Traffic chaos at the Menin Gate Memorial.

[chrislock]

For your collective awareness in this week's "Flanders today" news paper:

http://www.flanderstoday.eu/current-affairs/last-post-leads-traffic-chaos-ypres

[Seadog]

Thanks Chris, making the Grote Markt a pedestrian area is a proposal which appeals to me and in my opinion merits serious discussion.

Norman

[Tom Morgan]

I wonder whether an experimental return to the old format might give some useful data. You know - when the buglers came out, played their little Call to Attention, then Last Post, then the exhortation and 2 minutes' silence, then Reveille, then that's the end. No wreaths, no choirs, no bagpiper. 5 minutes tops. This might reduce numbers and would certainly reduce the period of disruption. An experimental period would help to determine by how much and, possibly, assist planning.

Tom

[chrislock]

As always Tom, your post contains common sense reasoning with respect and I agree with you!

[Seadog]

It seems like a good idea but you cannot go back for having created the present format it will be nigh impossible to change. I frankly doubt that the numbers will be reduced for the ceremony has a strong appeal to the visitor and long may it remain so. I believe that the LPA have concerns about the way that the ceremony has developed over the years and perhaps now is the right time to consider radical action on the traffic situation and crowd control which will make it better for everybody but as for changing the format of the ceremony I do not believe that this would reduce the numbers of those who wish to attend and pay their respects to the fallen.

Regards

Norman

[John_Hartley]

I think there'd be much worth considering in Tom's suggestion.

It wouldnt detract from the core reason of remembrance but may well reduce some of the passing tourism.

Would anyone have a view as to whether most of the coach parties are battlefield visitors or whether the coaches simply use Ieper as a place to stop for a break while travelling to/from elsewhere?

It's a difficult issue - one doesnt want the ceremony to be elitist in that only soem are welcomed, yet it increasing feels like a tourist attraction.

[Chris_Baker]

Ypres seems to have wanted to become a tourist attraction and it now is so. It needs to find a way to deal with what is essentially a self-inflicted problem. The through traffic is hardly at Piccadilly Circus levels so I would have thought some standard 7.30pm-8.30pm diversions to flow vehicles to other routes around the area would do the trick.

Personally I like Tom's suggestion - but can you really see that happening now that 8pm at Ypres is on many holiday coach schedules and the chocolate shops are making good money?

[centurion]

It would seem a shame if he ceremony became an over formal fixed matter never varying. Was there end of October and we had six trumpeters and some one played the Londonderry Air on the violin, quite charming and it didn't feel touristy. A little unpredictability adds spice to life.

[chrislock]

John.

I counted 16 coaches 3 nights ago in an area reserved for 3 or 4 at the most. The majority had British registrations and I believe were school visits to the Last Post ceremony. Town hall coach parking wardens were called in due to local residents being unable to gain access into their homes when a furniture lorry was unable to manoeuvre into it's yard due the amount of coaches stretching past the coach pull in area and reducing turning space. This situation alone caused much frustration to residents as I personally overheard.

4 coaches were also parked on the town side in car parking zones and also caused frustration. The police eventually arrived and removed most coaches but by then, much frustration was in evidence.

Another problem seems to be that increasing numbers of not local Belgians now see the ceremony as a sort of free show and also visit (their words not mine) Their numbers included along with those who see the Last Post as a remembrance and commemoration ceremony and visit accordingly on occasions raise the overall attendance figures drastically.

Without doubt, crowd numbers and vehicles are clearly increasing and 2014 has not even arrived yet and hence this situation will clearly require management of sorts.

[chrislock]

Re Chris Baker's comments concerning chocolate shops, another will soon open in the Menseweg, that being the old Poppies restaurant, another new chocolate shop will soon open in the Leet and Patricks former shell Hole Book shop now sold and undergoing a reconstruction is also about to become a tourist shop. New hotels and b&b's are springing up all around the town in preparation to the hundred years commemorations also!!

[Seadog]

The plain fact is the Ypres and the battlefields have always been a tourist attraction and the only sensible course of action is to deal with any perceived problems that are caused by the popularity of the event. John in post 6 mentions the numbers of "passing tourists" being reduced by a truncated ceremony which if we are not careful could be construed as meaning that the ceremony applies to the few (whoever they would be) and not to the many who have every right to attend irrespective of their motives for doing so. The answer as I see it is firmly in the hands of the LPA and the Ypres authorities to address any problems which if they exist will only be exacerbated by the commemoration of the 100th anniversary and subsequent four years.

Norman

[centurion]

John.

I counted 16 coaches 3 nights ago in an area reserved for 3 or 4 at the most. The majority had British registrations and I believe were school visits to the Last Post ceremony. Town hall coach parking wardens were called in due to local residents being unable to gain access into their homes when a furniture lorry was unable to manoeuvre into it's yard due the amount of coaches stretching past the coach pull in area and reducing turning space. This situation alone caused much frustration to residents as I personally overheard.

4 coaches were also parked on the town side in car parking zones and also caused frustration. The police eventually arrived and removed most coaches but by then, much frustration was in evidence.

Another problem seems to be that increasing numbers of not local Belgians now see the ceremony as a sort of free show and also visit (their words not mine) Their numbers included along with those who see the Last Post as a remembrance and commemoration ceremony and visit accordingly on occasions raise the overall attendance figures drastically.

Without doubt, crowd numbers and vehicles are clearly increasing and 2014 has not even arrived yet and hence this situation will clearly require management of sorts.

So only local Belgians are welcome along with GWF and WFA members perhaps? How elitist

[Chris_Baker]

Perhaps LPA and the authorities in Ypres need to reconsider the purpose of the 8pm event. Personal opinion, of course, but it seems to me that it has become more about those attending than it is about remembrance of deeds and men. Surely it is not done so that attendees can be entertained.

