Opinions on Site Changes

Paul - This is the second report we have received of a charge for transportation.  We had a tram route out to Ultralights and there shouldn't have been a charge for onsite transportation.  Could you please email me at jsmith@eaa.org and give me more details of where you boarded the transportation, what type it was, etc. so I can look into that further.

Thanks - Jane Smith, EAA Staff, Executive Assistant, Membership

Hello Jane,

I only saw buses running from the Vintage area through Ultralights over to the South 40 camping. I was only in that area on Saturday so maybe the blue tram was running at other times of the week. The buses were very full, so perhaps someone figured that they needed to increase capacity on that route.

Paul

I liked the improvement to the transportation and the new "V" road. It was nice not to have to dogde all the traffic that is usually running around. I also liked the way that all the buses now meet at the Bus Corral. The only complaint was with the campground bus. This year for the first time in many years, we camped near the highway. The campground buses seemed to group together so that we would wait 20 minutes or more  only to have 2 or 3 buses show up at once. Sometimes they went south to the pump area, sometimes they turned down Lindburg, there didn't seem to be a set route. Plus the signage could be improved. We would usually catch the bus at the West Camp store but we didn't know that it stopped running after 5pm. We waited almost 30 minutes and watched buses turn at Sits but none at the West Camp Store. We ended up walking to the Bus Correl to get a bus to the Museum.

There also didn't seem to be a bus stop anywhere west bound. We tried several times to pick up a bus at the Fly Market to go west and there were no signs for a bus stop. We would try to flag down a bus and sometimes they stopped, sometimes they didn't. It was a loooong walk back to 9th and Elm after a long day on the grounds.

There seemed to be plenty of buses going to KidVenture and the Museum which was great since I spent most of my time at KidVenture. The trams also seemed plentiful this year even during the busiest times of the week.

I too don't like the new location of the Chapter House and Young Eagles Pavillion. I often visit the Chapter House and I work 1 or 2 days in the Young Eagles Pavillion and it seems so far out of the way. There are more delivery trucks and other transportation on that road and not enough foot trafffic. Most of the foot traffic seems to be heading to the war birds and forums.

I'm exhausted so I must have had a great time this year.

I liked most of it.   I complained to the EAA 15 years ago that they needed to get the spurious vehicles out of show center in the peak hours.   Particularly troublesome were every vendor driving around.  I suggested they use an expo service and ban nearly all the other vehicles.

Well they got GES about the time they built the new buildings and finally, they detoured all the vehicles up around show center this year!

On the bus front, it sure was nice coming back to Vintage after a late night party in the North 40 to be able to take the "post tram" bus all the way back.   In previous years we had the four mile hike.

The following impressions are from a camper in the North 40:

1. The reduced ground vehicle traffic was noted and appreciated.

2. I REALLY appreciated the use of unscented deodorizer in the porta-potties. By the second day, the smell of the old deodorizer was more sickening than what it was supposed to cover up.

3. The Kohler trailer bathrooms were cramped. Ya just can't fit 3 normal size adults shoulder to shoulder along  the urinal wall.

4. The 3 each flush toilets and urinals in the N40 shower house are a good start but keep the row of porta-potties handy across the road. Actually more space to change clothes / dry off would be more useful than more flush toilets.

5. The Aeromart is a looong way from the N40. I hope the buyers of my old stuff appreciate the short walk back to their motorhomes. The old central location was better for all.

6. I walked on the new angled street once. ho-hum. Also, I'm not sure about the trig answer about how much distance was saved by walking along the hypotneuse (new angled road) instead of the other 2 legs from the main gate to the forum pavillions in the EAA construction update videos.

7. I totally enjoyed the Founders Wing in the museum.

8. The Doobies were cool.

9. Extend the west side roof on the N40 shower house to better shield the electrical outlets. My cell phone got cooked while charging during the Monday rain storm.

10. Jeff Skiles ought get a spot on the Tonight Show.

11. The museum should evolve to recognize other conflicts in which our armed forces participated. Korea, Vietnam, Middle East, etc.

See ya'll next year.

I also like the Fly market up front.  It made it easy to find and my kids love shopping in there.

The buses were better this year.  I agree that it was great that they all went to the bus park.  It made it very easy to "transfer" to the museum or the sea base, or wherever you wanted to go.  Thank you for that change.

However, and I am not sure how to avoid this, but the campground buses did seem to congregate together.  The good thing though is that never once did I have to wait more than about 7 minutes or so to get a bus from the campground and back again.  It was nice this year.

I was at the convention from Friday before the show volunteering through Wednesday AM. The only real pre-convention source of food was at Tall Pines (right name?) at the far South end past the ultralights. There was no scheduled "Tram" service. There was only one unscheduled Tram about 6AM that only did one trip to carry volunterers "down under" to eat. If you missed it, you walked. When the convention started there was a yellow bus running from the vintage cafe' to the South end, and they charged a $.50 fee one way, and that did not start until about 8:30AM. There was not transportation to Tall Pines (which opened at 6:30AM) for early risers. Although the map depicted a Blue "Tram", there was none the whole time I was there.

