Ok everyone, here's the scoop on the road closures for Monday,
Memorial Day They have changed the course to come down Market
St instead of Broad St. Whereas Broad St was half-open last year,
MARKET ST / ALTON PARK BLVD WILL BE FULLY CLOSED from
40th to 20th. Also, 40th St itself will be FULLY CLOSED.
The race course will come down Market St / Alton Park Blvd to 40th St
heading into St Elmo, and then turn right on Tennessee Ave (at the
funeral home), left on St Elmo Ave (at Rico Monuments), then right to
go up Ochs Hwy up Lookout. They will then come back down Scenic
Hwy to Cummings, right on St Elmo Ave, through the St Elmo business
district past 1885, jogging right and then left on Tennessee to go back
out 40th St. See the map links below if you need a visual on that!
Although 40th and Market will be closed, there will be traffic allowed
intermittently through the St Elmo Ave section of the course as well as
on Cummings Hwy. In past years Cummings was closed all day. The
map shows it being open intermittently.
When I say "intermittently", let me explain a little about the race in case
you haven't been around before. There will be police everywhere getting
radio updates. They will know when the racers are heading towards St
Elmo. There will be a huge train of vehicles before and after the racers:
police, media, team cars, medical, etc. When the lead vehicle comes
through, they will close the course. It will remain closed until all of the
lead vehicles, racers, and then following vehicles pass until finally the
"sweeper" car (with the broom on the front!) goes by, at which point
they will reopen the course. The total time for the train to go by will
depend partly on how spread out the racers get. By the fourth lap of
the men's race, it could be upwards of 20-30 minutes. During that time
traffic will basically be sitting there waiting for the road to open up.
Personally, if I needed to go downtown or anywhere not due south
during the race, I would probably head south on Tennessee Ave to
where it curves around to the left at 55th and becomes Lee Ave,
which eventually curves around to become Central Ave and hits 38th
St. Then I'd turn right and go to Rossville Blvd to head to the highway
or downtown. Longer, but possibly not as long as waiting to get to
Broad St.
Here's the schedule and approximate closure times.
The Women's race starts at 9:00 am with three short loops downtown
before two of the long loops that include St Elmo and Lookout. So look
for the first closure to start maybe around 9:15 - maybe a little later but
don't cut yourself short! There will be two closures during this race,
and the first one shouldn't last more than 10 minutes.
The Men's race starts 1:30 pm with four short loops before four long
loops. Look for them to hit the Elmo by 2:00 pm. There will be four
closure periods, and as I mentioned, they will get progressively longer
as the pack spreads out. I'm thinking the laps take about 40-45 minutes
each.
Folks, these are the national championship professional cycling races - in
OUR neighborhood! Now... there are admittedly inconveniences, but let's
try to look on the bright side and take the opportunity to show off the best
of St Elmo, whether that's volunteering, cheering, or helping out the
befuddled drivers who just wanted to get to Rock City or Ruby Falls.
Since this year we have two-way race traffic, it's an even better place to
watch than before, so we might have a lot of visitors.
Here's an overall map of the race course:
http://www.chattanooga.gov/images/citymedia/publicworks/SE_Website/15_USPRO_RR_Map.pdf
and here's a more detailed map that shows the road closures:
http://www.chattanooga.gov/images/citymedia/publicworks/Detour_Maps_2015.pdf
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