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Iditarod web sites
See related pages:
http://www.iditarod.com/
http://www.adn.com/iditarod/
Anchorage may be the only city in America that puts snow ON the streets each winter. Since you can't run dog sleds on asphalt, a little redecorating is needed for the ceremonial start of the Iditarod. "(They're) hauling in something like 80,000 square yards of snow," said Rick Calcote, coordinator of the 10 a.m. Saturday race start. In order to give dump trucks and graders room to maneuver, and to ensure places for mushers' dog trucks, some downtown streets are temporarily closed to parking. Beginning at 5 p.m. today, you can't park on D, E, G or H streets between Third and Fifth avenues; on Fourth Avenue from I Street to Cordova Street; or on Cordova from Fourth Avenue to the Mulcahy Sports Complex. The Iditarod Trail Committee gets a permit each year to close the streets. The city requires that no-parking warning signs be posted 24 hours in advance. Those warnings are written on red-and-white signs, attached to orange-and-white barricades that resemble sawhorses. Six warning signs are required for each block - three on each side of the street. How could people miss signs like that? They probably don't - they just space them out, says Robert McCormick, operations manager for the Glacier BrewHouse. "There is a tendency to ignore," McCormick said. "You know that's an area where you can (usually) park." Last year, a number of BrewHouse customers ran afoul of the no-parking zones. They were plenty steamed, especially when they found that the towing company was closed until Monday morning. At least one towee says there were no signs anywhere on the street. But BrewHouse employees confirm that the street was properly posted. "It's like when you get pulled over for speeding....you forget what you did wrong and start being mad at the cop," said Chris Anderson, co-owner of the restaurant. The number of cars towed has grown in the telling, too. One version had it that 29 cars were hauled off. A downtown business owner says she heard that 180 vehicles were taken away. According to the Anchorage Police Department, nine cars were impounded in Iditarod no-parking zones. And the Iditarod got just two letters of complaint about the events of that night, according to Calcote. There's one sure-fire way to keep from being towed: Stay out of the no-parking zones. You can park on any nonposted downtown street for free. Or you can pay 50 to 75 cents an hour at municipal garages. "There's 1,100 (spaces) in the Fifth Avenue garage, and about 600 in the Sixth Avenue garage," said Kevin Kinney of the Anchorage Parking Authority. Kinney also points out that businesses in the Anchorage 5th Avenue mall (including the food court) will validate two hours' worth of parking with any purchase. This year, the race committee is making an extra effort to remind people about the no-parking zones. Calcote plans to get public-service announcements on as many radio and television stations as he can. In additional, volunteers will drop by downtown businesses with fliers to remind people which streets will be closed. When possible, the fliers will be posted on business doors. And if you forget and park illegally anyway? This year, you won't have to wait until Monday to redeem your car. Aurora Towing will be open from 9 a.m. to noon on Saturday. "We're going to do do everything we can to ... save people as much grief as possible," Calcote says. "But we also have a job to do, which is to put on a race. We have to put our energy and attention to work on that, too."
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