[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

As noted in the story I posted above, Farrell had no clue what was to be done. She just wanted to close the road, because it would be "fun". Take the road away from motorists and give it to pedestrians and cyclists.

Just read the article again, I don't get any of that sense from the article, that she just wanted it closed because it would be fun.

Originally Posted by the article

Farrell said she took the idea, inspired by similar shut-downs in cities like Rome and Chicago, to the experts at the city's transportation department.

Obviously, this would have happened, before anyone in the media heard about the idea. It sounds like she had an idea, copied from other cities which have done similar things, and started pursuing it.

Originally Posted by Article

She was told Memorial Dr. sees an average of 850 cars per hour on a Sunday, while a half-closed road could still handle 1,500 cars an hour.

That being the case, Farrell believes Memorial, with a river setting, is the ideal location.

"It's the slowest part of summertime, so I thought, let's try something new," said Farrell.

"I mean, we're talking about four Sundays, for Pete's sake -- can we just try it, and maybe have some fun, and see if it works."

To me, that doesn't sound like she was pursuing the closure "just for fun", of course, that's not to say that the event wasn't planned to be a fun event. It also doesn't sound to me that nothing was planned before the closures were talked about, as you and others have insinuated. It sounds like to me that quite a bit had been planned, and of course, lot of other things remained to be planned after the location was finalized - which required the closure to be finalized.