When I first heard about this I thought to myself what a stupid thing to do. However, I wanted to get a lot more info before coming saying anything about the issue.
From the posted youtube video it really sounds like she just wanted to shutdown the street to create a larger area or parkway for bikers and bladers to use. This is because it seems the paths are quite congested and can be dangerous with bladers and bikers going faster dodging many people on foot and families with strollers and young children out for a sunday afternoon. It does not sound like there was any festival planned whatsoever.
Highlighted points for this idea:
- Originally wanted the 4 slowest sundays of the year. Obviously got 1.
- She envisionsed a lot bigger parkway from maybe Parkdale to Centre street
- She mentioned this parkway might only be from morning and end around 1pm when the height of traffice normally begins.
- Other locations were considered but they decided on Memorial since they figured 16th could handle the east-west traffic and the renovations make it a much nicer street to ride along.
- This was to be an experiment to see if it would work as a parkway and see if it was worthwhile to continue.
- Cost was considered minimal since only a road blockage was originally considered
Sounds like there were some good and bad things that came out of this limited experiment.
- A potential new festival could be in the works due to initial idea
- People didn't really use the road due to exhaust from slow cars on other side.
- Increased traffic in residential areas due to shortcut seekers
IMO, it seems like a decent idea but was poorly implemented. The festival did seem like a last minute idea and only had a few weeks to be planned. As has been mentioned, first time festivals don't normally have a good turn out so could of been isolated to the wide green space right beside the river instead of blocking the road.
I am not conviced that we need to have a parkway in Calgary at this time. Although, I am biased since I do not use those pathways and do not know how crowded they are. We have Glenmore park, Eau Claire, paths all along the bow that go all the way along up towards Silversprings, and Princess Island park to name a few. I understand Memorial is more congested then the rest so why not widen the path or something to help eleviate congestion. There seems to be quite a room between the river and Memorial for a wider or second pathway. We are a very sprawled out city with lots of room unlike NY which has limited room and a lot more ppl.
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