Race Weekend Organizers Are Being Selfish

05/28/2023

Here’s something that just isn’t true.

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Race organizers take such a great effort to minimize the effect of road closures that only one bridge will be open between Ottawa and Gatineau on Sunday.

Race organizers perhaps might take into account that the vast majority of Ottawans don’t even know the race is on let alone give a great big flying pittoo about it.

Never underestimate the ability of people not to care. Except when you trample their right to enjoy their Sunday, too.

And some people’s idea of a nice Sunday is not running 26 miles. Really it’s true.

Furthermore, you can’t imagine the joy of residential neighbourhoods when people are pounding on pots at 7 a.m. on a beautiful May morning. Some people, hard-working people, like to sleep in on Sundays.

Other people might want to go for a bike ride in Gatineau Park or many of the other activities that are available in western Quebec on weekends. Perhaps a day at the cottage. Maybe some Quebeckers would like to shop in Ottawa or go to a museum. Maybe they have vital things they must attend.

Some people living inside the great circle of the race might want to do something or must do something outside the great circle. And then there are drivers who after numerous attempts to get out of the great circle (because reading maps online is not the first priority in their lives), roar their cars through residential streets in fits of 100-per-cent road rage. Quiet streets become freeways. It’s dangerous but its a real problem.

The Ottawa Writing That Fun Forgot

And this is priceless, race officials suggest that if you must get somewhere, park outside the great circle. Which is fine if you are not elderly or mobility challenged or, god forbid, in a rush.

The world should not have to stop because runners want to run. The course is designed to provide the best views of the city and that’s nice but how about the rest of us who have lives to lead or jobs to go to. The route is designed to be selfish.

Yes some kind of great effort to make the race less intrusive when but one bridge is open between Gatineau and Ottawa for the better part of Sunday.

The reality of the situation is that race organizers choose the best route possible and then apologize while destroying many people’s day. Sort of like getting rear-ended by a driver and hear them say: “I’m very sorry.” Somehow their carelessness and subsequent words don’t resonate.

It’s got to the point where barely a summer weekend goes by when a minority of Ottawans inconvenience the majority of residents for their selfish and unnecessary purposes. You want to run a rock festival. Sure. Just make sure that people from Gloucester to Nepean don’t have to hear it, too.

So now I can see offended and tired participants saying your agent is a killjoy and doesn’t care about people’s fun plus the revenue generated by the race. How can you be against the race?

Well, I’m not against the race. How can you be against Ottawa Race Weekend? But I am against the organizers inconveniencing (or worse) the majority of Ottawans. Surely you can plan a good route for the race without closing almost all the major bridges and shutting down whole neighbourhoods. It’s bad manners … at best.

So next year (and I’ve had this discussion with race organizers and actually they made the situation worse) maybe the city and the race weekend can take a serious look at the course to find a way that it is enjoyable for paricipants and doesn’t shut down the city. There are compromises to be had by the race weekend, city officials and the police.

And they have a whole year to do it. But then we’ve seen the fiasco that is Ottawa City Hall and the Ottawa Police Service so a decade might not be enough time for the challenged in those two operations.

Let’s design these and other events so that they allow everyone to enjoy the weekend, participants and non-participants alike.