Local Baltimore opinion?

From today's Baltimore Sun Letters to the Editor:

"On Sunday, The Sun had several articles on the Baltimore Marathon of the day before ("Antics keep wacky pace to long race," Oct. 16), and not one of them had a word about the horrendous traffic jams that the marathon caused this year, as it does every year. Thousands of cars were stopped or forced to endure bumper-to-bumper traffic for long periods because, once again, the city did not plan adequately for the event. Big banners should go up all over the city the day before the marathon, alerting drivers to stay off the roads. Those roads that are to be blocked should have signs warning drivers not to enter them. Better yet, the city should close Interstate 83 and confine the runners to it. Some of us have shopping and errands to do on Saturdays, and consider them more important than the desire of a bunch of jerks to run through the streets." -- Henry Cohen, Baltimore

I guess I'm one of the jerks he's talking about, eh? I noted in my race report that I didn't see any closure notices along the course, and I think that might help the situation. It does significantly tie up traffic inside the city for a long period of time that day. I have heard, though, that they do contact people who live along the course directly by mail. The course map was published in the very newspaper this guy was writing to. And you can see some of the big banners that Mr. Cohen apparently did not here.