Parade Directions Fail

As a cartographer and geographer, nothing is more irritating than bad directions. They confuse people and create unnecessary chaos. The problem is compounded when these directions come from a “Trusted News Source.” I suppose the only thing that could be more annoying would be someone attempting to justify, or argue in favor of the bad directions.

After the Kansas City Royals won the World Series, a parade was in order to celebrate the momentous occasion. Everyone wanted to be The New Source for the parade information online, and everyone seemed to get it right, except for KMBC; not only did they get it wrong, but when several of us notified them of the inaccurate directions, they refused to correct it. Additionally, there were those on their comment forum attempting to argue the accuracy of the directions originally provided by KMBC as well. I am still not quite sure what to think of that. One individual asked, “What does it matter?” It matters a lot to those that are not from Kansas City, or know nothing about the layout of the downtown streets. Providing good advice is better than arguing though, so I suggested they take a look at a map.

See if you can follow the directions, as posted on the KMBC web site.

Here’s the starting point… 39.097790, -94.581003

The parade will start at Noon on Grand Boulevard between the Sprint Center and Power & Light District.

From there it will head north on 9th Street before turning east on Oak, south to Truman, then west back to Grand.

The parade will then head south on Grand to Pershing Road and head west.

The parade will end in front of Union Station where a victory rally will begin at approximately 2 p.m.

If you are not familiar with Kansas City, or are admittedly directionally challenged, here are a few notes about what went wrong.

You cannot travel North on 9th Street from the Sprint Center. It is five blocks away! Is the parade going to teleport there?

You cannot turn East on Oak. That street runs North/South; that is, unless they are only crossing the street, then by all means, go right ahead. Although, you are going to have some trouble getting to Truman Road, turning East on Oak.