Considering air shows haven’t been banned, I doubt that downtown parades will get banned.
Exactly. If it doesn’t stop traffic it’s nothing. One hundred percent of the best parades go right through the center of town.
Actually, SeaDragonTattoo, Chicago moved some of the downtown parades to Columbus Drive in Grant Park several years back. (For non-Chicagoans, it’s a street, so there’s still traffic & parking closings for a parade, but lined only with parks and the backside of the Art Institute.) Memorial Day parade is still on State Street, for instance, but the St. Patrick’s parade is on Columbus.
I think the Grant Park location can still be argued to be effectively downtown - making the distinction from State Street to Grant Park is Chicago semantics and irrelevant to the question by the OP. Besides, nobody but suburban people go to the downtown St. Patrick’s. Townies do the South Side Irish and the only new thing there is the alcohol restriction.
no, because I don’t think we need to throw every tradition out of the window because some one-in-a-million thing might happen, or a handful of bitchy old white people don’t want to be inconvenienced or have to hear a loud noise once every year.
No, marathons can be run in parks. Around Kansas City only a couple of marathons are still run on city streets.
As for the treadmill thing, maybe not home treadmills but with the prevalence of national gym chains like Lifetime fitness their are chances for virtual marathons.
No. They can’t. This is just a really dumb thing to say. You’re seriously suggesting 45,000 people try to run laps on top of each other at some dinky park for 26.2 miles?? Plus all the people who stand along all 26.2 miles of the route with signs of encouragement and cheering for their friends and family? Seriously?? Bang your head on the floor some more.
Chicago Marathon 2015 pdf map route, go ahead, compress that into a park.
Ok, I see it for a marathon for that size. But not all marathons are that big.
If you put it in a stadium, it’s not a parade, it’s a show.
Also, “marathon” is not exactly the same thing as “distance event.”
If I recall during the Olympics in China they had the marathon basically in a parking lot where they had them run around obstacles.
And if its a large enough parking lot they can be a good 2-3 miles around the perimeter so I dont see why they cant be used.
I don’t think so, though parades down main street are problematic for the reason you cite and that sometimes shop owners complain that they lose money when the street is closed down, which is the case with the fireman’s parade near where I live. Locals come out to watch (in ever decreasing numbers), but don’t buy anything, and that also blocks off legit customers.
But parades are meant to be in the local community, be part of it and it’s energy. Moving it to a stadium would turn it more into a carnival, especially over time, so a different event.
Here is another car into parade marchers:
https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/1elbm2/car_hits_crowd_of_hikers_at_appalachian_trail/
A map of the Beijing Olympics marathon route shows that was not the case at all.
In many cases the parade is part of a local college and in many communities where college/town relations are already tense, I can see the city not wanting the parades anymore. Maybe just have homecoming on the college grounds?
…what? A marathon by definition is 26.2 miles. If it’s not that long then it’s a not a marathon.
I can’t see parades being moved because of one isolated incident any more than football will stop being played because someone dies on the field.
True.
But the Boston marathon has a much bigger competitor pack, and a much, much bigger audience crowd than the 2nd annual Cornholer Classic marathon held in Podunk, Iowa.
So the space needed for all those people is much larger. And the food, outhouses, bleachers, souvenirs, scorekeepers, etc. And especially parking.
The Cornholer Classic *could *be done in 105 laps around the Podunk High School’s running track. The Boston marathon? Not so much.
What parades are you talking about? Homecoming parades happen in a few college towns, but the vast majority of parades are civic functions and have nothing to do with colleges.
This wouldn’t meet the requirements for an official IAAF marathon course, tight loops aren’t allowed.
A marathon may officially be 26.2 miles, but a shorter race can also be called a marathon, by definition.