Nice little ryme eh? OK so I'm a fan of the Tour De GA, I think its cool that the U.S. has a moderately cool version of the Tour De France, being that North GA has some really beautiful scenery that can rival almost any state. I also like how it gets the small towns of GA some action as they are really cool and fun to visit and I'm generally a fan of tourism business...
This being said, the Tour taking a detour to Chatt i think is a little lame. I'm fine with it going up the Mtn, lookout that is, but I think it should stay in GA or at least begin and end in GA with maybe a detour in TN, this being a sort of snubb to TN saying "We got something cooler than you do." OK so thats my beef speaking as a GA resident.
Now speaking as someone who works downtown, i think the tour coming down town is the biggest pain in the rear. It basically cuts down town into two impenatrable zones. I had the unfortunate coincidence to have scheduled a dentist appointment (months ago) in Flinstone... where my dentist is. Now you can imagine driving from down town to Flinstone where the main route is broad street was a bit of a pain. Not as big as it could have been thanks to some side roads but still a pain. I had parked close to my office instead of at Finley (where i normally park) so I wouldn't have to walk too far to my car for my dentist appt.
I go to the dentist, everything's fine and dandy no cavities, and head back the way I came, TN rd through Stelmo and then the down market. Now here's the pain, my parking spot is long gone by now and so are all other parking spots close to broad street or at least a three block radius and not in the ghetto. So I hop on 27 to get over to finley. I park there and walk to work and then get to broad and am not allowed to cross. I'm a stone's throw from office and I'm stuck on east side of broad. A little bit of a rude cop tells me I can go all the way down to MLK to cross. I'm sorry but going three/four blocks in one direction to go three a four blocks back (total of 8) is rediculous when I can just hop skip and jump to the other side of the street. I was ticked to say the least.
Seeing the riders fly by I realized the race is a really cool thing. However I also realized that on a work day in the middle of the week is really bad timing for this race to be in busy chatt. There were so many people having to go all the way down to MLK to cross. One elderly lady I saw was trying to get to the Chattanoogan so she could get to work (i think she was a maid) and the police/staff made her take the 8 block detour.
I would have just called my boss and told him I was going home but the Mtn was closed anyway so i can't even go home. Heaven forbid if wifey went into labor.
I also saw on the news the other day how business people were mislead to believe that their stores/restaurants would still have access to the road. Anything on the west side of broad was off limits from 11 to 3, lunch time for places like Taco Bell, Mt Vernon, Subway, Soup On and the like. I think some better more out of the way routes should be considered for next year.
Posted by holtonian at April 20, 2006 02:34 PM | TrackBackWaa, waa, waa...I think that the tour coming to Chatty is a great thing and the benefits far outweigh the negatives. It's also not uncommon for countries that border France to have stages pass through them during the Tour de France (e.g., Germany, Spain, Belgium). I would hope that in the future the TDG could become something of a Tour de South...with TN and NC included.
Posted by: Scott at April 20, 2006 06:54 PMScott, it's more than a little inconvenience if the working public don't benefit AT ALL. I'm with Holton on this one.
Posted by: RobU at April 21, 2006 01:19 AMI disagree, Rob. It does benefit the larger community. A race like this not only brings a lot of short term revenue to many more businesses than were *inconvenienced* by the event, but it also creates a lot of publicity for Chattanooga and shows a lot of people what a great place it is to visit and/or live. This has a long term impact of future tourism, population growth, increased tax base and more development/redevelopment.
I was on the mountain part of the race course today and then downtown after the race...there were many, many people from out of state who came to see the event. It's too bad that there weren't as many locals out there, but not everyone could take off work I guess. But it's a stage race and you can't have that type of race just on the weekends.
And as for the race going through downtown...I am certain that the race organizers from Chattanooga wanted it to happen that way. Why would you want the race to end in the middle of no where? If you want an economic benefit then you want people to come to the nice parts of Chatty. Beyond the economic side, there's also the recreational spectator aspect that I and many other fans enjoyed.
Posted by: Scott at April 21, 2006 01:42 AMWell, unfortunately, the vast majority of comments I heard were similar to those of Chris and Rob. These came from people either at work or right along the street. However, they were much less thought out and had more anger and profanity directed towards the cops and organizers.
I heard all of this ruckus immediately and sort of tuned it out. Then, I realized that this was the Tour de Georgia and I got out there and tried to get some pictures. I mean, how often will this happen here?
Posted by: Chris T. at April 21, 2006 09:36 AM