DNC spells vacation for some

Even before city officials and the US Secret Service revealed new details yesterday about the massive detours and predicted gridlock resulting from the Democratic National Convention's four-day visit to Boston, Adam Rosen was planning to flee.

He's scheduled his vacation, although he has no plans yet for the week of July 25. What he's sure he's not doing is going anywhere near Boston, an MBTA station, or Interstate 93.

''I just decided to do what many others are doing by avoiding the whole thing," he said yesterday, ''and feeling sorry for the people who are stuck in the middle of it."

The national political convention may be two months away but some Massachusetts workers have already planned an escape from the hubbub, headaches, and hellish commute: They're taking vacation.

Melissa Briscoe is an insurance analyst who works downtown and takes an express train from Lowell to North Station. When she heard the station would be closed during the convention, she requested the week off. ''Most of my friends will be off," said Briscoe, 37. ''A lot of people who either drive in or rely on public transportation are aware that it will be a real pain to get into town. Nobody wants to really deal with that."

Not all workers will be part of the exodus, however. Public safety, hospital, and hospitality workers are among those who can expect to be on the job that week, regardless of the traffic tie-ups and confusion

Two months ago, the Fairmont Copley Plaza Boston issued a memo to its staff on a ''blackout" on vacations the week before and the week of the convention, according to Alex Pratt, regional director of human resources. He said the 383-room hotel is hosting the Massachusetts legislative delegation during the convention, and all of its rooms are booked. The hotel employs about 350 full-time staff, and 50 additional workers who are brought in for special occasions.

''This is a great chance to showcase the city, and showcase the hospitality industry," said Pratt. ''We might encourage people to take alternative routes, and we plan to give them their schedules in advance so they can plan ahead. We will be advising them to leave home early."

At Massachusetts General Hospital, emergency room doctors have been told: no vacations the week of the convention. With up to 50,000 visitors expected in Boston the week of the convention, hospital officials said most of MGH's 15,000-member staff will be on duty in the event of accidents or a terrorist attack.

Bonnie Michelman, director of police security and outside services, said the hospital has set aside rooms at a Holiday Inn for workers who will not be able to get home. MGH is also encouraging staff to use public transportation. ''We are making sure that we will have a sufficient cadre of people if there is a disaster," said Michelman, director of police security and outside services. ''If we have to house people, we would do that at the hospital also."

Michelman said Boston Emergency Medical Services, which provides ambulance services to and from the hospital, will be granted express travel on a single open lane on I-93 northbound. The lane will be open 24 hours each day of the convention to accommodate ambulance drivers.

But those who can are making plans to get away, and their numbers are likely to swell. Yesterday, employers were urged by Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino and other officials to use flextime, telecommuting, and other measures to ease traffic congestion to and from the city. Some may opt to encourage nonessential employees to take the week off.

Employee concerns about traffic tie-ups and packed commuter trains and buses already appear to have prompted a flurry of vacation requests at Keane, the Charlestown IT consulting giant. Ten percent of the 400 professional and administrative workers at the firm's headquarters will be on vacation the week the DNC comes to town, said Russell J. Campanello, senior vice president of human resources.

Keane is still formulating a plan for that week, Campanello said. The company might pare its staff down to a skeleton crew of about 100 essential workers, with some opting to telecommute or work from satellite sites. It is continuing to monitor reports from city officials about what to expect.

''When we first heard about the shutdown of Route 93, we looked at our workforce and saw that people would be coming from as far away as southern New Hampshire and the Cape," said Campanello. ''So, we did a survey of staff at our headquarters to assess whether people were taking vacation and a lot of them were."

Carl DiRocco, 40, is a graphic designer in Keane's marketing department. He says it takes 35 to 40 minutes to get to work from Reading. But with the shutdown of I-93 from around 4 p.m. until after midnight July 26 to 29, DiRocco's commute could more than triple, he fears. So, he is taking his three sons camping in Maine.

''I didn't want to put up with the headaches caused by 93 being closed," DiRocco said. ''I commute 12 miles from Reading to Boston. If Route 93 is going to be closed from Woburn to Canton, it could take me well over three hours."

For Ron Newman, 46, yesterday's new details were a double blow. A member of the Somerville Democratic City Committee which recently passed a resolution calling on transit and city leaders to allow the city to operate as normal during the event, Newman admits the resolution changed nothing.

Now Newman, who will be working that week, is faced with biking from his Davis Square home to his work in the North End, something he'd normally be pleased to do. But because of additional traffic on secondary roads through Somerville, Cambridge and downtown Boston, he said, biking is ''not going to be fun. It's just going to be better than doing anything else," he said.

Diane E. Lewis can be reached at dlewis@globe.com. Mac Daniel can be reached at mdaniel@globe.com.