Street closures for road race, Sunday 3/13

[ron_newman]

from tonight's robo-call and e-mail:

Hello, this is Michael Meehan from the City of Somerville with information about street closures this weekend. On Sunday, March 13th beginning at 9 a.m., police, traffic and parking personnel will be detouring vehicles in and around the Davis, Teele, and Ball Square areas to accommodate the running of the annual Race of Ireland road race. [Here's a course map]

Secondary roads in these areas may also be closed to through traffic for a brief time in order to allow runners to pass. Major roadways including Holland Street to Alewife Brook Parkway, Powerhouse Boulevard, Broadway (in the Ball Square corridor), Cedar Street and the Community Path will be closed from 11 a.m. to approximately 1 p.m. The Davis Square area will be closed to all traffic until approximately 1 p.m.

Buses to and from the Davis Square area will be rerouted down Elm Street, and buses along the race route may be delayed for a short period of time. Police and MBTA officials will be stationed throughout these areas to direct traffic and provide detour information. For additional information, please call 311.

Comments

driving?

[duneidieann.livejournal.com]

If you live inside that almost-loop, is there any way you can drive to get out if you need to depart during this race? Last road race I got stuck inside the route and couldn't figure out how to get out.

Re: driving?

[ron_newman]

I do not know the answer to this, or anything else beyond the text that I posted. I suggest you call 311 and ask, and then post their response here.

You may want to move your car to somewhere outside the loop Saturday night before going to bed.

Re: driving?

[kazbotch.livejournal.com]

There are 6000 runners this year. Doubt you'll get very far until the tail end of the race.

Re: driving?

[ward2.livejournal.com]

I'm fine with the race. I'm fine with the imagery on the website. I'm even fine with an "almost-loop."

What I am NOT fine with is shutting down major roadways for the majority of the usable part of a Sunday for a road race. This should have started at 7:30 in the morning and been done by 10. Thousands of cars (myself included) were out doing our normal Sunday morning errands. and got stranded on side roads since the major roads were blocked.

If the runners want the race to happen, it should be scheduled to lessen the impact on the tens of thousands of non-runners who need to live their lives. Not put it smack-dab in the middle of the day when more people will be impacted.

But I guess that's because we live in a city where the administration cares more about joggers and bikers than the majority of us who aren't.

Re: driving?

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

It's only a 5K, which means even the people who just walk fast will be done in less than an hour, and the early parts of the course will clear long before that.

[mjg59.livejournal.com]

Wait. The city's closing roads for a race whose website is full of pictures of murals glorifying a terrorist organisation?

[ron_newman]

I don't see any murals on the race website -- can you say more? If you mean the IRA or Sinn Fein, they are no longer terrorist organizations since they have signed the Good Friday Agreement, destroyed their weapons, and entered the electoral political process.

[mjg59.livejournal.com]

The hunger strikers and the members of the Belfast Brigade were terrorists, and glorifying them on that basis is glorifying a terrorist organisation. The good friday agreement did not retroactively change the status of the membership or alter the fact that they (along with the loyalist groups) engaged in multiple atrocities resulting in the deaths of thousands of innocent people. Pictures of them on the website of a peaceful event is inappropriate.

[frank mcsorley (from livejournal.com)]

Our founding fathers were also called terrorists, maybe we should stop celebrating 4th of July?

[smoterh.livejournal.com]

The Founding Fathers of US were never called terrorists by their contemporaries. Rebels, revolutionaries or even traitors to the Crown, yes - but never terrorists.

[gruene.livejournal.com]

Actually Thomas Jefferson was called a terrorist, but by his American political opponents in the election of 1800. Of course by this they meant that he supported the "Reign of Terror" of the French Revolution and would try to institute something similar here.

This is also of course why no one called the American Revolutionaries terrorists. The word hadn't entered the lexicon until aforementioned events occurred in France. The modern sense of the word was not attested until 1944, originally in reference to the tactics used by Zionist organizations in Palestine.

I have no doubt though, that had the word been used in its modern sense, Washington and his crew would have been called terrorists. After all, the British had no problem labeling fighters in various post-WWII colonial uprisings as such, as seen in Cyprus in 1956, Kenya in 1960, Rhodesia in 1973.