Bow River Flow

[Byrns]

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

It's time for your side of the argument to back up this assertion. Common sense tells all of us that they were trying to close lanes because something was already being planned.

How so? I've explained the process, this festival isn't any different than any other one, other than the fact that its new.

. Nonsense, as I already explained. She said at the time of the debate that it was for a place to let people walk along the roads, so more people could come out, AS OTHER CITIES HAVE DONE. Sure, it's not an urgent reason to shut down a road, but neither is any other festival.

Evidence please, that it only occurred after the fact.

How could a festival that's about opening roads to bikes and pedestrains when the lanes aren't needed proceed without without closing lanes?

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/calgary/sto...ensington.html

No mention of a weekly August Festival.

[JiriHrdina]

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

Having a concrete plan in place doesn't mean that every detail needs to be finalized. Obviously, you can't finalize details until the location is guaranteed, hence the closure application.

Tell me what details were finalized at all? Anything?

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Originally Posted by The Fonz

Could someone sum all of this up for me? I don't live in Calgary, nor do I know who this Druh Farrell is, and I've been away/busy for a while. Not exactly sure what is going on here...

Basically you've got two people arguing about what came first. A road closure or a festival.

One is saying that it would be stupid to organize a festival completely without first looking into road closures, and hence the festival came first.

The other is saying that because a ######ed Alderman was involved the fact that it would be stupid to just close a road for no reason is irrelevant and that the festival was dreamed up after the fact.

Neither will concede to the other, and neither can show any sort of proof, other than a few articles from way back that criticize said Alderman for proposing road closures.

I think that pretty much sums it up.

EDIT: Damn, I saw You Need A Thneed's post and I just had to get involved.
Sorry!

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

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.

I didn't really want to wade into this, but that sounds exactly like she was doing it just for fun, and that there was no festival involved.

When someone says something like
"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."
That to me seems like there is nothing planned other than letting people walk/bike/rollerblade down the road. If there is a festival already in the works, why not mention it?

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

Already done with the Sun article above. No mention of a festival, not even the concept of one. Just a "lets close the road four times and see what happens."

I don't know why all the details would be talked about when the whole thing was still in the works. Being worked on, but still in the works.

You are also assuming common sense from someone considered one of the worst aldermen in the city, which is a pretty big stretch.

By some. Others consider her perhaps the best alderman. Much of the negative light on here that I've seen is due to the media misrepresenting stories. (i.e this one - IMO, and the Calatrava bridge)

Seriously, if it even existed in anyone's mind at the time, all Farrell had to do was say "We're envisioning closing Memorial to hold a new festival." THAT is the common sense thing to do.

Again, road/lane closures aren't something that are "public" per se. You or I could go down and apply for the same closure if we wanted to have an "Orange shirt festival" on a Sunday afternoon in August. There isn't any public discussion on matters like this. The transportation dept sees if it works, makes it work, and gets it done.

She had no idea what she would do with the open road, she just knew she wanted it closed to traffic. Her very own comments prove this out.

The article at the very least alludes to her plans, if not spells them out. I don't think that means she has "no idea."

It's also sort of the reasoning for the festival, that it isn't for any reason other than the lanes aren't needed for traffic on a Sunday afternoon in August, let's try something that may or may not use them more effectively.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

It's also sort of the reasoning for the festival, that it isn't for any reason other than the lanes aren't needed for traffic on a Sunday afternoon in August, let's try something that may or may not use them more effectively.

... whilst ignoring the logic of those who thought it was a bad idea because people wouldn't want to use the road because the pathway next to it is much nicer than two closed lanes adjacent to two clogged lanes. There are some things you don't need to try in order to assess whether or not they're a good idea.

[Shawnski]

You Need A Thneed, you are so off base it isn't funny.

This "festival" was not put forth beforehand. This is all part of Plan It Calgary, a city project.

Druh was looking at closing not only the Bridgeland area, but all the way up to Crowchild and perhaps even to Parkland (her words). This was all about letting cyclist etc use more of roadways, NOT for a festival.

Here is Druh Farrell herself....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McWtf...eature=related

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

Again, road/lane closures aren't something that are "public" per se. You or I could go down and apply for the same closure if we wanted to have an "Orange shirt festival" on a Sunday afternoon in August. There isn't any public discussion on matters like this. The transportation dept sees if it works, makes it work, and gets it done.

Irrelevant, really. Farrell made a public suggestion to close the road for for weekends. Nobody was expecting that she'd have complete, finalized plans for what to do with these closures, but she most certainly did not have any idea what to do either.

Like I said, all she had to do was come out and say "We're hoping to create a new festival/event". At that point, the closure becomes tied to the event, and the interest would have focused around that.

What she did say was "We're hoping to close the road, just cause". That's what pissed everybody off, and that is why Farrell got trashed. She had no clue why she was doing it, she just wanted to do it.

[MelBridgeman]

Originally Posted by Shawnski

You Need A Thneed, you are so off base it isn't funny.

This "festival" was not put forth beforehand. This is all part of Plan It Calgary, a city project.

Druh was looking at closing not only the Bridgeland area, but all the way up to Crowchild and perhaps even to Parkland (her words). This was all about letting cyclist etc use more of roadways, NOT for a festival.

Here is Druh Farrell herself....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McWtf...eature=related

There is a bikepath? Roadways are for cars....let's shut down an entire eas/west route...for a handful of bikers? either way i still rather use the bikepath..

