Saturday: Pray to the traffic gods
I posted the other day that Saturday should be a real humdinger of a traffic day in Los Angeles. In fact, it may be even worse.
First, there are three big sporting events scheduled to begin in a 125-minute span: the USC-Oregon football game at the Coliseum at 5 p.m., the Dodgers-Cubs playoff game at Dodger Stadium at 7 p.m. and the UCLA-Washington State football game at the Rose Bowl at 7:15 p.m. The three combined are expected to attract at least 200,000 people and likely more.
At 6 p.m., there's an electronic music event at the Shrine Auditorium next to USC. And, at 8 p.m., Neil Diamond is scheduled to take the stage at Staples Center in downtown L.A.
On the north side of downtown, the four streets surrounding City Hall will be closed from Friday evening through Sunday morning for the LA Weekly Festival. And, just one block over on Second Street, there's a fund-raiser for presidential candidate Sen. Barack on Saturday evening at the Edison, and Sen. Hillary Clinton is scheduled to attend.
The Swell Season also has a show at the Greek Theatre on Saturday evening. Lankershim Boulevard in North Hollywood closes at 9 p.m. Saturday for the NoHo Scene festival on Sunday. There's also a music festival along Colorado Boulevard in Eagle Rock on Saturday.
(CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post said that the Miracle Mile Run on Wilshire Boulevard was Saturday morning. It's Sunday morning.)
If it makes you feel any better, the Hollywood Bowl is mercifully not booked on Saturday.
This being Los Angeles, there are mass transit options, although not particularly great ones -- unless you consider sitting in bus in traffic to be a rockin' good time.
Well, they don't call me the Road Sage for nothing, so here are a few pieces of advice:
1. Stay home and watch traffic deteriorate on Internet real-time traffic maps. Boring, but possibly satisfying.
2. Put friends and family on super-high triple red alert and leave ridiculously early for your event if driving.
3. Remember that monster in "Return of the Jedi" that lives in the sand and sucks people into its mouth and digests them slowly for 1,000 years? The creature is called a Sarlacc, and you should pretend it's living in the interchange of the 10 and 110 freeways, which is one good reason to go nowhere near it on Saturday.
4. If attending any of the events in downtown L.A., take mass transit. Both the Blue Line light rail and subway have stops near Staples Center, and the subway also stops a couple blocks from City Hall.
5. The Dodger Stadium shuttle bus from Union Station is running Saturday night, according to the Dodgers. It begins at 5:30 p.m. from Union Station and will run for at least an hour after the game back to the train station. But expect lines.
USC just issued a press release offering some tips on getting to the game. I posted it after the jump.
Good luck out there.
