Quote:
Originally Posted by JiriHrdina
I'd have to familiarize myself with those other events before I could offer an opinion. For the most part I am supportive of festivals and other events and don't have a problem with road closures to facilitate them.
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Let me preface this with saying that I am aware of what your sticking point is seeing as how we've already discussed the issue in another thread.
What you seem to be saying with the quoted post and several others is that there should be some sort of how-to checklist on how to create, develop, and grow a festival that includes a road closure. So, say I want to start a festival (as but one example of possible reasons to close a road). Let's say it will celebrate dog walking, or the colour orange, or mustaches or promote electronics recycling or a meeting of unicycle enthusiasts, or a white pride parade. What about just a plain old block party or garage sale parade amongst my neighbours and community? How should I go about it? What about a rally in support of, say, Anne Coulter or Michael Ignatieff? What about if the road closure just so happens to be linked to the cause of the event, even if it isn't "needed" for the purposes of having event participants walking, standing or cycling on it? What about spontaneous events like Red Mile c. 2004? What's the protocol? Should there be one?
The thing is that the City of Calgary's transportation department doesn't care what the cause of the road closure application is, or if they do, it has little bearing on if the closure is granted or not. There is good reason for that, and the Bow River Flow is a good example of why. All they determine is if it is doable and the traffic flows won't be impacted significantly. Say we create *something* that incorporates your interpretation of "good reason" for a closure into the process by which they are closed. How can you possibly do that without creating more loopholes and problems with how it is implemented?
I'm not really a dog person, mustaches creep me out just a bit, I don't unicycle or care to and I think many 'white pride' advocates are at best misguided. But, if a group wants to close a road for their event that the transportation department deems fit to close for the duration of it, then that's fine by me. Granting a road closure, that is technically feasible and doesn't impact traffic flows significantly, based on those merits is a hell of a lot more equitable and efficient than trying to come up with some sort of how-to on event planning for citizens, and deciding what is and what is not a legitimate reason for closing a road that otherwise has minimal effects.
Not saying you share these sentiments Jiri, but there's an element to this issue that those opposed don't care so much about traffic flows as they do about just not really liking the segment of the population that the event appeals to. It's a shot against so-called latte-sipping elitists. If all they cared about was being hypothetically inconvenienced by traffic flows, this is a non-issue, because frankly they weren't significantly affected.
Now, in an old thread you had mentioned that I seem to be arguing that people should not have reason to complain because that's just how things work (re: transportation department granting road closures). Sorry I did not reply at the time as I got busy and went out of town at the time. However, if I can so so now, that's not what I'm trying to say. People complain all the time, often without much cause. Myself included. Complain all you want, but I reserve the right to challenge you to come up with a better solution, challenge the reasoning behind your complaints, or just agree to disagree.