the gate? Don't have your card? Push the button. Easy. Don't have time for the exit gate to go up? Too bad.

Our exit gate was inoperable yesterday and they had a stop sign in place. I stopped, effectively irritating the guy behind me, and then when we got to the corner and I was going to turn left, he came up to turn right and blew right through the stop sign on CR101. Think he would have stopped at the one at the gate had he not been forced to do so by my stopping??? Neither do I.

:duck:

Take the ridiculous gates down--they were purposely put up so that The Villages could claim to be a "gated" community. I would really like to know where the legal authority is granted to The Villages to put up the barriers on public roads. Would someone be able to point me to the law providing them this right? And if the gates are on public roads, then why are the citizens of The Villages required to pay for their upkeep? Why are they not funded by the government?

We have the worst gates in the Villages
 

I don't agree. The gates serve a purpose and that is to keep us from getting crushed when we cross the larger roads in TV.

That could be my gate...
 

I bet almost everyone said to themselves, after reading your post..."that must be my gate." Lol! - just yesterday my hubby said: ". I'm going to go out in the street & install speed bumps about two houses before our house...& another speed bump about two houses on the other side." Tee hee! No one will know what's going on. The neighbors will just accept it as they ride by & say: "hi what are you doing?" & then hubby will respond: "oh, just installing the speed bumps over here." :a040: lol!

Do you drive a golf cart? Do you use the MM Trails in any way? I'm guessing that you don't if you think the gates are useless. How many Villagers do you think would be injured/killed while crossing roads between the MM Trails if there were no gates? Can you imagine the backups on the MM trails if cart drivers, bikers and walkers/runners had to wait for a break in traffic to cross every major road in TV? Can you imagine the backups that would occur for vehicular traffic if every other car stopped to let carts pass in front of them (which would inevitably happen)?

Do you think the roundabouts would work as efficiently if there were no gates to break up and slow down traffic exiting various Villages onto Buena Vista/Morse? The gates are there for traffic control and security (cameras). And they fulfill that purpose very well.

The upgraded cameras that have been/are being installed assist in tracking down the gate crashers. And gate crashers pay a big fine (I heard $250.00). The gate arms are designed to easily break away so as to alleviate as much damage as possible. Many times, they simply just have to be put back on and adjusted. However, over time the arms and internal mechanisms do sustain damage. I suspect the collected fines from the gate crashers go along way in fixing and maintaining the gates.

The reason that The Villages is allowed to put up gates on public roads is because anyone can enter by pushing the button. I guess the "legal authority" comes from the local counties/municipalities that agreed to the gates in the first place.

And finally, I don't know about you...but I never had the impression that TV was a gated community. I figured that out the first time I drove up to a gate and pushed a button to get in. Even if I hadn't figured that out the first time I visited, I certainly did enough research before buying here to have known whether or not I was buying in a gated community.

Cast Iron Gates??
 

Maybe they should try those new cast iron gates that a supplier has been trying to sell TV. That'll slow down the first few and after that, the word will spread.

Cars & Trucks along with the Piggyback drivers are breaking those gates. People are in to damn much of a hurry period.Can't blame it on the Golf Carts because unless your a street legal you don't belong on those roads. A Gate Shack would require a whole reconstruction of that area and I don't see that happening. Wish they'd start catching these gate crashers though. Canal & Bonita Blvd isn't much better.

Stop signs & stop sign cameras--ticket drivers running the stop signs
I almost nailed a golf cart the other day who was piggy backing another golf cart & he got ticked off when I blew the cars horn

Del Mar gate use to get hit by golf carts alot. Not just cars golf carts to.