Discussion: Urban Orienteering

Another topic touched on something that interests me - the London City Race www.cityrace.org

I'm interested in urban orienteering, have nudged my club into radical formats to make intensive use of small parks, and also urban rogaines. A classic-distance race like the London (and Venice) would be great in my capital city, interested to know how the traffic risks are managed.

Yes I would also like to hear more about this race. I feel that urban orienteering could be quite popular in major Canadian cities too but I think it would need to be about 10K or a 30-40 minute winning time (lots of controls though).

....and the winner doing some good advertisement for Canadian O.

http://flickr.com/photos/maprunner/2932462656/in/s...

Street orienteering is very strong here, arguably stronger than bush-o based on attendances. Have a look at the Carlton gardens event report. Our clubs have athletic singlets designed for this style of orienteering (not pyjama tops!) and are eye catching when we appear en masse at non-orienteering runs.
http://street.orienteering.com.au/2008/Sunday/Carl...

http://street.orienteering.com.au/

Traffic risks in Venice are minimised by not running on water. Tourists and pigeons are viewed as collateral damage.

Traffic very much depends on venue and timing - the main worry in the CIty of London last weekend was buses, there were very few cars or pedestrians around given the nature of the area. In Oxford, where we've held a couple of these races, most of the traffic is confined to certain roads. Careful planning of courses and giving people ample opportunity to cross the main roads, rather than just one point, makes it safer and reduces need to wait for traffic.

Highways agencies generally don't seem to have a problem with these events as long as you don't want to close the roads, as you would need to for a 10k. Also, there are generally limits to the age-classes/courses for the younger juniors to reduce/remove the need for crossing busy roads.

For A-level sprints, I've strictly observed the rule about not crossing active roads, since a competitor should never have to choose between giving up a few seconds (which could matter in a sprint) and running in front of a car.

In other urban events (non-A sprints and the occasional longer urban event), I've managed road crossings by putting a control at a crosswalk (prior to crossing) and then having a course marshall. It's the very rare motorist who won't stop for someone wearing an orange vest, but just in case, I also instruct competitors that if the course marshall feels that the traffic situation is not safe, they can stop the competitor. Ignoring the marshall results in a DSQ.

I am anticipating putting on an A-sprint at the Arch next year where a road crossing will be required. However, I also plan to have a Park Ranger at the crossing point, complete with squad car and lights running.

For "normal" week-days runs the key control we use is selection of the map area to discourage need to cross busy roads. And our format is either score or scatter-o. Either way there is no defined route. The greatest difficulty in dealing with the authorities is to persuade them that we don't have long lines of runners following a defined route, unlike most if not all other street races. And therefore marshals are not required.
For our higher level races we have had streets blocked off and traffic controls/police presence. This does require cooperation with the local authorities.

For the middle course at the recent Canadian Champs the organizers had a good way to deal with the potentially uneven time taken to cross a potentially busy road. They put controls immediately at the near and far side of the road. The time taken to cross the road and punch the second control was deducted by the SI program from each competitor's time.
I would recommend that solution wherever there is the potential to put a timed event in conflict with the need for safety in traffic

The caveat I see with the "deduct time to cross road" system is your race rhythm. Waiting for traffic takes you off your game, out of the mode.

what was the scale of the City of London map?

cool video by gg here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4rYqReMfvk&eurl=ht...

1:5000
Map and course on Routegadget: http://www.slow.routegadget.co.uk/cgi-bin/reitti.c...

Great race, great video! It is a shame that more large-city orienteering clubs don't make use of their financial and other pedestrian-oriented areas for events.

I like the comment at the end: "The main thing was to avoid the investment bankers jumping off buildings..."

I wouldn't recommend holding a championships in the middle of a city with buses etc, but just for a standard event like the London city race there is really no confusing who has priority at road crossings (the big, red, steel things, for avoidance of doubt), and no reason to take risks.

The video reveals a remarkably low level of traffic both vehicle and pedestrian, compared with my mental image of London. My interest had been fuelled by mental images of a CROWDED cityscape but I guess its not practical to hold it on a weekday. Coupla practical questions: security of the SI boxes? how do you stick the control stakes into the ground?

My train of thought - the multi-level Barbican was obviously the most challenging part of the course - and such places are often likely to be vehicle-free. I guess the map followed the ISSOM in showing only a single level (with a second level PARTLY shown via under/overpass symbols). Figuring out a way to show multiple levels on a piece of paper would open the way to lots of complex urban terrain. Any ideas?

I've always been amazed at how sedate the City can be during non-business hours and weekends. It is strikingly empty.

It is the way Wall Street used to be during those hours, but is no longer.

The planner has blogged about how the controls were secured: http://www.oobrien.com/yepsport/archives/2008/10/1...

The City, London's financial centre - where the race was - has virtually no residents so is pretty quiet at the weekend, which is why we were able to hold this race. On the other hand Westminster, a couple of miles to the west and London's commercial centre, is incredibly busy at the weekends - Oxford Street, the main shopping street is so packed with pedestrians (and buses) it's a challenge to ride a bike down. It's the busiest shopping street in Europe, apparently. There is actually a Street-O race there, on a weekday evening at the end of next month, which is going to be mayhem.

I reckon NYC, south of Canal Street, would make a great urban race.

Wasn't the City of London one of the first to impose a fee for cars wishing to enter the area? No wonder there were so few cars seen in the video.

A similar fee is being considered by several American cities now, which should make those cities excellent new venues for any number of athletic events.

The very southern tip of Manhattan and the area around Wall Street would be great from a technical point of view. But, the area is much more densely packed than just a decade ago as a lot of residential development was encouraged. It used to be dead in the evening but is now often lively.

Great idea! How about a point-to-point race, beginning in the quiet streets of Brooklyn, crossing the Brooklyn Bridge (about 1/2 mile long) on the elevated promenade, and ending in Battery Park in lower Manhattan? That would be picturesque...might even attract some non-orienteers. Subways could be used to shuttle from the Finish to the Start.

speaking of NYC. How about a high profile race each year in central park. partner with a charity and pro company that does all the volunteer base, sponsorships, registration, etc. and the O community does the course planning and SI. The Park World Tour never came to North America so we still haven't had that high profile urban race.

chitownclark: The £8/day Congestion Charge, which covers the City and Westminster, doesn't apply at the weekends. In practice, it only reduced congestion by around 20% - meaning the roads are still very busy on weekdays.

I think the Battery Park City area in NYC would also be good for urban O.