[Seadog]

As members of this excellent forum and being passionately interested in all aspects of the 1914-1918 conflict should we not be delighted that visitor numbers to the battlefields increase year on year and that more visitors in particular young people are shown just what their forbears experienced in that war to end all wars. If only a few take their experience forward into a lifelong interest and perhaps develop as authors or historians then events such as the Last Post will have played a pivotal role in continuing the respect and remembrance that all who fought and suffered here have a right to expect from us. I personally can think of no sadder sight than the Last Post being observed by a few hardy souls as some members would no doubt wish to revert to. We cannot go back so the problems must be dealt with by those who have both the authority and responsibility to do so.

Norman

[egbert]

...it was closed from 1914-1918 24/7. So what's the fuzz about 1 hr/day in 2014 and such? Ypres citizen promoted the gate to become a landmark and place of remembrance and now they got it (bringing tons of money into town). Do not whine but cope with it and have some intelligent traffic planners work around evening congestion and start construction work for more bus parking (after the buses have unloaded their passengers in the vicinity of the gate and drive back to a waiting bus lot outside the town).

[Seadog]

Nice one Egbert, not exactly rocket science is it?.

Norman

[centurion]

With acknowledgement and posthumous apologies to Low

[bruce]

Ypres is a tourist town. It exists in its current form as a result of tourism. The Last Post Ceremony is one of the factors which attract tourists to the town. Yet Ypres is remarkably unfriendly to coaches. Many of the visitors which spend money in the town come by coach, yet the civic authorities appear to try to make parking more and more difficult. I can understand the need to restrict stopping beside St. Martin's to only ten minutes, but then they stopped the coaches parking down at the station in favour of having to park on the road opposite. Imagine getting disabled or infirm visitors from a coach from where the coaches are supposed to park all the way to the Menin Gate! Yet that is exactly what the town seems to want. It is also rather difficult with a school party of 40 teenagers. Also, many tours are on a very limited time budget, so adding in a twenty minute walk from and to the coach has to be borne in mind.

Little wonder that coaches congest the road alongside the ramparts on many evenings. I can also understand how annoying it must be for the local residents, having to cope with so many so often. But those coaches provide Ypres' livelihood. Surely there is sufficient intelligence in the town to work out a plan to accommodate the coaches each evening, and reducing the problems for the locals.

Pedestrianising the menenstraat would also be a help.

Bruce

[egbert]

It's easy like that. The last half sentence of the article tells the solution (BTW for me it is irreproducable why the town officials did not declare the gate a protected national landmark that forbids agressive car exhaust fumes from destroying the inner infrastructure). Give me a brake, do they want Smarties or tourists?

[Beselare]

I think the article needs close examination. First of all, I have never seen a crowd of 1,000 attending the ceremony or anything like that number. Secondly, coaches are not allowed to park in the Grote Markt - there might be four or five parked on Hoornwerk but that is all (coaches do not bring visitors solely to see the Last Post). Thirdly, until the buglers march into the middle of the gate, pedestrians can walk down the middle of the road subject to care being taken with passing vehicles and cycles (at the most that would probably mean a dozen or so pedestrians). By all means make the Meensestraat a pedestrian-only street and then sit back to wait for the extraordinary traffic problems which would ensue. I think that leaves us back at 'situation normal'.

Bob

[Stephen Nulty]

Pedestrianisation is only a solution if there are day-long traffic issues - it wouldn't work for the hour-long situation at the Menin Gate and so would simply cause more problems for locals - well, that's my view anyway.

As with many of the posters above, I would suggest that a little bit of planning on the part of the authorities could come up with a workable solution. Isn't that why we have traffic and town planning?

As for coach parking, Ypres is like so many European towns and is not really suitable for any significant number of huge coaches. Some places, such as Pisa, have large coach parks on the outskirts of town, with a reasonably safe pedestrian route to the tourist attractions. Perhaps Ypres might like to consider this as an option? Whilst the traffic problems around Menin Gate are generally around the LAst Post ceremony, the flow of coaches is all day long, or was when I was there.

[Neil Mackenzie]

The Ieper authorities are going to have to think of some radical solutions because things are only going to get busier over the next few years.

Hoornwerk and Kiplinglaan are, in my view, too narrow to take additional parking. My suggestion (although unlikely to be popular) would be to create parking bays on the green space near the bridge in Leopold III-laan - with a promise to restore them to nature once the popularity of the Menin Gate ceremony reduces as it presumably will after 2018.

Neil

[Tom Tulloch-Marshall]

I wonder whether an experimental return to the old format might give some useful data. ...

Tom - Ideally I would go with your suggestion 100%, but maybe a pragmatic solution may be to reduce the current "add-ons" - wreath laying, bagpipers, and the like, to say an absolute maximum ceremony length of 6-8 minutes. Roadway therefore closed by the police from 7.58pm till 8.10pm at most. If that also reduces visitor numbers then so be it. If they are there for "entertainment" then they are there for the wrong reasons.

... you cannot go back for having created the present format it will be nigh impossible to change. ...

Uh ???

Tom

[Tom Tulloch-Marshall]

John.

... Town hall coach parking wardens were called in due to local residents being unable to gain access into their homes when a furniture lorry was unable to manoeuvre into it's yard due the amount of coaches stretching past the coach pull in area and reducing turning space. This situation alone caused much frustration to residents as I personally overheard. ...

Clamp these coaches and don't release them for 4-5 hours. The companies concerned will be very unlikely to do it again.

Tom

[Seadog]

Well clamp the furmiture lorry then as it appears to be causing the problem ha ha ha

Hang on just an idea perhaps a proper coach park would help or is that far too radical a proposal?

Uh?