For a few early hours this Sunday, the Southwest Freeway will be the only conduit into or out of the box of land framed by Kirby Dr., Montrose Blvd., Bissonnet St. and W. Gray St. (give or take a traffic peninsula leading up to Allen Pkwy., which will also be closed for much of the morning).
The Houston Marathon will launch from 4 corrals leading to Congress Ave. at San Jacinto St., and loop through the city along the route outlined in black above. The Half Marathon route (outlined in yellow) will pant alongside until just before mile 8, when it will skive off north back toward the shared finish line at Discovery Green.
A larger version of the map is show in 2 parts below, complete with start and end times (in red and green respectively) of each mile marker’s street closure:
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Anyone able to regain consciousness before 8 AM in the narrow captured strip south of Washington Ave should be able to exit the area via the Walker ramp to northbound I-45; those entering the area may have to hop in via the southbound McKinney St. exit until the first leg of the course begins to unravel at 8:05:
Early birds flocking in or out of River Oaks, Highland Village, Greenway, Upper Kirby, and the Rice Village should be able to take 59 or the West Loop to cross out of the course:
- Street Closures [Chevron Houston Marathon]
Street closure map: Chevron Houston Marathon
welp, cant go to church.
They need to make these people run in a smaller area. This interferes with my regular Sunday morning bike ride.
Memorial Dr. via Sawyer or N. Memorial way is also your friend if you are stuck south of Washington Ave and north of Allen Parkway. It goes under Waugh and stays open during the race.
@I Love Heights Walmart, good, I recommend spending the time you would have wasted on something more enlightened like rationalwiki.org or a brunch at Hugo’s, which is still better.
At least the runners will be moving faster than the covered wagons they like to parade down memorial for the rodeo. All of these events are good for the city but I truly don’t understand the fascination with shutting down roads people use all the time. This race barely uses downtown which is pretty empty during the weekend. Why not swing for the fences for max disruption by closing down I-10 and have them run from cinco ranch to city hall?
And the only way to get onto the Southwest Freeway from inside the yellow box is to use southbound Shepherd, which will be even more congested than usual, or use one of the Hazard/Woodhead/Dunlavy/Mandell/Graustark bridges to cross the freeway, then wiggle back through the neighborhoods north of Bissonnet to northbound Shepherd, which might be less traveled. But then you’re still stuck at the feeder road/on ramps, which will likely be full of cars too. Ugh. I think I will sleep in.
Commenter7 “barely uses downtown”?! How do start and end points qualify? Answer: this shuts down most of the area every year…
I’m liking your I-10 idea.
People who make an effort to complain about events that may “inconvenience” them for a few hours, once a year, are the kinds of people I try to avoid in life. There are more than a few of them, so I suppose misery does love company.
Jon: They could jog in place.
Before the route changed a couple years back to no longer go into the Northside and Woodland Heights, I lived in that little spit of streets north of White Oak that had no way in or out at all. ‘Twern’t that big a deal; we’d just roll over and go back to sleep.
@mollusk Thank you for rolling back over. It is because of people like you that I can get up at 5 am to run around our fair city. Your service is greatly appreciated!
I like Commenter7’s idea – but I’d like to flip it to give some love to the far east side: Start in Baytown or further and have them run west to City Hall.
Seriously, I’ve lived inside the Loop for decades and I don’t mind the once-per-year closure to allow a bunch of people to run 26.2 miles. On a Sunday morning. I just wake up late, pour myself a cup of coffee, and linger inside. It will be fine.