Easy drive to Pullman this weekend? Not so fast my friend
Oct 19, 2018, 5:51 AM
The 15 years wait for ESPN College Gameday to show up in Pullman ends this weekend, and nearly every Coug is planning on making the trip to Eastern Washington. That is going to make for a challenging drive to the Palouse.
Driving to Pullman from the Seattle area is never a fun experience. It’s long. The roads are dark and monotonous. The main route is I-90 to Highway 26 to Highway 195 — a 295 mile trip. Now add every Cougar you can imagine on that same path, and we have the potential for a slog across the state.
“I don’t know if anyone knows for sure how many people are heading to this game, but certainly there is a lot of enthusiasm,” the Washington Department of Transportation’s Barbara LaBoe said. “I think, pretty much, every Cougar alum is either going or knows someone who is.”
This will not be your normal trip to Pullman. Those rural highways were not designed to handle the kind of traffic that is expected this weekend. You need to plan for a long drive, even if you’re going at odd hours. GameDay starts at 6 a.m., and people usually start lining up hours before that. LaBoe said you should expect congestion no matter what time of day you go.
“We think we are going to see a lot of overnight traffic and a lot of really early morning traffic,” she said. “Normally at two in the morning there’s not a lot of traffic and state routes, and we think here there might be.”
Compounding the drive this week is a new construction project on Highway 26, east of Othello. The highway is closed for bridge repairs.
“That started this Monday, and it was planned before anybody knew about GameDay,” LaBoe said. “Because we’re racing the winter, we can’t really delay that.”
There is a detour in place that will take you south on Highway 17 to State Route 395. It will add at least 15 minutes to the trip, even without extra traffic.
The bottom line here is to be prepared for a Crimson Caravan no matter when you leave.
“What we don’t want is people thinking that they can get there in their normal travel time and then getting caught in a backup, and A) missing what will be a fun experience; and B) getting frustrated and possibly doing something reckless and causing problems along the way,” LaBoe said.
And with kickoff set for 4:30 p.m. Saturday afternoon, a lot of fans might spend the night. That means the get-back traffic on I-90 is going to be much worse than a usual Sunday. Even if you’re not heading to Pullman this weekend, you should expect more traffic on your east-west route across the state.
