Home run for Dodgers traffic?

  The Times' Tiffany Hsu has more on the Dodgers' elaborate new traffic control center. The big question -- and the BB needs your opinion -- is whetehr it will actually ease congestion. (Photo is from opening day.)

With the partnership of KFWB News 980, the Department of Transportation, Caltrans and the Los Angeles Police Department, stadium officials hope to put fans’ focus on the games, not on the agony of getting to them. The hub will offer "the most updated and accurate information as they make their way to and from Dodger Stadium," Dodgers owner and Chairman Frank McCourt said in a statement. (Story continues below)

Traffic information will be transmitted to drivers through the KFWB station every 10 minutes around game time and also through Dodger Radio 1610 AM, a station created to link to the transportation center. A significant number of cameras have also been added to survey the 255 acres of parking lots.

Video feeds of the lot are displayed on several screens inside the facility, visible through large windows. The center opened last week and will operate in the hours around games.

The center will complement the stadium’s new parking system, implemented earlier this season. Game-goers now enter and exit the parking lot from the same gate and are directed to their spots instead of driving around the lot without help.

A transportation manager and a parking manager will work from the center to filter information from the stadium’s 200 parking and security officers. More than 40 engineers and traffic officers will feed traffic and parking data to the center from outside the stadium.

While some fans said the new communications plan sounds good in theory, some, like Burbank resident Steven Baker, said they don’t plan to tune in to the updates.

"There’s only so many ways in and out of the stadium and I have my own route to get in," said Baker, 25, who estimated that he attends up to 30 Dodgers games a year. "Parking was just as good without the added help; this won’t make it that much quicker."

-- Tiffany Hsu

Comments

[David]

I took the bus to Dodger's stadium for the first time last Wednesday. Living right by West Hollywood City Hall, I was able to hop on the #4 Metro bus for $1.25; 40 minutes later, I found myself at the bottom of Dodger's Stadium walking through the $15 parking lot gates, to cheer on the Phillies. They may have lost, but i saved a hell of a lot of money! Give it a try!

[manuel]

The traffic has improved. I was there on Friday night with over 50,000 other fans and it was not much of a hassle getting out. I really didn't think about it. The McCourts and the MTA should concentrate on making a Rail line to the Stadium. There is a group that was looking into a line called the Silver Line. You can access Dodger Stadium from the north and south via the Red line from Union station and Sunset and Vermouth Station. If this line were to be created, the McCourts can used the extra parking space for retail, restaurants (Hooters) and Condos. What really sucks is having to pay 15.00 dollars for parking and still have to walk about half mile to get to the stadium. Might as well walk from Sunset.

[Aaron]

These dingbats are going to all of this effort and they can't hire someone to drive a bus back and forth between Union Station on game nights? I would LOVE to go to the games, but I'm in a wheelchair and *can't* walk up the hill to and from the games. I'm highly disappointed, I'm a transplant from Boston and New York, and we're obsessed with our BoSox and Yanks... it's been my one disappointment about living here, that we have two MLB teams and I can't go to either of them due to the transit problems.

It blows my mind that the Dodgers can't figure out that, even if they can't attract all 40k-odd people to the subway, they could at least divert a decent number of folks onto the red/purple/gold lines if they offered a shuttle from Union Station. It doesn't need to be fancy or pretty, buy or rent some old Metro busses like the folks at the Observatory did.

[CC]

It's a step in the right direction, but really, we need to start looking at ways to connect the Stadium to TRANSIT- a busway or rail shuttle from a retail location to the game. Downtown is the perfect location- new places opening up- maybe work with the some of the lots that are empty after corporate types go home, or even Staples lots, to add parking capacity?

Until then, even with this new system, I'll continue to walk up the hill to the games...