Any thoughts on if anything could/should be done around this time of year, the first full week of August? If you aren’t familiar with the rally its when about 400,000-500,000 bikers converge on a town that is normally 6500 people.
I always figured with the limited routes through town and only one major E-W corridor (I-90) there just weren’t many options to route around it so the normal functionality of waze would suffice.
Thought maybe there were other ideas on it though?
I’m trying my best to make sure the basic map around the area is up to date and such so other than that.
Let us know any pertinent information. You can submit your request here on the major events form. If they decide to support it, they will pass it on to anyone who subscribes to it to help work on setting up any closures as well. It will then be placed on their website as a prime event or a supported event. Prime is like the Tour de France example, that made like the equivalent of a cover page of magazine. Other events they support get support on the site by all other events.
Honestly due to the fact that it is about to happen I don’t think much can be done for this year. As far as I know the only traffic ‘closure’ is that only motorcycles are allowed on Main St in Sturgis. Other than that its very minor and temporary closures not worth putting on a map as far as I know.
Unless anyone else has ideas I’ll just keep my eyes open for sources of information and road closure information for next year. The next year (August 2015) is the 75th anniversary of the event and if it is anything like the 50th was it’s going to be a little piece of local hell (sadface).
Anyway, I mostly just wanted to put this out for ideas if it would be worth doing anything in particular.
If it’s not complete traffic closure, this might be something good for a future update of Waze if they get around to releasing support for restrictions based on vehicle types. It would be a superb example for them to illustrate the usefulness of restrictions based upon vehicle types since at least in the United States this is a pretty notable event.
Just a quick note. I saw a post by local media/city of Sturgis. Next year is the 75th anniversary and they are predicting over 1 million for attendance. Its going to be… interesting.
Heh, maybe Waze can just reroute travelers onto other Interstates instead of I-90 (kidding of course).
Please submit to the event form though regardless when you get a firm date known. Maybe if you can reach out to the event organizers, such as the ones who might be hosting the website, they can work with you on any known closures which may or may not affect traffic. At least having those in the database will help facilitate any issues with closed roads when the time comes. I think you said they don’t really close, just it gets bogged down with all the traffic. Will be interesting regardless though.