Veterans Day Parade blocked access to his home

A Concerned Reader we’ll call Bones wrote to me about the recent Veterans Day parade in downtown Columbus.

“I love a parade … but when a parade blocks entry into your home it’s gone too far,” Bones wrote.

Bones lives in one of those old mills on Front Avenue. He had gone out to run some errands the Saturday of the parade, and upon returning, he found all access to Front Avenue blocked. He even tried to go across the Oglethorpe Bridge into Phenix City to cross back onto Front via the Dillingham Street Bridge.

“Wrong,” Bones wrote. “That bridge was blocked too. The 13th (Street) bridge was closed leaving me absolutely no access to my home. I had to wait an hour to get home.”

Bones said the problem could easily have been solved by opening the stretch of Front Avenue between 13^th and 14th Streets.

“I know that eventually this will be open to the public,” Bones wrote. “Sure would be nice if they could get on with things. Uptown Columbus has become too vibrant an area to completely close down for a parade.”

Speaking of Uptown, I called Richard Bishop, who is president of Uptown Columbus, for the moment at least, and asked him about the situation.

“It certainly had an impact on (access), said Bishop.

He said if Bones (but he didn’t call him Bones) had driven into the historic district on an unblocked street, he could have cut over to Front. But at one point, some floats that had finished the parade had turned west on Ninth Street and cut over to Front, effectively blocking it off.

The good news is, Bishop expects the closed stretch of Front between 13^th and 14^th Streets to be back open to the public before the next parade season.

“I’m not the one who makes that decision, but all the information I’ve heard points to it being open before then,” Bishop said.

Personally, I’ve never liked parades, and never really understood their attraction. Why would you want to stand on the street and watch people drive by in odd vehicles. And who wants to stand there for all that time just to see local dignitaries ride by sitting in open convertibles and waving?

No offense to local dignitaries, but if I want to see Mayor Teresa Tomlinson or City Manager Isaiah Hugley, I’ll just go to a Columbus Council meeting. On second thought, I might do the parade instead. Parades don’t have a Public Agenda section.

This story was originally published November 20, 2016 at 8:52 PM with the headline "Veterans Day Parade blocked access to his home."