The only other thing that could be improved upon was the staff and volunteer general lack of knowledge where to buy a meal on the grounds in the days before the convention started. Early arrivals have no clue what is open and no transportation to leave the convention site to eat. The volunteer booths and staff did not know where one could get a meal. With Tall Pines the only place open early, no one is likely the stumble past it. It needs communicated to early visitors during checkin.

Lee

Lee,

The Sacred Heart food stand near the main gate opened on Saturday (before convention), so that's another option for early arrivals.  I agree though, with so many volunteers and their families here a few days early it would probably be nice to have a couple more spots open for food.

Thanks for the comments!

Joe

My last pilgrimage to Oshkosh was about fifteen years back, so I've no idea what constitutes improvements over last year. But I'm happy to say that transportation at the site was excellent!

First, the diagonal roads from the new entrance worked very well. Along with Celebration Way going straight down the middle, the diagonals give one immediate options as to where to go and what to see. Great idea. Kudos!  Maybe in coming years the right (southern) diagonal can be extended to Knapp St. too.

The bus park was working very well. Museum, seaplane base, UWO campus, etc. -- one stop shopping for wherever one needs to go. The fares were reasonable too. Great job!

The trams on site seemed to be heavily utilized and efficient. I never used them but they were always moving and the lines waiting to use them appeared managable. I walked everywhere (phew!) but so very many made us of the trams.

As to the previous post about reduced vehicle traffic on site -- if HQ really accompished that then that's a major accomplishment! Thanks from the bottom of my heart! I actually mentioned to my companion several times that  the traffic was so low as to hardly be noticable to us pedestrians. Yeah, there were some food deliveries and porta-potty-pumpers moving about, but those are generally welcome services.

I participate in the spring and fall Auto Fairs at Lowes Motor Speedway every year. Those guys allow golf carts, cars and vendor trucks, food deliveries, etc. to run rampant all day long amongst the huge crowds of people. It becomes an aggravated competition for enough space to move and everyone becomes  angry and uncooperative, It's a bad situation even before one considers the safety issues. Thank you so much for preventing such a situation! Walking about the show grounds was a true pleasure worth noting.

Just one suggestion for those of us walking all day long: how about a universal identifying tower/pole/flag for water fountains so we can spot them from a distance. There seemed to be plenty of them (once I had found them by week's end
), but many weren't easy for a thirsty pedestrian to spot.

Big thanks though. The transportation was outstanding!

As a tram volunteer this year, I noticed that many folks asked about where the bus terminal was.  I don't know exactly what can be done about the lack of information, but it would be good if it were more clearly communicated.  I know that it is hard to miss the "tower" that says BUS on the side. 
 

I also thought it would be nice if a tram went closer to the bus terminal for those needing to go there.  Perhaps that would be an answer to my first suggestion.

And I think it has been mentioned in earlier postings, but I think that people missed the blue tram route out to the South 40 and the homebuilts.  There was a school bus route labeled as the blue tram that was used, but many people commented that they didn't like the closed, cramped nature of a bus, and they preferred the old blue tram route.  The lines at the Hangar Cafe for this school bus seemed to be pretty long and crowded.  

Overall, Airventure was fantastic, with great weather, and the gounds continue to be improved each year. 

1. Reduction of vehicle traffic in exhibitor areas most welcome.

2. Pylons along flight line denoting various display /special interest areas added class.

3. Followup to No.1:  Now, we need to address 4 wheeled vehicular traffic in Camp Scholler.  Too many Mules, Gators, and large ATV's running rampant.  I saw no enforcement of the need for licensure of operators as posted, with many drivers obviously younger than driving age.  I saw numerous of these large vehicles wiggle their way into the large bike parking lot behind the southern exhibit buildings. 

    a.Limit their use to those with handicaps. 

    b.Close up the opening in the bike lot fence to preclude their parking there. 

  4. Need an option for after airshow traffic from Camp Scholler to drive by North 40.  I provided transportaation for some that flew in to attend off airport functions.  I found a route, but don't want to "spill the beans" and loose that option.

5. Not sure that diagonal walkways were that beneficial.  I only found the northern one on Wednesday by accident while returning from forums.  Maybe better signage.  I'll followup if I get up there next year.

 I wasn't sure how the chnages would work out for me (based on the pre-show information) but my experience at the convention exceeded my expectations, so congratulations EAA!


Positives..

The addition of the Vintage Grill  was very nice. While the upscale offerings were somewhat limited the service itself was outstanding. Likewise with Boom Brother's coffee service. Until this year Ace's Cafe was my Lunch/Dinner vendor of choice. Sadly, the portions at Ace's seem to have been reduced and with them the value as well.


