Serious about safety

Twenty-five hundred runners on winding coastal routes requires a significant amount of planning and communication.

Our highways aren’t completely closed for Maritime Race Weekend. There is a thirty-minute window for the first 2.5K where the roads are closed, the remaining course is open highway and runners yield to vehicles.

For safety reasons, dogs, strollers, wheelchairs, wagons, babies in slings and children under six are not allowed on the course. I’ve been in the difficult situation of having to enforce these rules and pull parents with small children and dogs from the crowd before the race starts. I hate being bad-cop and want everyone to have a good time, but in a crowd this size safety needs to be a top priority.

Maritime Race Weekend is one of the few races in Nova Scotia that runs on the left side of the road. It was decided in RCMP planning meetings that this would be safer, eliminate runner cross-over at intersections and also reduce the impact on the community with road closures.

St. John Ambulance, a doctor and nurses are stationed at the finish-line and paramedics drive the course in mobile aid units.

The race is capped, not because we couldn’t sell more spots — last year we had a five-hundred person waiting list — but because we don’t want the roads to be too crowded.

Last year, three major safety improvements were implemented. Runners were sent out in waves of eight-hundred. Five kilometres of pylons were installed on the yellow line, helping to navigate runners and create a visual barrier between runners and vehicles. A hotline number was added to race signs, allowing the community and race participants to have direct access to the race team.

This year, we have hired traffic control company On Guard to cover twelve intersections. The first 2.5K has a thirty-minute road closure. After the road re-opens traffic will only be able to turn right for the duration of the race. In the past, volunteers have done a marvelous job helping to control traffic, but it’s a very stressful position. The challenge in the past has been communication with these posts once the started. Having a traffic control company manage these posts gives us experienced professionals with legal authority to stop vehicles and direct radio communication with the race team and RCMP.

On the route, we have an experienced team of bike marshals, volunteers giving directions, signage and a significant RCMP presence.

Advice from community leaders and residents has been implemented to help the event to flow more smoothly. Maritime Race Weekend has a detailed emergency and crisis communication plan. We hope to never have to use it, but feel prepared if we do.