I got a telephone yesterday morning from a gentleman at the Illinois Toll Highway Authority (ISTHA).
Late last year the ISTHA opened a new stretch of tollway in the southwest suburbs of Chicago. One of the events they held to commemorate the opening of the new road was a 5K run. They didn't bother to certify the course. The event was held to benefit a local organization that aids military veterans, which is appropriate as the new toll road was officially renamed the "Veterans Memorial Tollway".
The gist of the call yesterday morning was that they are now looking at holding the event on an annual basis and would like to have a course certified on the new road. They're willing to close the road for the actual event, but not for a bicycle measurement, and they feel that trying to measure it with a calibrated bicycle without closing the road would be unsafe for everybody involved. The rationale is that people aren't used to seeing bicycles on the road and seeing one might cause an accident. They don't feel the same way about survey crews; apparently drivers are used to seeing them. Interestingly, they strongly discourage television camera crews for much the same reason- it distracts drivers, and causes accidents.
At present the road is less than six months old. They have a lot of GIS data on the road as well as the engineering drawings and surveys from building it. They're willing to put survey crews out to determine the length of the course.
We've talked about the calibrated bicycle method being a compromise. We're willing to give up what we lose in accuracy in favor of having a measurement that can be completed fairly quickly with equipment that most people either have or can afford to buy.
In this case it certainly appears I have a group who is prepared to spend the time necessary to survey the course and apparently already owns or has access to the necessary professional surveying equipment, including survey grade GPS. They apparently also have the in-house expertise necessary to operate the equipment and execute the measurement. They have drawings of the roads that will make up the route that are in excruciating detail, with permanent marks in the pavement every tenth of a mile and information such as the elevation of most every point on the road and the radii of all of the curves.
I'm thinking that this is a situation where we ought to at least consider certifying the surveyors' work. I'm not exactly sure how I would review it, but suspect some kind of meeting could be set up where I verified what they had sent me based on the original drawings or surveys of the road.
What do you think? We certainly have to require the course map that defines the limits of the course and shows the SPR, and I think we need to keep the SCPF. Any ideas on how the information could be packaged so that the certifier could interpret it?
This doesn't come up often, but if we can find something that works, we have it ready for next time.
Thanks.
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