No cars allowed at British Grand Prix

[LongQ]

herewego said:

I imagine there'll be a lot of temporary park and rides using the surrounding fields.

Hmm.

You mean like it has always been? But with extra buses to add to the congestion?

I don't think that is what being suggested. It would hardly solve the problem, would it?

Edited by LongQ on Thursday 27th November 23:09

[EDLT]

andy-xr said:

There's no direct train station at Donington, nearest is Long Eaton about 3 miles away

You could walk.

[LongQ]

andy-xr said:

Easiest way to get to Donington without a car is to fly

Really? For how many people, from where in what? (I'll give you Edinburgh, Glasgow, Belfast and Dublin. But otherwise ... ?)

andy-xr said:

There just isnt the facility to have that many cars at Donington, especially with the airport next door. People trying to get flights would never make them, and it's mostly Ryanair and BMI short haul flights with 20 minute turnarounds.

How does the flight turnaround time affect anything to do with getting to the airport in time to catch it? And in fact the majority of passengers, at the relevent time of year, will be heading for the charter flights for holidays - if anyone can still afford them by then.

These problems are already apparent with existing events - hence the reason they are highlighted now. An F1 GP woould be no different - just an extra event in the calender.

andy-xr said:

There's no direct train station at Donington, nearest is Long Eaton about 3 miles away

The new Parkway station next to the Ratcliffe powerstation on the other side of the M1 was supposed to be open by now but will be delayed until around March next year. It's there to service the Airport and offer a park and commute option to get into Nottingham but should be useful for other events.

For the Download festival there are regular bus services from Derby and other local stations. Seems to work fine but of course tends to be spread over more days with mnost peopole camping on site.

Let's be honest, Long Eaton station is never going to be a large part of the solution here.

andy-xr said:

And as for parking in Nottingham, they hate cars more than Oxford!

You're not wrong but why would anyone want to park IN Nottingham, unless using a hotel there?

[AlpineWhite]

odyssey2200 said:

Wasn't issues surrounding access to Silverstone one of the reason Bernie threatened to pull the GP a few years back?
Resulting in MAJOR expenditure on the A43.

So he now takes the race away from a circuit that was a bit of a PITA to get to but is not OK and gives it to a circuit that is Fooking impossible to get too!

feckwit!

Oh, Bernie knows exactly what he's doing.

[LongQ]

Dooshbag said:

Its not that far from the M1 and I'm sure building a road parallel to the airport would be easy to plan. Thing is - who would pay for it ? I'm really looking forward to the GP coming to Donny (my local track), but no-one will want to use public transport. I particularly liked the mention for East Midlands Airport, an overcrowded, expensive and unfriendly place to travel through.

Good luck to 'em. They'll need it...

You're right, it's not far to the M1 J23a and from there the roads would be reasonable to head north or south with minimal traffic planning and management. There would also be long term benefit for the airport, notable the freight hub which is pretty much adjacent to the circuit ...

It's also not that far heading south to the A42 (M42). Especially if one could create a direct route across a few fields to bypass the Isley Walton turn.

It's also not that far to the A50 to the north (to service the north and west or south west via the A38) and a western road around Donington, discussed decades ago but avoided by all developers to cut costs, would help both the park AND the currently under construction Distribution park which is slowly replacing the old, long ago demolished, Power Station. For that they had to build a new road accessing from the north. So that would be usable, though not perfect as it is only 2 lane and a dual carriageway would be better. A small stretch of improvement could make it quite viable to the north, so jjust a link from the circuit general area to the current distribution park entrance would be required. If run directly that would be about 2 miles of tarmac.

It would also help service the proposed development of around 300 houses on that side of the village.

So its and easy plan to envisage with benefits all round, all year. Sort of a group of no-brainers really.

But this is the UK.

Anyone want to offer odds on all those developments actually happening?

[herewego]

LongQ said:

herewego said:

I imagine there'll be a lot of temporary park and rides using the surrounding fields.

Hmm.

You mean like it has always been? But with extra buses to add to the congestion?

I don't think that is what being suggested. It would hardly solve the problem, would it?

Edited by LongQ on Thursday 27th November 23:09

I don't see why not. I've seen it done for a major tournament that had little immediate parking. They begged people to arrive by train but knowing that most people wouldn't be bothered, created access to surrounding fields and laid on shuttle buses. It worked fine.

[LongQ]

herewego said:

I don't see why not. I've seen it done for a major tournament that had little immediate parking. They begged people to arrive by train but knowing that most people wouldn't be bothered, created access to surrounding fields and laid on shuttle buses. It worked fine.

There is plenty of parking around Donington for large events. That's the problem - getting in and out of the carparking areas along the available roads to them AND with half trained (assuming an training) people manning the exits and junctions.

So the questions becomes - how far away do you need to park people to avoid the traffic issues AND what is the local access like to support that? Then you have to persuade people that it is a good idea/there cars are safe and so on.

Personally I would see it as the worst of all worlds. Not only do you have to srive some distance but you are not in any way on control of your day and the time you wish to leave. Nor would you have any idea about how the traffic looked trying to exit 'your' field when you needed to commit to joining the queue to catch the shuttle.

That sort of system may work at the NEC but that's not how a typical race circuit and surrounding land is arranged.

I guess we will need to see the details of the proposals before being able to form our individual opinions whilst including some basis of fact.

[anonymous-user]

You are best getting on board a coach service as mentioned earlier, Donington and it's surrounding areas are major bandit country for nice cars parked outside the circuit gates (and i mean the paddock gates, not the surrounding car parks and fields).

It's a shame, as seeing all the nice cars come to the event was one of it's attractions.