Traffic Alert: It’s Forensics Time Again

The 115-year-old State Speech Festival will take place in numerous campus buildings from April 16-17. Some 5,000 Wisconsin high school students and their coaches will be arriving for the annual competition on Friday afternoon, April 16.

Due to the additional traffic congestion that occurs when dozens of yellow school buses drop the students off on the Friday afternoon of the festival, motorists are advised to avoid the Observatory Drive area between Park and Charter streets.

Campus buses will be detoured from 3-7 p.m. that Friday. Riders should be aware that the stops at Memorial Union (Park Street), Bascom Hall and the Social Science Building will not be used during that time. The Route 80 and 85 buses will pick up passengers at the Langdon Street stop on the south side of the Memorial Union.

Instead of going over Bascom Hill from Park Street to Charter, the Route 80 buses will travel down University Avenue from Park Street to Charter Street and then take Charter to Linden Drive, where they will resume their regular route. The Route 85 buses will travel down University Avenue to Randall Street. Passengers can catch the 80 and 85 buses at the University Avenue stops at Park and Mills streets.

The Wisconsin High School Forensic Association, the oldest forensic association for high schools in the U.S., has held the speech festival on the Madison campus since 1895.