Logistics
With goals, a team, and a route — it’s time to plan how they all fit together.
Your logistics team is responsible for the following tasks that bring your events to life:
Permits and Detours
Wouldn’t it be nice if pedestrians and cyclists could freely roam the streets everyday?
Unfortunately, closing a road to vehicular traffic for your event will require a permit.
Closing a street to cars will also require a detour plan. This entails identifying alternative routes for vehicular traffic, as well giving notice in advance of your Open Streets event so people can plan their travel around your closures. Preparing and mailing out flyers to warn about street closures is strongly recommended, they can also help advertise your event.
For example: Open Streets TO includes car crossing points in the route maps on their promotional materials.
Volunteer Training
Volunteers are key to attendees’ experiences, thus you will want them to be ready to answer any question they may face.
Brief them on what Open Streets events are, and the goals of your specific program.
Volunteers should know where washrooms, water fountains and refill-stations, and first aid are located.
Volunteers should also have a schedule or program on hand to help attendees find activities on your route.
To help guide drivers around the detour, volunteers should know the suggested detour route and where any vehicle crossings along your route can be found.
Hosting a training session before your event for your volunteers to meet each other and learn their roles is highly recommended. If all your volunteers for the day of the event are on the planning team, you may not need one.
Set-up and Take-down
To attendees, it may look like people have simply moved from the sidewalk to the roadway, and businesses have magically stepped outside. Safely closing the street and setting up your event requires the following tasks:
Make a delivery Schedule
Identify where materials you will need for the day of your event [signage, volunteer shirts, etc.] are to be stored.
Label containers your are using with details like whats inside, as well as where to deliver and store them.
Identify where materials will be delivered and picked up on your route, consider where you’ll park if using a vehicle.
Find volunteers to transport materials to and from your route. Provide in writing what needs to be delivered where by what time.
Close Your Streets to Vehicles and Set-Up
Ensure your permits cover the hour before and after your event to allow for set-up and take-down.
If road closure barricades are being provided my the municipality, local traffic service or police department, nail down exactly where and when your barricades will be delivered and collected, and maintain open lines of communication.
Some departments providing barricades charge overtime for hours worked on weekends. If this is the case in your community, work with your barricade provider to see if barricades can be delivered on Friday, collected on Monday, and managed by volunteers during your Open Streets event.
Once your street is closed to vehicle traffic, assist programming providers in finding their assigned location.
Assign your volunteers to their positions, provide a quick refresher on their assigned roles, which part of the route they have been assigned to, and how to communicate with the team.
Get ready for attendees to arrive!
Take-Down
When your event has come to its scheduled end, have your volunteers alert programming providers to start packing up and what time the street closure ends.
Have volunteers return signage and any street furniture or other materials to the designated pick-up points in your delivery schedule.
Congratulate yourselves on a job well done!