There is good reason to ask experienced people with local knowledge. I don't do measurement these days, but do a lot of course management, or start / finish line management.
Often this means looking at the proposed course and asking if they need help on X section of the course. Places I know they can screw up on race day.
Sometimes they actually ask me before brining a race to Fort Lauderdale. Most times they don't. Often they have nailed down the course with the city or police before talking to me. Basic advice, like you can't do that course because it runs across railway, and no matter what they tell you you can't control trains on that line is ignored. (Yup, the train cut the race in two.)
More commonly they just have not fully thought out the way traffic will, or more commonly won't flow around the race and the streat closings. Sent a RD a message today, saying if his new course was not locked in, I had a proposal to reroute 3 miles of it to minimize traffic problems, and make course and cone management a lot simpler.
Another big flaw, bringing a long race to town without first contacting local running clubs and groups they hope will volunteer for course management and waterstops.
There is nothing like having lots of experienced, often older runners, some of whom are RDs themselves, volunteering at various key points on your course. Unless you have a huge profesional staff... and even then having local experts helps.
Race organizations should take proposed routes to the local running clubs and ask for input and suggestions BEFORE getting permits and locking in the route. We can tell them the problems we had with this road, or that neighborhood, or this bridge, or that police department.
My local club has organized a dozen local races every year, for more than three decades, and every year assists other large races when they come to our metropolice. Mistakes in course layout, capacity, or traffic problems are often obvious to experienced locals. We know how the traffic flows. We know what has worked for other courses in the past, and what was a major headache.
Just because you are a professional race management or race timing company, does not mean you fully understand the smoothest way to snake the course into the community. RDs need to Circulate proposed courses to the local experts, and Ask for suggestions. None of us like to see races or community traffic screwed up by lack of insight during course design, or poor race day management.
So I do email the RD and say, this is stupid, or this could be better. I do tell people that just because the police say you can do that, if the city approves, their proposed routes are probably not a good idea.
