Gus Macker Safety Problem Solved Again; Not implemented

[XLFD]

This is a topic I first brought up in 2009 in another forum in the pre-Torch era, what a dark time that was.  There are many safety hazards that come up with Gus Macker weekend.  Some cannot necessarily be avoided, others can, and others are foisted upon our visitors by the poor planning of our traffic engineer (LPD Chief Mark Barnett) and/or the DPW supervisor (Kurt Malzahn). 

In 2010, I introduced the problem and offered some solutions  street-basketball-driving-the-lane.  These have been ignored without comment by those in charge of this.  The hazards go unchecked, and will likely continue until we finally get leaders who are interested in traffic safety, and in traffic flow, because the solution of the main problem is so easy to see and solve. 

This problem involves the routing of the detour to get around Macker.  Currently, the detour makes you go up Rath and turn left on Tinkham, proceed to the end of Tinkham, and turn right at Lakeshore.  Coming from the other side you take the same route.  Here is a blow up of that route in orange, the Macker's location in red.

With this vantage, you can see the basic lack of sidewalks along Tinkham, except for between the south side of Park and Ferry.  Other features like hills and obstacles in the right of way prevent anything other than walking in the street in some areas.  Here's a typical view of the intersection where the Macker meets the detour.

A convergence of cars, pedestrians, bicyclists, etcetera.  This is seriously made more dangerous by the use of Oriole Field (the black area plus in the first picture) as a parking area.  Several hundred cars, many carrying a full team or their rooting sections, makes around a thousand people that have to cross Tinkham in this area as pedestrians to get to the tournament, or to get back.  Here is a representation of this car pedestrian traffic problem.  Car routes in red, pedestrian routes in pink, as the crow flies routes in green (showing any way to or from the car parking areas (blue) involves crossing and traveling on Tinkham.

But why create this problem involving thousands of pedestrians (mostly a lot of crazy basketball players) crossing against thousands of vehicles (many driven by crazy basketball players)?  Particularly when you can just route the detour more directly up to Bryant Road, and avoid all the conflicting traffic?  This route is shown here in green; it has the same number of turns, the same number of stop signs, the same distance, but avoids the unsafe conditions that exist on Tinkham and elsewhere.  Note the pink pedestrian lanes only having to deal with local traffic and not thru traffic. 

The only reason I can think of for the Macker Masterminds to dismiss this route, is so that vehicles coming from the north would be less likely to go through Beautiful Downtown Ludington by not turning on Rath.  But those who know the area, probably already do that, and those who don't would follow the signs down Rath, I would think.  Anyway, enjoy the Macker, but play it safe in and around the fun.

[masonco]

I heard that because high winds and rain it was canceled. I haven't noticed any high winds, but it did rain for less than an hour here.

[Sweater Cows!]

It's pouring right now! Been lightning all day though.

[Sweater Cows!]

Last night heading home from town I noticed a couple of cars of teenagers(not local plates) hauling butt(about 65mph) east on 10 from airport to Meijer, swerving in and out of traffic like a race course. Really angered me as that is an already dangerous and accident prone area and now we have young drivers acting like billy bad-a$$ through our county's already dangerous roads. would like to see full time traffic police on US10 during these types of events, even just some  patrol cars parked out there every few hundred yards to keep people in check.

[snide]

Really, WHERE ARE THE POLICE this weekend....? That traffic jam yesterday was ridiculous ! It went on for over an hour and I did not see ONE cop and i was near the Ludington /James corner all afternoon.

[XLFD]

I seen plenty of LPD LEOs down around the event, and plenty of county and state units on US 10-31 between Jebavy and Dennis Roads.  They probably neglected any coverage between.  That and the MCSO providing escort services to the wind turbine convoys, leaves them unavailable for such stuff as traffic jams in the downtown.

[snide]

The "safety" of this event(that I view as a detrement to the CityofLudington) isn't so much of an issue for me. I am more concerned with ----HOW MUCH IS THIS COSTING US...? I mean how many city tax dollars does it cost for basically nothing in return.Other than the mess left behind and the hassle of getting around that the locals endure.............

[Lisa O'Brien]

I think there is probably many returns from this event, hotels and campgrounds book guests, local restaurants have more patrons, gas stations sell more gas and snacks.  

[XLFD]

While I do think the Gus Macker is a positive event for the community overall, it does have its drawbacks.  It would be interesting to see an independent analysis of the economic benefits of 'Macker weekend' compared with other summer weekends, and the actual extra expenses it incurs. 

Fortunately, most records I have seen have indicated that public dollars are mostly kept out of this event, unlike the Friday Night Lives and the NYE Ball Drop, and the only added expenses that I believe are involved would be overtime for DPW and LPD units. 

[XLFD]

One good move by this year's planner for the event was to have the basketball courts go only up to Fitch Street instead of Tinkham and direct most of the foot traffic up Fitch, avoiding the "hot corner" of Tinkham and Lakeshore.  There was still a lot of danger at this corner, and I did some minor attempts at research. 

Today, the area of Oriole Field had 358 vehicles parked there, with room for a couple of hundred more.  Since I suspect there was a lot of carpooling, I would say there was over 1000 people travelling to and from these cars to the Macker during the day.  The traffic count of the "hot corner" was more than three times the count of the corner of Bryant and Rath for the same period of time. 

While I saw many near accidents involving pedestrians and vehicles during my stay at the "hot corner", the bulk involved the fact that those coming south on Lakeshore had no traffic control (yield or stop signs) and would turn left on Tinkham, and often have to brake to avoid driving over pedestrians.  It is incredible that there has never been any serious accidents ever happen during the 20 years Ludington has kept this detour route. 

[AQUAMAN]

Glad the "fiasco" is over, and please, move it to the LHS grounds next year, wishful thinking.......not lol.

[masonco]

I read somewhere that part of the draw is the fact it is held by Lake MI. They probably should make the entire area pedestrian only and detour cars away from Lake Shore drive near Ludington Area

[Willy]

A major problem that X has pointed out on several occasions is the lack of sidewalks which causes the people attending the Macker to walk in the streets along with the cars. Shame on Ludington for putting these people in danger especially the kids. Most of the streets connecting to Lake Shore drive do not have sidewalks. There is going to be a major lawsuit one of these days when someone is injured or killed because they are forced to walk in the streets.