The Grand Prix race gets another ~$100k "The money, which was primarily drawn from federal funds." Wait, what? The State allows federal funds meant for intersections that have disproportionately high accident rates to be spent on building a race track (like that is really going to improve safety) but will not allow federal funds dedicated to enhancing on-road accommodation for bicycling to be spent on on-road bicycling accommodations. Something is wrong here.
Don’t get me wrong, I like driving like a Formula 1 race car when I am driving downtown (just like everyone else) and I like dressing up like a race car driver when I am riding my bike (that’s supposed to be a joke in case you missed it.) But if the race event is that profitable why are not the promoters paying for it like the city makes the promoters of Baltimore’s Ciclovia pay for the unnecessary police services? IMHO It’s really wrong for the City to bend over backwards to make this as cheep as possible for the race car promoters but make a cycling event as expensive as possible for the cycling promoters. Let’s even out the rules a bit for holding events in the city.
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Even more money is needed for the Grand Prix: https://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/local/politics/2011/06/city_approves_additional_99k_f.html
Race track gets federal funds from improve intersection safety fund: https://www.wbaltv.com/r/28189511/detail.html
The idea of mobilizing local volunteers … thereby reducing costs by reducing the number of police officers needed, was discussed but not endorsed. … Lt. Corbett stated that volunteers could not be entrusted to maintain public safety. [As done in other Ciclovias.] https://www.baltimorespokes.org/article.php?story=20091130080841777
Maryland’s no on-road bike facilities policy (has to be part of recreational trail): https://www.sha.maryland.gov/OPPEN/tep_chap2.pdf
Federal policy; "has to be principally for transportation rather than recreation purposes" and bike lanes not trails are approved for TE funding per the chart (the exact opposite of Maryland’s policy) https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/bikeped/bp-guid.htm#bp4
And of course I should mention the City slashing the bike budget nearly in half: https://www.baltimorespokes.org/article.php?story=20110605114223661
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