AeroMart and Fly Market are more conveniently located for those of us in Scholler (and, I think for shoppers who must park and walk). The triangular layout worked better than I imagined it would.


The reduction of vehicular traffic was noticeable and appreciated.


The Bunkhouse shower updates were nice. I appreciated the larger side walls and the second, privacy screen where I could hang my personal items out of public view. As I usually shower evenings before retiring I also appreciated having a shower, sink and bathroom all-in-one location. Next year, how about upgrading the showers near the Camp Store?


The vintage area has been improved with the new facilities. I noted the asphalt slab in this area where an airplane would occasionally be parked. Seems like a nice place to hold a 'Vintage-Birds on Review' program. Add some bleachers and folks would have a shaded area to from which to watch the afternoon air show as well.





Not-So-Positives..

I miss having a more direct tram route to the Warbirds this year (from the Scholler gate). Might as well walk to the Red route pickup point.


Wi-Fi


Rides to Ultralights.. I was told on Saturday (or was it Friday) that trams stopped running and one could only take a bus further South than the Hanger Cafe. As I didn't take any bus I never realized there would be a $1 charge (as noted earlier). The volunteer on the tram I was riding only mentioned the bus, not a fee.


Wi-Fi


Still a lot of dust in Scholler along Schaick and Paul's park.     I'd credit any reduction in dust this year more to the intermittent shower than that company contracted for dust control.


Wi-Fi


Suggestion..

Trams. Why not have the Red/Yellow tram connection point moved directly Westward, toward the Main Gate where it would intersect with the new, diagonal road headed to Warbirds?

This would funnel inbound traffic diagonally to the Forums and Warbirds areas and would bring that outbound traffic from both directions closer to the Bus Corral?

Hey, now that you mention it, we didn't get run over by any little carts!  Very good.  This year, we lost the merchandise section & had a hard time finding it.  Suggestion:  how about some signage, such as they do at the zoo, for instance, indicating "this way to ..........".  It would be helpful to direct folks to food, or specific sections by following signage.   It wouldn't cost that much either.

A word about the Kohler bathrooms:  thank you!  I found them cleaner, better smelling & not hotter than Hades which is usually how the port-a-potties turn out to be.  A bit classier too.  Much appreciated.

I thought the Kohler bathrooms were a huge improvement.  And the diagonal paths worked well.

The main negative that I noticed was the Texas on Tour display/performance area that was placed directly across from the forum area.  Their loud music made it hard to hear the presenters in the forum area, which is where I spend the majority of my time.  Texas on Tour seemed to have nothing to do with aviation, and I didn't appreciate a Disneyland type attraction that was so distracting.  If they want to display next year, I hope they are positioned away from the forum area.

Overall, I love the Oshkosh experience.

 LSA mall down by Ultralights makes way too much sense. The only problem is the size of the strip is almost a bit too tight for LSA's to operate. Now it's a safety thing....

If you could paint the new Find Me locators a solid primary color it may reduce any confusion. I found it amusing my co worker thought the lime green one was yellow or the dark orange one was red.......

I thought it was funny until my dad said the same thing a couple days later.

Why do they have red lights if they arent high enough to be an obstruction but yet EAA has closed (no night) ops during the show?

Lee,

Now I have been volunteering for over 20 years and my memory is not as good as it once was.

I used to be able to get to the convention sooner than I am able to now and if your chairman has already checked in with convention HQ (assuming that you are working early as a full time volunteer) he should have pre convention food passes that allow a person to get a GREAT HOT lunch/dinner from the volunteer cafe by the red barn (I assume this is still happening as I collect old passes and I have one from 1999!

We camped at Camp Scholler for the week ( Sat - Sat ). I liked the changes to the show grounds once I got used to the new routes and areas. I liked the Fly Mart location but it looked to have a lot less vendors. I do think it was easier to get around with the new paths. It just took getting used to where the new placements were. It would be nice to have some food stands open for early arrivals.

 The two problems I encountered were the unpredictability of the camp Scholler busses, there seemed to be no schedule at all. One driver dropped us off a block south of the fly mart saying she could not stop at the fly mart because of traffic only to find once we walked there to find the bus stopped right in front of the entrance picking up people. Or waiting at the bus terminal after a show for a bus back to the camp ground. There were 4 busses lined up for the museum, we waited about 15 minutes for a bus back to the camp grounds.

The other problem was the new toilet facilities. the one we used by the west camp store was almost always wet, even when the weather was dry water seemed to be running out of the showers into the toilet stalls. The other thing was that very often the toilets were clogged. Several times we would came back from the movie, go to use the toilet before bed only to find all the toilets overflowing.

All in all the changes made things easier and I'm looking forward to next year.