WATCH: Chinese marathon uses unusual street-crossing system
Pedestrian crossings at major road races are a lot like herding sheep
Discover Nanjing, China/FB
The 2025 Nanjing Marathon took place on Sunday in Nanjing, China–and with 24,000 runners flooding the streets, you can imagine how tough it was for pedestrians to cross the course. While the event is known for its top-tier organization, race officials adopted an unusual pedestrian-shuffling system to get spectators across.
A video shared on Instagram showed police officers and race staff funnelling spectators into a roped-off pen. As a group, they’re escorted across the street, while officials redirect runners to flow around the moving cluster, splitting to either side of the rope.
View this post on Instagram
It’s a slow method, moving only about 16 people at a time, and requires more than about a dozen officials to hold the ropes, redirect runners and manage the gates on either side of the course.
Why use the “shuffle” over the “island crossing?”
At the same race, another system, the “island crossing,” was also in use. This method temporarily divides the course in half, and runners are directed to stay on one side while pedestrians from the opposite curb fill an “island” in the centre. Once the island is full, officials guide the runners to the other side and release the waiting pedestrians.
@voiceofthebund “Island Crossing” adopted to adjust routes during the #Nanjing #marathon ♬ 原声 – voiceofthebund
While this island tactic is intriguing, it’s not new–the same system went viral at the 2017 Boston Marathon, showing that crowd control at major road races is a science in itself.
VIDEO: The brilliant method used to control street crossings at the Boston Marathon
Both systems are undeniably slow, but the alternatives aren’t great: installing temporary pedestrian bridges is costly and labour-intensive, and letting pedestrians dash across the street whenever they see an opening usually ends in chaos–if not collisions.
In this case, the island system is a clear winner: it’s more efficient, simpler and lets far more pedestrians cross at one time.
