Potential Indy Car Race in Calgary

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by polak

Both of you are the reason this city doesn't get anything interesting. I'm sure you two hate Stampede too right?

WAAAAH it's loud and smells bad. It's a weekend. 1 weekend of the year where instead of bitching and moaning about traffic and noise you could go and enjoy the festivities.

The best part is, people like this then turn around and complain about how Calgary is "dead" and has no culture.

####ing drives me up the wall. Why can't we all collectively suck it up for a few days and enjoy an awesome spectacle? You know how crazy it'd be to see these impressive machines fly down Memorial or Glenmore? It would be amazing.

Sure happy the people of Paris know better and allow the Tour De France to shut down most of the city or the people of Monaco allowing F1 to take over for a weekend or we'd be missing out on some of the greatest spectacles in sport.

God forbid you can't go to Wal-Mart for a day.

Someone can correct me if I'm inaccurate in my estimate but a street circuit would actually require the roads to be closed for more than just a weekend. It would be close to a week and there would probably be a significant amount of delays on those streets in the weeks prior to and following the actual event.

I would still love to see a race in Calgary though.

[polak]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

Someone can correct me if I'm inaccurate in my estimate but a street circuit would actually require the roads to be closed for more than just a weekend. It would be close to a week and there would probably be a significant amount of delays on those streets in the weeks prior to and following the actual event.

I would still love to see a race in Calgary though.

If it's anything like Monaco (which is a much larger event then this would ever be) the roads are open during the set up and take down. The delays on traffic start on the Tuesday before with actual closures starting on the Thursday although all the roads reopen in the evening. The roads reopen on Sunday night.

It's actually great fun driving around with all of the track stuff set up. It's not like you can't drive on the road just cause they put up some barriers and ads.

Huge delays could be avoided by only using small portions of major routes and not making them grandstand spots.

[Kavvy]

Originally Posted by polak

If it's anything like Monaco (which is a much larger event then this would ever be) the roads are open during the set up and take down. The delays on traffic start on the Tuesday before with actual closures starting on the Thursday although all the roads reopen in the evening. The roads reopen on Sunday night.

It's actually great fun driving around with all of the track stuff set up. It's not like you can't drive on the road just cause they put up some barriers and ads.

Huge delays could be avoided by only using small portions of major routes and not making them grandstand spots.

Goes with out saying, but needs to happen during a "empty" month in Calgary. I.e. a couple weeks after the stampede crowd clears out and Calgary is dead.

Unsure how that works with the Indy schedule .

[Madman]

What is the typical width requirement of a road for a street track though?

Memorial sounds great, but it quickly bottle-necks from the nice 3 lane wide to narrow 2 lane.

Glenmore would be cool, but would never happen over the reservoir.

Deerfoot would be outlawed by the Province I would think - but that would be a good setting anywhere from 16th Ave to Glenmore.

Having large quality roads that intersect to form a circuit is something Calgary seems to be lacking.

[polak]

I don't know anything about Indy racing but F1 races on roads much more narrow than Memorial is at any point.

Canada has really wide roads. To be honest, our residential roads are probably wide enough to handle a course (just based on width alone, obviously they're not up to snuff safety and quality wise).

[Bigtime]

I love this, remember all the hatred for closing down two lanes of Memorial for ONE day in the summer? Yet here the majority has no problem closing down multiple roads in the city for a much longer time than that.

Rich.

[rohara66]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

I love this, remember all the hatred for closing down two lanes of Memorial for ONE day in the summer? Yet here the majority has no problem closing down multiple roads in the city for a much longer time than that.

Rich.

I think the hatred was more towards the reason as to why Memorial Trail was closed down for a day.

[Bigtime]

But it wasn't closed, just reduced by two lanes during the day.

If this was to ever come to pass I'd like to see the same level of scrutiny applied to it as the poor Bow Flow was (and even I admit that it was a pretty misguided execution from the get go).

[polak]

This race would be a much bigger deal than a one day, small, family festival with little attractions or any real reason for existing...

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by polak

Both of you are the reason this city doesn't get anything interesting. I'm sure you two hate Stampede too right?

WAAAAH it's loud and smells bad. It's a weekend. 1 weekend of the year where instead of bitching and moaning about traffic and noise you could go and enjoy the festivities.

The best part is, people like this then turn around and complain about how Calgary is "dead" and has no culture.

####ing drives me up the wall. Why can't we all collectively suck it up for a few days and enjoy an awesome spectacle? You know how crazy it'd be to see these impressive machines fly down Memorial or Glenmore? It would be amazing.

