The problem with Car Week

So another Car Week has come to and gone from the Monterey Peninsula. And as usual the community is divided into two camps.

On one side we have people who are frustrated with the traffic, crowds, and noise. The other side is telling these folks to stop whining because "it's good for the economy." The second group has no sympathy for the first, and often goes as far as telling them to move away if they don't like special events and the tourists that come along with them.

How did this come about?

Car week evolved slowly over several decades. The core event is known as the Concours d'Elegance (which is pronounced properly by maybe half of the local population). The Concours began in 1950 as a single Sunday display of classic automobiles. I remember going there as a kid once, after Sunday School. I watched my dad run his hand over a smoothly polished fender, so I did the same. Suddenly a very cranky man came up behind me saying "NO, NO! FINGERPRINTS!" as he wiped the fender with a rag. I don't know why he didn't scold my dad, too.

I think it was in the 1980s, maybe earlier, that a handful of other car shows began riding in on the coattails of the Concours. Just a few, and they were confined to the same weekend, so they were still fun.

But over time the number of shows grew larger, and started taking up more and more of the week leading up to the Concours. As we got into the 21st Century the number of events got into the 30s, and that's when I noticed people were starting to complain about the traffic, crowds, and noise.

Nowadays, 30 sounds so quaint. We're now up to 53 events including shows, races, and nationally televised auctions crammed into 10 days. And with more events come more complaints about traffic, crowds, and noise, drawn out among more and more days. Heck, it's not even "Car Week" anymore. Truth in advertising demands they rename it to "Car Week-and-a-half."

Why all the complaining? supporters ask. It's only a week, and it's good for the economy! So quitcherbitchin and get over it! You must hate tourists, so what are you doing living in a tourist town? Move if you don't like it! I've been reading posts like that on Nextdoor and to a lesser extent on Facebook all last week.

For the record I love tourists. Since 1997 I've published an online visitors guide that encourages respectful tourism. I also love the abundance of world-famous special events the Monterey Peninsula hosts every year. The AT&T Golf Tournament, California Roots Festival, The Carmel Bach Festival, The Monterey Jazz Festival, and more. They're all "good for the economy." Heck, most communities our size would be grateful to have just one such event to boost their economic situations.

But there's a big difference between Car Week and all of these other events. Car Week blankets the entire Peninsula for 10 days. Multiple venues are required for multiple daily events.

Other major events are confined to specific areas and most last only a few days. For example, Cali Roots and the Jazz Festival only run for 3 days and are largely confined to the fairgrounds and adjacent streets. Golf tournaments last only 4 days, plus a little preliminary stuff. They keep the crowds within the boundaries of Pebble Beach for most of the time, while busses handle much of the transportation in and out so the roads don't get too clogged. The Bach Festival is the only one that goes longer than Car Week, two weeks to be exact, but it draws much smaller crowds. Its calm and orderly attendees generally stick close to Carmel where the primary performance venue is within walking distance of most Carmel lodgings.

Car Week-and-a-half is nowhere near as orderly as the other events, and many attendees are not as well behaved. Traffic tickets were handed out by the hundreds last week. There were lots of auto accidents, too. Excessive noise filled entire neighborhoods.

Some high-priced hoity-toity Car Week events have given many car enthusiasts a sense of entitlement. They are so enraptured by their automotive treasures that they have grown insensitive to the needs of the community as a whole. They have turned a blind eye to the fact that Car Week has grown beyond the community's capacity to support it properly, making everyday life intolerable for the duration.

Case in point: our gardening service sent us an e-mail on Wednesday saying that a car show near their office prevented their trucks from getting out on the road, so they lost a day's revenue. My wife, a music teacher, was unable to get to a student's house because of traffic. How many other businesses suffered because traffic prevented them from getting to their job sites? How many shoppers were prevented from patronizing local stores? A lot of people say they just stay home during Car Week. Is this really good for the local economy as a whole, or just for the hospitality industry?

Just to be clear, I'm not opposed to car shows in general. Last Saturday I sat on the porch and enjoyed seeing a wide variety of fancy machines. Car week, per se, is not a bad thing. But it needs to be scaled back to no more than 7 days, and maybe 20-25 events max. A 3-day weekend would be even better. Some of the excess car shows could be moved to other dates. Monterey's Rock & Rod Festival has been doing well as a standalone car show on a Saturday in June. It would still be good for the economy while improving community sanity.