(no subject)

[curiositykt.livejournal.com]

I got a message on my voice mail from Tom Champion about street closures near ball square. Because it was a voice mail, it cut off the first part so I'm curious, will what ever is happening be on Saturday from 11-1pm or Sunday? and for that matter, did anyone catch what is happening?

thanks!

Comments

Road Race

[vonelftinhaus.livejournal.com]

Road Race in Davis Sq extending to Teele and Ball Sq's, 5000 runners and probably another 2000 more people just hanging out. General pre-st. patricks day chaos!! run and hide save your children

Re: Road Race

[oakenguy.livejournal.com]

And they'll be singing!! (Before the race, they're going to try to break the world's record for most people singing 'Danny Boy'.)

Re: Road Race

[publius513.livejournal.com]

really???

Re: Road Race

[closetalker11.livejournal.com]

I am trying to memorize the song in time ... such pressure!!!

I love this race. It's going to be so much fun.

[tamalinn.livejournal.com]

it's on sunday.

[rax.livejournal.com]

Oh jeez. :/ Say I want to get from just South of Ball Square (Willow and Kidder) to 93 North. How doomed am I? Is there a clever way for me to deal with this? I read the email but it wasn't really explicit about what would be closed.

[rax.livejournal.com]

...actually today is _Saturday_, so I'm fine. Awake, I swear!

[sungold123.livejournal.com]

You won't be able to go through Davis Square or get to the Ball Square end of Willow. I'd recommend driving up Willow to Highland, take a left on Highland, go to the end and take a left onto the McGrath Highway and then take that over to 93... that's the best way I can think of! You could also try to get over to Mass Ave and take that up to the Alewife Brook Parkway, the take that to 93.

Here's the text of the message

[closetalker11.livejournal.com]

CITY OF SOMERVILLE
Message sent - 3/13/2009
Road Closures Sunday, 3/15


Hello, this is Jackie Rossetti from the City of Somerville with information about road-race related street closures in your area this weekend. On Sunday, March 15th beginning at 9am, Police and Traffic and Parking personnel will be detouring vehicles in and around the Davis and Teele Square areas to accommodate the running of the annual Race of Ireland road race. Secondary roads in the Davis Square area may be closed to through traffic beginning at 9am, with major roadways including Holland Street, Broadway from Holland to North Street and along the Ball Square corridor, and Powderhouse Boulevard closed from 11am to approximately 1pm. The Davis Square area will be closed to traffic until approximately 1 p.m.

Police will be stationed throughout these areas to direct traffic and provide detour information.

For additional information, please call 311 during regular business hours.

We apologize for this temporary inconvenience, and thank you for your patience.

Re: Here's the text of the message

[curiositykt.livejournal.com]

yay thanks!

Re: Here's the text of the message

[ethanfield.livejournal.com]

For additional information, please call 311 during regular business hours.

This is my favorite part. I received the call at 6PM on Friday, and the race is on Sunday. I look forward to calling 311 on Monday morning, for additional information about road closures from the previous day.

[ron_newman]

I thought that returning the call to 617-628-7669 would play back the latest robo-call message .... but instead, I heard a message about the snow emergency being lifted two weeks ago ;-(

However, there is an alert on the city website.

[csbermack.livejournal.com]

is there an rss feed or something that I can subscribe to for these kinds of alerts, when I don't live in somerville to get the calls? I'm just over the border in Medford and don't see myself checking the city site every day I might want to go near Davis, but right now I basically depend on someone talking about it here.

granted, that's worked ok so far, but it seems like an unreliable system!

[ethanfield.livejournal.com]

I think you can get the calls/emails/both by signing up on the city website, even if you don't live in the city (a lot of business owners do this.) You can sign up a cell phone instead of a land line.

The catch is, I think you'll only get the city-wide calls. If they do a call to a specific neighborhood (because of a water main break, street closings, etc.) you wouldn't get that, because you don't have an address in that neighborhood.

[curiositykt.livejournal.com]

no, I live in medford and I called them and they set me up with the robo calls on my cell phone based on the nearest somerville location to me.. however, only get the emails for city wide things.

[curiositykt.livejournal.com]

I did look on the website but I couldn't figure out how to navigate to that page. I thought perhaps news, or events, or 311, but no, none of those worked..

[ron_newman]

Alerts are on the right side of the city home page. I don't understand what you mean by navigation.

[curiositykt.livejournal.com]

I'm used to the medford site and was expecting it to be vastly harder. plus. 3:30 am.

[ron_newman]

The race website

[dent42.livejournal.com]

The hell? I love smack in the middle of that course. How are they expecting people who live within it to get out? They could have at least tried to leave one avenue of escape!

[curiositykt.livejournal.com]

yeah, it goes up against my street, which is one way into the raceway. there is no way you can get out of my street, so I didn't park on my street tonight.

[ron_newman]

I guess people could just drive out the other way....

[ron_newman]

I love smack in the middle of that course.

Hmmm....

[dent42.livejournal.com]

Its just an annoying coincidence of timing. I was supposed to pick someone up in Medford square at 1. Normally I'd park outside the circle they've drawn around my house. But my wife is 8.5 months pregnant, and that's a bit far for her to walk. It would have been nice to be able to call City Hall to find out what exactly their plan was, if any, for residents within the race route to be able to get out during the race. Hopefully next year they'll better design the course so as not to do this.

[sungold123.livejournal.com]

Just an FYI - this 5K route is an official "certified" course, and it's used often during the year.

The Somerville Homeless Coalition used it for their annual race in October of last year (although I don't think it's their normal course), and I also ran another one on that course to benefit by the St. Charles Children - so the roads will likely be closed again this summer.

[curiositykt.livejournal.com]

and the jingle bell run was here in december.

[mrhatboston.livejournal.com]

Oh wicked lame! Who certified that course? What genius said hey, let's completely encircle a section of the city for the duration of any race run on this route. They should make it a straight line!

[ron_newman]

The start of this race was not where the map showed it to be. The real start was on Highland Ave near Sovereign Bank, but the map showed it on Elm Street near the Burren.

[blackdove24.livejournal.com]

Anyone have any idea how this is going to affect the buses going into Davis? The only alerts on mbta.com for bus are for the St. Patrick's Day parade in Southie.

...guess I can just take the half an hour walk into Davis....