Traffic Saturday Night...

[BogeyGolfer]

Sorry if this had already been mentioned but that was a big cluster. We packed up tailgate in the Junction around 7:30 and wasn't able to leave Starkville till around 10:00. WTF? The main issue I witnessed was people driving back onto campus after the game. If you are within walking distance, and you want to renter campus when 60k are trying to leave, you need to walk your fat-ass back on campus instead of 17ing driving. Also traffic management must allow people to pull up near the junction to load up sooner than 31/2 hours after the game. Look, I understand that big crowds will provide traffic issues but Saturday night was a disaster.

[SignalToNoise]

I would guess most of the traffic coming back to campus is people wanting to pack up their tailgates. Just a guess.

Pretty much same story for me, though. We were packed and ready to bail no later than 8 and it was about 10:30 by the time we got off campus. Most of that time was waiting on the truck to arrive. I know there was a record crowd but something just didn't add up.

[Liverpooldawg]

I left about 30-40 minutes after the game, it was backed up just a little bit no real problems. It took me about 20 minutes to get to 82.

[sleepy dawg]

Yikes, that's terrible... It really wasn't bad for me at all, but I didn't tailgate.

[ShotgunDawg]

it took me 3 hours to get off LSU's campus one year. Welcome to big time football.

[Westdawg]

well Bogey, call me lazy.

I packed my tailgate up about 30 mins after the game. both of my little kids ( under the age of 3) were soaked to the bone and in dire need of getting sat down to go to sleep. My wife and i decided to go on to the car. Before we left tailgate, i talked to one of the head event staff who was monitoring traffic. asked him point blank " when can i drive back up here to get my tailgate stuff?". he confidently replied that it would be one hour or less after the game ended --- aprox. 7:40pm. we walked to the car, and waited until 7:50 to move from our space, which was all the way in BFE. i got onto campus, pulled right up to the intersection to turn to go back up towards Dorman, and traffic renta cop there proceeds to tell me that i cannot turn because of traffic....what???? there was not really any pedestrian traffic on that street by that time and definitely not any cars. so, i had to turn back down towards the vet school by the intramural fields and was thereby stuck in traffic until 10:30. I had to drive all the way back in from the new band hall. and it was a total cluster. the only road out of campus that was making any headway was the corridor going out by the highway patrol station. they were rocketing them through there....at least from what i saw.

[BogeyGolfer]

R
it took me 3 hours to get off LSU's campus one year. Welcome to big time football.

I went to and tailgated with Ole Miss friends for the Bama game. We were packed up and off campus in 20 minutes. Our traffic plan is a cluster 17.

[Political Hack]

there's only 1 main road coming into the main tailgate area with 80k people in it. There were 60k+ inside the stadium and tens of thousands more outside... and everyone concentrated in the junction, with 1 through road coming by it.

They need to have a contractor come in and establish some contra flow plans and revamp the traffic rules. It wouldn't be difficult to establish a flow plan to push people out of campus quickly... if they eliminate the return of people for 2-3 hours, it'll clear out more quickly and be easier for everyone to get back to their tailgates regardless.

[BLITZII]

I have never really had a problem getting off campus after a game. Now, I was not there Saturday so I cannot talk about this particular day.

But, I kind of figure the wait into my plans. It is kind of like taking my children and wife to dinner on a Saturday night.

I know I will have to wait at our favorite restaurants for an hour to an hour and a half to get a seat.

[Smitty]

Closing the road by the mail office and chapel is why. They are doing construction so everyone was forced out East Lee or Blackjack. People parking near Zacharias Village, coming from the stadium by Perry, and over near Engineering Row were forced into East Lee.

Assuming the Ganeday stage was still set up so 2 exits that usually are used couldn't be, plus a whole lot more people on campus. We did the best we could all things considered.

My two cents.

[SignalToNoise]

there's only 1 main road coming into the main tailgate area with 80k people in it. There were 60k+ inside the stadium and tens of thousands more outside... and everyone concentrated in the junction, with 1 through road coming by it.

They need to have a contractor come in and establish some contra flow plans and revamp the traffic rules. It wouldn't be difficult to establish a flow plan to push people out of campus quickly... if they eliminate the return of people for 2-3 hours, it'll clear out more quickly and be easier for everyone to get back to their tailgates regardless.

This is a good post. Yes, there are huge record crowds on campus these days but something could be done to manage the flow of traffic off campus. Establish contra flow on certain roads for a designated period of time, then allow traffic back onto campus so people can load up their tailgates.

[Jacksondevildog]

When you have "event staff" directing traffic, you were going to have issues. The issue also is that they use the lights to funnel traffic through town. There should be Starkville PD and Highway Patrol directing traffic through campus and out of town. There should also be only certain areas were pedestrians can cross streets in front of large parking lots. Starkville Police Department will not catch anybody for driving under the influence if they're sitting in your car not moving.

[LC Dawg]

I park by Allen and it was about 9:30 before we got out of the parking lot. I usually go out by the vet school but that traffic was still at a standstill so I went through campus in front of the union and they routed us around Zacharias Village to old 82. It didn't take but about 15 minutes to get off campus once we got out of the parking lot.
The administration has addressed most of the fans concerns about game days up to this point so I bet they will address the traffic problem. I will say that I'd rather have this problem than for traffic to not be an issue because a lot of people left in the 3rd quarter.

[Jacksondevildog]

The current company line from Mississippi State is that with larger crowds comes more traffic. I understand there will be more traffic, but you can make the problem better with better traffic flow ideas. It should not take people two hours to get out of parking lot. For god sake, we are in engineering school. Is there not someone there that can fix this?

[Political Hack]

The current company line from Mississippi State is that with larger crowds comes more traffic. I understand there will be more traffic, but you can make the problem better with better traffic flow ideas. It should not take people two hours to get out of parking lot. For god sake, we are in engineering school. Is there not someone there that can fix this?

let's be honest, all they have to say is "deal with it." And we will.

[pdawg10msu]

We park in Lot 36(right by the hump) and it literally took us no more then 10-15 minutes to get back on 82. I was actually surprised.

[Jacksondevildog]

let's be honest, all they have to say is "deal with it." And we will.

That's basically what they are saying, but that may not be the best way to help the situation.