Zero traffic for me. Avoid west campus parking and welborn and it's a piece of cake. Learn the backroads or have passenger that knows the back roads and it's easy to get in and out
Argentina vs Honduras Soccer Match at Kyle Field 6/6/26
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36 Replies |
Last: 1 day ago by Gameday Traffic Guy
Howdy,
Since you asked, I got with the group and have some notes for you. First, thanks for your ideas and comments - we use them!
Basic Conclusions from the ARG v HON game
All the congestion and parking data say that across campus we got people in faster, and out sooner than the BRA v MEX soccer game. There were more people this weekend than a couple years ago. After the game, we cleared main campus streets and parking areas by 90 minutes postgame, and began picking up traffic control on west campus and city streets around our goal of 2 hours.
But, we have more work to do, especially near Kyle Field. These "not usual" events are a different challenge than football games. There is more parking closer to Kyle (because students are not in their parking lots), there are fewer bus routes and fewer pre-paid parking permits. We have some improvement ideas and will make some changes to the next Spring/Summer events as well as for this football season.
Our plan does not work well when a large percentage of attendees don't look at their parking options before they get to town. The very large traffic volume on Wellborn Rd, with basically no available parking near Wellborn Rd tells us that their "plan" was 'go to 161 Wellborn Rd and figure it out from there.' We spent more effort promoting buses and remote parking areas than for BananaBall, but we need to do a better job engaging and communicating with this group of guests. BananaBall (and all the other events going on that day) congestion declined pretty sharply after 90 minutes pregame, but for this game it was on the way up and didn't begin to decline until 30 minutes pregame.
The larger number of traffic staff and law enforcement officers working traffic helped manage pedestrian and vehicle flows, but there may still be staff and equipment needs in some locations. The partnership with the City of College Station allows A&M to use the traffic signals to control several traffic flows allowing us to place staff in only the locations where they are needed.
A couple scene setters:
91k this game, vs 86k for BRA v MEX. These are smaller than the giant SEC games we have, but these are still very large crowds.
We put more effort into the "know before you go" and "buy ahead and plan" for this game.
Our basic expectation needs to be: This is a different crowd than football. People have done no planning, they will go straight to Kyle and 'try to figure it out' from there. They will walk in the road, they will ignore traffic staff, and they will not show up prior to 90 minutes pregame.
So: We put a lot of effort into publicity and getting people to buy parking ahead. Seems like we need to do "more" and "different."
> We did have more presale permits. We added equipment, there was more traffic and parking staff during the peak entry period and for postgame, and we adjusted *pretty well* to the changing conditions.
Game attendees began arriving about half an hour earlier than two years ago, but there were still a lot of fans trying to get into the parking lots at gametime. Its hard for the math to work if a significant portion of attendees arrive very late even later than the typical 11 am football game. We will have a *more aggressive* plan to push those without permits away from the congested areas and try to get them here earlier.
Postgame
We had more cars parked closer to Wellborn Rd than we expected and changed the traffic plan accordingly. There were only 300 cars on Fan Field vs 2800 for the Bananas game a month ago, and there were fewer cars in the Polo Road area. Fans parked closer.
Pedestrians took over Wellborn Rd, Kimbrough Blvd and Corrington Drive for about 25 minutes; we got very few cars out of West Campus Garage during this time. Traffic on main campus was directed into open streets, and got off campus without a lot of problems. The options we are working on are a mix of plans, traffic options, devices, fencing, and signs.
We also need to make sure we see problems quickly and coordinate solutions rapidly. We have a lot of experience with a variety of plans and pre-set "audibles" and we communicate well between the functional groups and the central office. But we also have some new experiences from the last few weeks, and some new planning and training challenges. Some of our changes will be rolled out this Fall. And we will be doing more aggressive outreach and engagement for all events.
We appreciate the comments and have always used them to improve our plans.
Gig 'em,
GTG
Since you asked, I got with the group and have some notes for you. First, thanks for your ideas and comments - we use them!
Basic Conclusions from the ARG v HON game
All the congestion and parking data say that across campus we got people in faster, and out sooner than the BRA v MEX soccer game. There were more people this weekend than a couple years ago. After the game, we cleared main campus streets and parking areas by 90 minutes postgame, and began picking up traffic control on west campus and city streets around our goal of 2 hours.
But, we have more work to do, especially near Kyle Field. These "not usual" events are a different challenge than football games. There is more parking closer to Kyle (because students are not in their parking lots), there are fewer bus routes and fewer pre-paid parking permits. We have some improvement ideas and will make some changes to the next Spring/Summer events as well as for this football season.
Our plan does not work well when a large percentage of attendees don't look at their parking options before they get to town. The very large traffic volume on Wellborn Rd, with basically no available parking near Wellborn Rd tells us that their "plan" was 'go to 161 Wellborn Rd and figure it out from there.' We spent more effort promoting buses and remote parking areas than for BananaBall, but we need to do a better job engaging and communicating with this group of guests. BananaBall (and all the other events going on that day) congestion declined pretty sharply after 90 minutes pregame, but for this game it was on the way up and didn't begin to decline until 30 minutes pregame.
The larger number of traffic staff and law enforcement officers working traffic helped manage pedestrian and vehicle flows, but there may still be staff and equipment needs in some locations. The partnership with the City of College Station allows A&M to use the traffic signals to control several traffic flows allowing us to place staff in only the locations where they are needed.
A couple scene setters:
91k this game, vs 86k for BRA v MEX. These are smaller than the giant SEC games we have, but these are still very large crowds.
We put more effort into the "know before you go" and "buy ahead and plan" for this game.
Our basic expectation needs to be: This is a different crowd than football. People have done no planning, they will go straight to Kyle and 'try to figure it out' from there. They will walk in the road, they will ignore traffic staff, and they will not show up prior to 90 minutes pregame.
So: We put a lot of effort into publicity and getting people to buy parking ahead. Seems like we need to do "more" and "different."
> We did have more presale permits. We added equipment, there was more traffic and parking staff during the peak entry period and for postgame, and we adjusted *pretty well* to the changing conditions.
Game attendees began arriving about half an hour earlier than two years ago, but there were still a lot of fans trying to get into the parking lots at gametime. Its hard for the math to work if a significant portion of attendees arrive very late even later than the typical 11 am football game. We will have a *more aggressive* plan to push those without permits away from the congested areas and try to get them here earlier.
Postgame
We had more cars parked closer to Wellborn Rd than we expected and changed the traffic plan accordingly. There were only 300 cars on Fan Field vs 2800 for the Bananas game a month ago, and there were fewer cars in the Polo Road area. Fans parked closer.
Pedestrians took over Wellborn Rd, Kimbrough Blvd and Corrington Drive for about 25 minutes; we got very few cars out of West Campus Garage during this time. Traffic on main campus was directed into open streets, and got off campus without a lot of problems. The options we are working on are a mix of plans, traffic options, devices, fencing, and signs.
We also need to make sure we see problems quickly and coordinate solutions rapidly. We have a lot of experience with a variety of plans and pre-set "audibles" and we communicate well between the functional groups and the central office. But we also have some new experiences from the last few weeks, and some new planning and training challenges. Some of our changes will be rolled out this Fall. And we will be doing more aggressive outreach and engagement for all events.
We appreciate the comments and have always used them to improve our plans.
Gig 'em,
GTG