Sunday brought an Ironman Triathlon to La Quinta and while plenty of athletes saw, ran, and biked their way to what I can only assume is pain and exhaustion, residents of the city took to social media to call the city out on their plan to deal with vehicle traffic during the event.
Traffic nightmare in La Quinta!
— FeliceC (@FeliceC) December 9, 2018
A post from the La Quinta Police Department alerting people to road closures during the race received comments demanding the route change next year as residents were not able to get in or out of their homes in the La Quinta Cove.
“Terrible planning and execution LQ Police,” one commenter wrote. “No logic to your plan from a traffic flow standpoint. Maybe it was good for the visitors. Piss off 60K people for the benefit of a few thousand; brilliant!!”
La Quinta Police responded by pointing out they didn’t approve the event and will try to do better next year
La Quinta Mayor Linda Evans told the Desert Sun that she and other council members received complaints throughout the day, then compared the event to events that are in no way similar.
“We apologize for any inconvenience, but we will grow from this,” Evans told the paper. “Like Stagecoach and Coachella, we continually improve on traffic management. We will regroup to figure out how to improve next year. But this was an amazing event for our valley and I think the good outweighs the bad.”
Many residents appear to think the opposite.
Indian Wells gets the PR and La Quinta gets the traffic nightmare. How many Indian Wells residents were held hostage by roadblocks? https://t.co/DF3QeedvwC
— FeliceC (@FeliceC) December 10, 2018