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by Shawnski

You Need A Thneed, you are so off base it isn't funny.

This "festival" was not put forth beforehand. This is all part of Plan It Calgary, a city project.

Druh was looking at closing not only the Bridgeland area, but all the way up to Crowchild and perhaps even to Parkland (her words). This was all about letting cyclist etc use more of roadways, NOT for a festival.

Here is Druh Farrell herself....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McWtf...eature=related

While it might not be for a "festival" like the other festivals in Calgary, it certainly was proposed to be more than just "letting cyclists have more of the roads."

I don't know why people are hating on Druh for dreaming big. Of course she wants an event to be big. Doesn't mean that it's going to be that in it's first year.

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Okay, one more thought.
If Druh actually had an idea of what this festival was supposed to be about then why was it such a non event.

From what I've heard, there were not a lot of planned events. If there was some sort of plan in place, why 4 weeks of closures (as originally planned), if all of it could be fit into one day, and still have it be almost unanimously underwhelming?

In either event, it looks like it's either a case of what most people think, that being a closure with no real purpose to begin with and a haphazardly thrown together "Festival"

Or it's a monumental failure to actually deliver the type of festival that Druh had in mind yet chose not to communicate.

[JiriHrdina]

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

While it might not be for a "festival" like the other festivals in Calgary, it certainly was proposed to be more than just "letting cyclists have more of the roads."

I don't know why people are hating on Druh for dreaming big. Of course she wants an event to be big. Doesn't mean that it's going to be that in it's first year.

So don't shut down the road then....start with a nice little festival on the green area and pathways.

Or shut down a less major road like Kensington Road which would also bring the people closer to the businesses participating.

Lots of ideas - all of them better than what Druh came up with.

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

Like I said, all she had to do was come out and say "We're hoping to create a new festival/event". At that point, the closure becomes tied to the event, and the interest would have focused around that.

That's pretty much what she did, IMO at least. It looks like we are going to have to agree to disagree on this one.

We don't have public discussion on road closures, because we don't want the public to decide which closures (due to festivals) are acceptable and which ones are not. Certainly you can see that that wouldn't be a wise policy.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

I don't know why people are hating on Druh for dreaming big. Of course she wants an event to be big. Doesn't mean that it's going to be that in it's first year.

That is because the evidence points to her not having any kind of event in mind.

If she had a dream, she should have shared it. Even if it was just a blurry, hypothetical vision for "a festival". She did not have even that. She wanted to close the road, just because.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

While it might not be for a "festival" like the other festivals in Calgary, it certainly was proposed to be more than just "letting cyclists have more of the roads."

I don't know why people are hating on Druh for dreaming big. Of course she wants an event to be big. Doesn't mean that it's going to be that in it's first year.

I don't think Druh's being hated on for dreaming big. She's being hated on for not having a plan, not thinking things through, and dismissing the legimate arguments against her idea which turned out to be correct. The problem with "I want Calgary to be an awesome city so I'm going to close half a road next to a perfectly good bike path" is in the second part, not the first part, and in the connection between the two.

[Bigtime]

Originally Posted by Shawnski

You Need A Thneed, you are so off base it isn't funny.

This "festival" was not put forth beforehand. This is all part of Plan It Calgary, a city project.

If you think this closure had anything to do with the Plan-It document then you are the one who is off base.

The two are not connected at all. Get your facts straight.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

That's pretty much what she did, IMO at least. It looks like we are going to have to agree to disagree on this one.

Evidently we will have to....

We don't have public discussion on road closures, because we don't want the public to decide which closures (due to festivals) are acceptable and which ones are not. Certainly you can see that that wouldn't be a wise policy.

...and then you go and continue the same argument.

Simply put, I think you are trying to explain the unexplainable. I'll commend you for the effort, but Farrell doesn't deserve it. You've put more effort into figuring this all out than she ever did.

[mykalberta]

Just FYI, if they want to maximize the number of people, try not holding it the same weekend as the Fringe festival in Edmonton.

Those of us who enjoy these types and would show up, would do so if it wasnt competing with another superior event.

I agree, it should be in the park across the Bow, not on the Sunnyside of the Bow.

Also, they should have advertised it better, the first I heard of it was on this site the Monday after it happened. That probably would have assisted with the traffic issues.

[Bigtime]

Are you saying that Calgary events/festivals should check if Edmonton is doing something on the same day before planning?

I'm sure the few people that choose to go to Edmonton (shudder) instead will not cause a huge loss in attendees to said event.

[octothorp]

Originally Posted by JiriHrdina

So don't shut down the road then....start with a nice little festival on the green area and pathways.

Or shut down a less major road like Kensington Road which would also bring the people closer to the businesses participating.

Lots of ideas - all of them better than what Druh came up with.

Except for the ones that are far worse than the ideas Druh came up with.

Closing down Kensington Road and 10th as is done for the Salsa Festival is far more of a traffic disruption. It backs up Memorial, the 10th street bridge, and results in far more shortcutting through residential streets. It also makes it virtually impossible for people living in Sunnyside to get out of the neighbourhood. But because Memorial isn't offically closed down (just extremely backed up), nobody gets too upset about it.

I'd take this road-closure over a Kensington Road / 10th street closure any day; at least with this, traffic through Kensington and across the bridge is unaffected, making the quick and obvious shortcut through downtown possible, and leaving access to Sunnyside via 10th street open.