February 8, 2012
Keeping track of road races
By Bethany Bray Staff Writer The Salem News Wed Feb 08, 2012, 04:57 AM EST
City councilors on the committee on public health, safety and the environment came to a consensus about road races last night like a group of runners headed toward a finish line.
The topic has fueled discussion — and some angry letters to councilors — this month after the council questioned the volume, scheduling and management of the many races that Salem hosts each year.
Creation of a master calendar and oversight by a city official, Doug Bollen — who is the director of parks, recreation and community services — was suggested as the best method to monitor races.
The motion, passed unanimously last night by the subcommittee, now heads to the full City Council.
Ten city councilors and numerous race organizers and members of the local running community sat in on the discussion last night. The meeting was posted as both a meeting of the full council and committee on public health, safety and the environment, so more than the subcommittee’s five members could weigh in.
Councilor Robert McCarthy said oversight is needed to ensure road races are spread out and don’t overlap with other events, such as the annual jazz festival.
“What’s happened is we’ve kind of lost sight of how these road races fall into the master calendar of the city,” said McCarthy, who first brought up the issue. “There is overlap here, and somehow we need to address the overlap.”
Last year, 9,000 runners participated in 18 different road races through the city of Salem. The total number of road races in Salem has doubled in the last three years, Bollen said.
“People are calling me every other week and asking, ‘How can I hold a road race?’ … There is a terrific running boom going on,” said Bollen, who directs the Salem Road Race Series and is one of the founders of the Salem-based Wicked Running Club.
While many of the races raise money for charity and bring commerce into the city, they can also cause inconvenience for residents with traffic disruptions and road closures.
“It’s a win-win situation for Salem, if we can tighten up the loose ends,” Councilor Thomas Furey said.
Steven Dion, a Salem State University professor and co-creator of B&S Fitness Programs, suggested residents could be notified through an automated phone message of upcoming road races and related road closures.
While the City Council gives the final approval for a road race, the Police Department checks each race route for safety and ensures the event will have enough police details to handle road closures. Currently, neither the police nor the council keep a calendar of race dates or monitor how close they fall to other events.
Last night, councilors agreed that Bollen and Lt. Robert Precszewski from the Police Department’s traffic division should look over each race together and compare it to a master calendar before sending it to the City Council for approval.
The council would be the race’s “last stop,” said Councilor Joseph O’Keefe, who suggested the motion.
“If it doesn’t get past them, it doesn’t get to us,” O’Keefe said.
After O’Keefe’s motion passed, the committee on public health, safety and the environment voted in favor of an application by Tavern on the Square for an April road race as well as a July race organized by the Wicked Running Club. Both races now head to the full council for final approval.
Staff writer Bethany Bray can be reached at bbray@salemnews.com and on Twitter @SalemNewsBB