Football Chaos

Yesterday I was in Derby and made the mistake of trying to drive though Pride Park.

Why a mistake you ask?  Because Derby County were playing a home match in the Pride Park stadium.  I had not checked the kickoff time and therefore was driving through as the fans left the stadium.

Utter chaos ensued as the fans felt that all the roads were in fact pavements for them to walk along, meaning they were mixed in with the cars, vans, coaches etc which were trying to use the road legitimately.

Add to this the fact that the police who had been present to ensure order during the match were now leaving in their minibuses and leaving the chaos behind.  Could they have marshalled the fans?  I think not only that they could, but they should have.  How much extra time would have been required for them to ensure the orderly departure of the fans on foot and controlled the vehicle traffic.

Effectively, for some time the whole of Pride Park was gridlocked.  I am sure the businesses there are not happy with the scenario as their customers are considerably inconvenienced and probably stay away, as I would have if I had realised that the match had just ended.

Two other points come to mind:

1. The stop start traffic must have a considerable carbon footprint.
2. The number of drivers on mobile phones who clearly considered they were not 'driving' as the traffic was stop start.  This despite the fact that there were still some police officers around (mostly in minibuses and police cars leaving the stadium)

It would not take much effort to put in place a traffic management system, with one way travel using the full width of the roads, to ensure much faster and safer flow.  Locally this is demonstrated very well at major events at Donington Park.  Further afield you only have to look at the management of Silverstone when there is a Grand Prix race on - a very large number of vehicles safely marshalled in and out of the circuit.

Football clubs spend an obscene amount of money on their players.  Perhaps it is now time they spent money on reducing the negative impact they have on their neighbours.

London Olympics 2012

We hear in the news that yet more of our money may be required for the 2012 London Olympics.

This is a ridiculous waste of public money.

Jobs are being lost in the public sector, services are being reduced, taxation is increasing.  Why are we not capping the spend on the Olympics?  We cannot afford to spend any more and it looks like a number of the promised benefits may well not be realised.

During the Olympics it appears that travel in London will become much more difficult as the public transport system struggles to cope and the roads become more congested, especially in areas where there are the special lanes for competitors and VIPs.

This will have the most impact upon those who live and work in London and is likely to be rather disruptive.

So what benefits will we get:

Increased tourism? Possibly not as many have announced they will not visit due to the expected congestion so we will find the visitors to the games will merely replace those who are no longer comings as tourists.

New facilities? Maybe but the Velodrome is rather specialised, the Aquatic Centre is similar and the main stadium is probably going to be sold or given to a football team and used for little else.  Remember the Millennium Dome, now the O2 Arena, which cost the taxpayer a fortune before being more or less given away.

Improved transport? Better links to an area where many will not wish to go - great!

The London Olympics is just a case of trying to show off to the rest of the world.  We should never have looked to host the Olympics and given that we have no way to back out, we must keep a lid on the costs before it cripples the country.