Jack_Jacques t1_ispnang wrote on October 17, 2022 at 7:36 PM

It's a wonderful event, but they need to let drivers know and THEY DID NOT. No signs, no notice. Press release wasn't even correct. Was 45 minutes late for work. Had I known., I would have gone much earlier and had breakfast in Newport. But the organizers and the bridge failed to notify drivers.

Total fiasco, but I hope it raised lots of money for the charities.

edit: sorry for the rant.

degggendorf OP t1_ispvka6 wrote on October 17, 2022 at 8:29 PM

That really sucks, I'm sorry. This was the first time I ran it, and I was shocked to find that they completely stopped traffic in both directions for so long. It wasn't until I was over the bridge (so like, 25 mins in) that the police finally allowed a slug of inbound cars through on the left side of the bridge.

With those movable barriers on the bridge, you'd think it would be easy to temporarily change the division of the road so there could be both both outbound lanes still, then one inbound lane, the barriers, and a protected lane for runners.

The only sign I saw ahead of time was the electronic sign in Jamestown saying something along the lines of "no trailers over 18ft 7am-8pm" which I don't think it even related to the race, it's for the roadwork on the Newport side. They really should have had signs about it at least in Jamestown the whole week leading up to it, if not the ones on 95 mentioning it too. RITBA is a sponsor of the race, so it's not like they don't have the ability to alert all motorists.

Anyway, I hope there aren't any lasting repercussions for you at work.

Oh and you can put 10/15/2023 in your calendar now.