This Sunday, Omaha's Corporate Cup run, for the umpteenth time, snarled traffic and actually trapped hapless motorists unlucky enough to be between taped barricades on Florence and on 16th, unable to escape North since no streets between those points go through and stopped from a southern exit by more barriers.
Once again the organizers of the Corporate Cup Run (the American Lung Association, 8990 West Dodge Rd., Suite 226, Omaha, NE 68114, 402-502-4950) and Mayor Jim Suttle (402- 444-5000) have demonstrated that they don't give a rat's ass about people in Near North neighborhoods who don't like the imperious yearly invasion and the total disruption of their mobility.
If Suttle and the high-handed American Lung Association dared to inconvenience well-to-do West Omahans by barricading THEIR streets and quarantining THEIR residents, they'd be barricading themselves in their own offices from entitled yuppies screaming bloody murder.
The American Lung Association's contempt for the neighborhoods it disturbs by commandeering their roadways and blocking their access with 12,000 runners is so complete that it doesn't even bother to publish a route map with street closings and times on its website.
The Omaha Police Department, by blocking off ALL access between 16th and Florence for about a mile, including southern exits (no Northern streets go though at that point in the route) apparently believes that the rights of thousands of interlopers to completely lock down a neighborhood trump the rights of area residents to leave their homes during the American Lung Association's fundraiser.
We'd like nothing better than to see residents greeting the tone-deaf participants with signs reading "Go play on the Interstate, jerks."
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