By Dakota Antelman — [email protected]
Four weeks out from the big day, Concord250 organizers have their hands full.
They’re juggling cell service, drones, a military flyover, transportation ranging from trains to golf carts, and a longstanding dispute with Lexington — not to mention the impact of 100,000-plus visitors, possibly including presidents and protesters.
“This is the nitty-gritty stuff,” Concord250 Executive Committee co-chair Rob Munro said in a March 10 interview. “But we’re going to have a full slate of things.”
Event schedule
April 19 will include a parade, a ceremony at the Old North Bridge, a block party, and an evening drone show. Concord250 co-chair Gary Clayton said the Massachusetts Air National Guard will conduct a flyover around 10:15 a.m.
Munro said the North Bridge program should be relatively short. The mood will be “a good balance between celebration and commemoration,” Munro said.
As of March 10, Clayton said organizers had picked their preferred drone vendor. Officials were trying to identify a takeoff and landing zone.
Transportation
To accommodate what could be a crowd of well over 100,000 visitors (in a town of 18,500 people), organizers have developed a transportation plan that includes buses, bikes, and trains.
The MBTA will run extra Commuter Rail service. Officials hope satellite parking lots will keep drivers away from closed roads.
Public safety agencies will use some Concord school buses. Munro said other buses and vans will ferry visitors to and from satellite lots. The town is also eyeing a fleet of golf carts.
Beyond local shuttles, Concord and other area towns rebounded from an initial delay and inked an intermunicipal deal to run school buses on routes between Concord and Lexington and between Lexington and Arlington on April 19.
Clayton said organizers are working with bicycle enthusiasts affiliated with the Pan-Mass Challenge to create areas where visitors who ride into Concord can store their bikes.
Organizers will install temporary signs to help visitors navigate the area. Hundreds of volunteers will help manage the crowds.
Temporary cell towers
Long-term solutions to Concord’s spotty cell coverage won’t materialize before April 19, but officials hope temporary infrastructure will help.
In an email, Deputy Town Manager Megan Zammuto said AT&T would deploy cell towers on wheels on March 14 to have towers operational by April 2. AT&T said it could support “many thousands” of users with AT&T phones.
Zammuto said Verizon is scheduled to deliver equipment on April 4 and begin operations “a few days later.” She said Verizon does not share information about its capacity because the data is proprietary.
Protests and public safety
Clayton said organizers were “aware from the beginning” that groups might organize protests around the 250th anniversary.
Demonstrations could come from spots across the political spectrum. Though some might adhere to established protocols, Clayton said organizers know other groups might not.
Local police are working with state and federal law enforcement on security preparations. Among their contributions, Munro said state and federal experts are monitoring the internet for signs of trouble.
“If people are talking about stuff, we have a general sense of what might be coming down the pike so that we can be responsible,” he said.
Cross-border controversy
Concord leaders headed to Arlington on March 13 for a meeting with representatives from Arlington, Lexington, Lincoln, and the National Park Service.
The meeting was held roughly one month after a Concord250 email to news outlets claimed “the first shots of the American Revolution were fired at Concord’s Old North Bridge.”
The statement rankled some people in Lexington, where in 1775 militia members faced British soldiers before the bloodshed in Concord.
Clayton said the February email “just wasn’t sufficiently vetted” and conceded that the first shots were fired in Lexington.
After years of debate about whether the “first forcible resistance” happened in Lexington or Concord, though, the erroneous statement reinvigorated old passions.
“This has been an ongoing thing for decades,” said Lexington 250th anniversary organizer Suzie Barry.
Though there have been “growing pains,” Munro said recent collaboration among Concord, Lexington, and other towns has been “nothing short of miraculous.”
“It’s really been great to get to know our counterparts in other communities that we normally wouldn’t know,” Barry said.
Final steps
Munro acknowledged finalizing plans in the weeks before April 19 “is a little rocky” and will require considerable time and effort.
Speaking during a March 12 Executive Committee meeting, he thanked town staff.
“They are doing an incredible amount of work over this next month to help us pull everything together into this one really, probably slightly misshapen, but beautiful burrito that will be April 19,” he said.
