Dunedin marathon traffic manager Ian McDonald mans a detour
sign on Portsmouth Dr. Photo by Wayne Parsons.
Ian McDonald has the power to stop traffic - literally.
As head of traffic management for the Dunedin marathon over
the past 10 years, McDonald takes on a lot of responsibility.
"Accident or injury, I'm the fall guy. It's a huge
responsibility, he said.
When McDonald (51) first took the job, it demanded months of
preparation, surveying the course inch by inch and
documenting every detail in preparation for DCC and Transit
consents.
This year, Fulton Hogan offered its expertise and a
computer-generated consent request to both authorities.
"They have made my job so much easier," he said.
McDonald still has hours of preparatory work around the
course in the months leading up to race day.
This requires surveying and measuring the course and making
alterations to it in order to accommodate safety, such as the
concerns for the road around the new stadium, as well as the
increasing density of traffic.
Before McDonald took his role with the organising committee,
he contested the full marathon three times, recording times
of 3hr 2min, 3hr 1min and 2hr 59min.
"In those days, we only had between 700 and 800 competitors.
Now we're in excess of three times that. The job's not
getting any easier."
McDonald begins race day at 6am overseeing and placing cones
around the course, as well as checking all his marshalling is
going to be in place.
He has more than 110 marshals on the course at any one time
and, when planning for the event begins in February, it has
him wondering.
"I think, `How am I going to find all these people?' Then
with a month to go you have about half the numbers until
somehow a few days before it seems to all come together. It
just blows me away, really."
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