No more River Flats Parking



OK, we need a landscape architecture or agronomy major to work on a turf management plan to bring up this spring.

All the years of tailgating has taken a toll on the green area of the park.
Eight (or seven) days a year? I doubt it. At some schools they tailgate on golf courses. But as someone who parks there for every game, I'd be happy to pay more if I knew the extra funds were helping to preserve it.

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Yep...anti those things means you don't like America. We like to drive and use our tailgates.

We are barbarians to urbanists. And TBF, they are not all wrong. But in the end they engage in the ultimate yelling at clouds. The real solutions they’re seeking are...difficult conversations.
 

Wow! Massive kudos to those people who emailed in and forced the park board to deal with it.

Good on you all
 

I wonder: if enough people leave pissed off messages, maybe they’ll repent for this one week because the fairgrounds is closed?

Doubt it though.


The U probably asked the city to shut it down, so they could force more people to buy tailgating on U owned lots.

Is this the park board you have been so adamantly cheering and supporting on other threads? You own this.

Everybody this is G4L's fault!
 

I would suggest recognizing that Gophers football...and public tailgating opportunities available under the MPLS Park Board to date...are not well known.

To the degree that the powers at be recognize some measure of unfairness was associated with the change...should be celebrated.

What it really means is that the U/AD and Park Board should examine what if any adverse impacts are present...and identify the measures necessary to mitigate them...and voluntarily to address them to the degree possible.

Knee-jerk reactions happen. In this case it appears to have been reversed. The next step is to cement what is necessary to allow use of this area on gameday (7 times...count them...7 times a year) going forward.

Kudos to the Park Board for pulling back. My two cents...

Screw the park board and Minneapolis. If the Minneapolis Park Board ran the MAC they would have renamed the Lindbergh terminal Kissi Mi Butte and shut down a runway because the noise was offending bikers. People who live to complain get disproportionate service from organizations like them and as usual decisions are always made (and reversed) based on whomever is complaining the loudest.
 



Screw the park board and Minneapolis. If the Minneapolis Park Board ran the MAC they would have renamed the Lindbergh terminal Kissi Mi Butte and shut down a runway because the noise was offending bikers. People who live to complain get disproportionate service from organizations like them and as usual decisions are always made (and reversed) based on whomever is complaining the loudest.

I would argue that represents most of this thread... all for a handful of football games a year.
 

I would argue that represents most of this thread... all for a handful of football games a year.

And i agree. IMO, I think it's the right decision to leave the riverflats open to parking because their concoction that there is enviromental impact down there is total B.S. It's a flat grass field, Are there endangered fescues down there? Present some case of how parking 7 days a year down there ruins the environment. They didn't because they don't have one. They didn't reverse the decision because they felt they were wrong on merits they reversed because of public outcry which is just as gutless as closing it down due to public outcry and why they should be ridiculed.

The State Fair is more than 7 days and they allow grass parking on several lots surrounding the state fair on all those days. Haven't heard a peep about closing those lots to save the Kentucky bluegrass.

Would love to hear the rationale that lead to the decision to close in the first place. Flat park grassy areas are used for parking during events all the time all across the state, it kind of seems to be their purpose.
 


"Within about three hours, park officials reversed their decision — at least for this football season.

“Mea culpa. We heard you,” they wrote. “We didn’t realize how significant the impact would be to fans. We will allow parking and tailgating for this football season and will revisit this decision over the winter. We will communicate the status of tailgate parking in the spring.”
 





"Due to saturated grounds, forecasted rain/snow and damage caused to turf, parking at East River Flats will be restricted to the paved parking lot only for this weekend. Once the 71 spots are full, all vehicles will be turned away. Turf conditions will be reevaluated next week."

<iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FMinneapolisParks%2Fposts%2F3228577413880775&width=500" width="500" height="708" style="border:none;overflow:hidden" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowTransparency="true" allow="encrypted-media"></iframe>
 

"Due to saturated grounds, forecasted rain/snow and damage caused to turf, parking at East River Flats will be restricted to the paved parking lot only for this weekend. Once the 71 spots are full, all vehicles will be turned away. Turf conditions will be reevaluated next week."

<iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FMinneapolisParks%2Fposts%2F3228577413880775&width=500" width="500" height="708" style="border:none;overflow:hidden" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowTransparency="true" allow="encrypted-media"></iframe>

Not good.

This post says the Facebook post isn't available, but I checked Facebook and it's there, and true.
 

I actually had a long chat with the person in charge of all of this at last week's game (she was down there to help out, as well as to survey the damage caused by the regatta), and I felt more confident that we could reach a happy medium on all of this. She seemed to be more positive about the tailgating scene, as she had come down several times this season to check things out, and she thought it was actually pretty cool what happens. We also talked about what other campuses do, and she seemed receptive to any thoughts or ideas going forward. Maybe it was a line, but I took her at her word and felt she was genuine in her openness to listen to ideas.

Having said that, the folks for the regatta really made a mess of the park (I say them, since they were there hours before and it was clear there wasn't a concern for the park, as opposed to the tailgaters, who arrived later and parked on higher ground), and those types of situations are exactly what could be a death knell for tailgating down there in the future.
 

I actually had a long chat with the person in charge of all of this at last week's game (she was down there to help out, as well as to survey the damage caused by the regatta), and I felt more confident that we could reach a happy medium on all of this. She seemed to be more positive about the tailgating scene, as she had come down several times this season to check things out, and she thought it was actually pretty cool what happens. We also talked about what other campuses do, and she seemed receptive to any thoughts or ideas going forward. Maybe it was a line, but I took her at her word and felt she was genuine in her openness to listen to ideas.

Having said that, the folks for the regatta really made a mess of the park (I say them, since they were there hours before and it was clear there wasn't a concern for the park, as opposed to the tailgaters, who arrived later and parked on higher ground), and those types of situations are exactly what could be a death knell for tailgating down there in the future.

Grass grows back. I can see closing it down if it's so wet that cars are getting stuck, but the ground should be pretty hard this Saturday if the weather reports are correct.
 


Grass grows back. I can see closing it down if it's so wet that cars are getting stuck, but the ground should be pretty hard this Saturday if the weather reports are correct.

It's supposed to rain more later this week.
 

I actually had a long chat with the person in charge of all of this at last week's game (she was down there to help out, as well as to survey the damage caused by the regatta), and I felt more confident that we could reach a happy medium on all of this. She seemed to be more positive about the tailgating scene, as she had come down several times this season to check things out, and she thought it was actually pretty cool what happens. We also talked about what other campuses do, and she seemed receptive to any thoughts or ideas going forward. Maybe it was a line, but I took her at her word and felt she was genuine in her openness to listen to ideas.

Having said that, the folks for the regatta really made a mess of the park (I say them, since they were there hours before and it was clear there wasn't a concern for the park, as opposed to the tailgaters, who arrived later and parked on higher ground), and those types of situations are exactly what could be a death knell for tailgating down there in the future.

i was actually shocked at how many people were parked there fro the regatta. It emptied out as soon as that was done and, yes, they all parked on the lowest part of the park and caused by far the most damage. I also fear that this will be pinned on us tailgaters somehow, but our numbers paled in comparison.
 

i was actually shocked at how many people were parked there fro the regatta. It emptied out as soon as that was done and, yes, they all parked on the lowest part of the park and caused by far the most damage. I also fear that this will be pinned on us tailgaters somehow, but our numbers paled in comparison.

Hell take some photos.
 




i was actually shocked at how many people were parked there fro the regatta. It emptied out as soon as that was done and, yes, they all parked on the lowest part of the park and caused by far the most damage. I also fear that this will be pinned on us tailgaters somehow, but our numbers paled in comparison.

Ironically, we talked about that too, and the folks with the park board were well aware of who did the most damage. They knew where the regatta parkers were, and it was clear who had created the most havoc. They were also not made aware of the fact that there was a meet that day, which they were less than pleased about. I also heard murmurs that the regatta people were looking for ways to blame the tailgaters for the damage.
 

Might not be an issue for tailgating this year anyway, but the Park Board just gave the OK for Minneapolis parks to be used as a haven for the homeless.
 
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