Organizers of the Richmond 2015 UCI Road World Championships unveiled on Wednesday the event’s long-awaited traffic management plan.
Day-by-day road closures, parking restrictions and shuttle service operation times during the nine-day event from Sept. 19 to Sept. 27 are available on an interactive portion of the Richmond 2015 website. Mayor Dwight C. Jones and other organizers made it clear that they expect both visitors and locals to be able to access – or avoid – the races thanks to “unprecedented collaboration” between the localities and participating law enforcement agencies that developed the 83-page transportation plan.
Day-by-day road closures, parking restrictions and shuttle service operation times during the Richmond 2015 UCI Road World Championships from Sept. 19 to Sept. 27 are available on an interactive portion of the Richmond 2015 website. (Image courtesy: http://navigate.richmond2015.com/)
“Hosting an event of this size will cause some changes to our normal routines, but we’re confident that the plan that we are presenting today will make this a manageable event,” Jones told reporters at a media briefing this afternoon.
The September races mark the first time in nearly three decades the Worlds will be hosted in the U.S. Organizers project that over the nine days the event will draw 450,000 on-site spectators, with the biggest crowds forming on the last weekend when the elite road races are scheduled.
“If there’s anything you take away from today, it’s ‘know before you go,’” says Tim Miller, Richmond 2015’s chief operating officer.
Highlights:
- Starting at 6 p.m. on Sept. 11, the four-block stretch of Broad Street between 3rd and 7th street will be closed until Sept. 30. Each championship race will end at 5th street and organizers must build infrastructure to accommodate that.
- Organizers have designated three satellite parking locations: City Stadium, The Diamond and the surface lot at Anthem’s headquarters near the intersection of Broad and Staples Mill. Parking in the lots will cost $10 per day. Spots must be reserved in advance online. From those lots, shuttles will run intermittently throughout the day to a downtown drop-off location on Canal Street. Service start and end times vary. A full schedule is available here.
- On-street parking along the road circuit course in downtown will be off-limits starting at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 23 until Sunday, Sept. 27. Streets will be closed to through traffic one hour ahead of scheduled race start times.
- Designated accessibility points, which will allow traffic to cross through courses while races are in progress, are detailed in the plan.
- From Sept. 17 to Sept. 29, on-street parking on Monument Avenue between Belvidere and Davis Avenue is prohibited.
- To help facilitate traffic, certain one-way streets will be converted to two-way streets on certain days.
- Exit 74 C (West Broad Street) from I-95 north and south will be closed to regular traffic throughout the races.
Richmond 2015, the local nonprofit in charge of organizing the races, has scheduled a dozen informational meetings across the region in the next two weeks to address questions and concerns about the event.