Sure happy the people of Paris know better and allow the Tour De France to shut down most of the city or the people of Monaco allowing F1 to take over for a weekend or we'd be missing out on some of the greatest spectacles in sport.

God forbid you can't go to Wal-Mart for a day.

The difference between comparing an Indy race with something like the Stampede is that Indy will be brought right to the door step of people and businesses that want nothing to do with it. I don't think Calgary has the same population density downtown that Vancouver has, so the interference might be less drastic in that respect.

Unless the Stampede starts having things like calf roping and bull riding at major intersections, you can't really compare the two.

[polak]

Downtown closes for a weekday during the Stampede. This would more or less be the same thing but instead of one weekday, it's two weekend days. If you did it down town the effect would basically be the same on businesses and DT residents. However, this would attract people to downtown throughout the whole entire weekend so all the retail and restaurant owners would benefit much more than from the Stampede parade specifically.

I think some combination of Memorial, DT and the Stampede grounds might work though. Put some crazy turns, pit lane and the grandstand in the grounds, use memorial for a curvy stretch where they can string together some high speed turns, cut through the downtown grid for some hair pins and then put the straight on 1st street back to the stampede grounds.

K now I'm drooling.

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

The difference between comparing an Indy race with something like the Stampede is that Indy will be brought right to the door step of people and businesses that want nothing to do with it. I don't think Calgary has the same population density downtown that Vancouver has, so the interference might be less drastic in that respect.

Unless the Stampede starts having things like calf roping and bull riding at major intersections, you can't really compare the two.

They do shut down 4 or 5 dozen blocks every year for the Stampede Parade which directly effects people and businesses that likely want nothing to do with it.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

They do shut down 4 or 5 dozen blocks every year for the Stampede Parade which directly effects people and businesses that likely want nothing to do with it.

I didn't realize that. That would probably suck for a lot of people. I know here in Toronto, they do that for the busker festival and some businesses are really hurt by it. While things like restaurants do really well from the tourism, other businesses end up losing money that weekend.

I do think most of the resistance from people in Vancouver came from people that lived close to the track. Maybe not as big of an issue in Calgary as the downtown population density isn't as big.

[Bigtime]

This could be potentially related, but this morning on the RoRo show on QR77 they had the author of the book "Circus Maximus: The Economic Gamble Behind Hosting the Olympics and the World Cup" on talking about Edmonton pulling its Commonwealth games bid.

Would a race like this actually prove to be of any economic benefit to the city? I know it is on a much smaller scale than the Olympics and World Cup, curious though if there are parallels in regards to return on investment for the city.

Link to the book in question:

http://www.amazon.ca/Circus-Maximus-.../dp/0815726511

I'm planning on picking it up, should make for an interesting read.

[troutman]

The police actually set up decibel meters around the Folk Festival.

Can't see an Indy Race going over well in Sunnyside.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by polak

Both of you are the reason this city doesn't get anything interesting.

Wrong on both counts.

[Bigtime]

Originally Posted by troutman

The police actually set up decibel meters around the Folk Festival.

Can't see an Indy Race going over well in Sunnyside.

Hey now, I thought it was the 1%'er Eau Claire residents that are always bent out of shape about Folk Fest. Small sample size but I don't know of a single person on my street that complains about it. Most of us quite like hearing it from our homes.

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by troutman

The police actually set up decibel meters around the Folk Festival.

Can't see an Indy Race going over well in Sunnyside.

In terms of the Folk Festival, I believe that many issues and reported problems come from the Eau Claire community and not so much from Sunnyside.

[Jimmy Stang]

When you think about it, it would be the antithesis to the Bow River Flow. FOSSIL FUELS!! NOISE!!

The Bow River Flow thing didn't bother me either, although it wasn't my cup of tea. Much ado about nothing from the Rick Bell types. A partial closure of a road on a non-weekday? Better go and yell at some clouds.

An Indy event would be a disruption lasting multiple days, but I still wouldn't complain. It would bring a lot of money to the city. People would just have to adapt their lives very slightly, the same way people do on Stampede Parade morning. Deal with it.

Regardless, I doubt it will happen, and if it ever does, it will be somewhere boring on the outskirts of the city.

[You Need a Thneed]

I would think there would be some physical barriers to a race track in the downtown area. Any of the CP underpasses would be a no go, except perhaps 4th Street SE, I would guess because the vertical radiuses would be much too small (I doubt they want cars flying). I doubt race cars want to go over in ground rails, so that cuts out crossing 7th Ave, 9th Street, etc.

To cross the river, and use Memorial Drive, you can't really use centre street bridge, because it doesnt connect to Memorial Drive. There's no other connection between Edmonton Trail and 10th Street W.