Avoiding traffic jams while racing to the stadiums with 100,000 fellow fans

Playoff baseball. Hawks and the Bucs. Sounders and the hated Timbers. More than 100,000 people are going to be pouring into the Stadium District on Saturday and Sunday.

It was only 159 games ago when we went to catch a Mariners game at T-Mobile on the same day as the truck rally next door at Lumen Field. It was brutal getting around, and I ended up paying $95 for parking.

Now imagine going to a playoff Mariners game when the Seahawks and Sounders are playing next door. What is parking going to cost this weekend? How is the city going to manage all that traffic?

I had a chance to speak with the interim director of the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT), Adiam Emery, about the preparations.

“It will be congested,” she said. “It will be constrained. You’re absolutely right. Coming in and getting out, those are the demands that we have to balance.”

That’s the first part of the equation. Just accept the fact that it is going to be very slow getting to the games. That should take off a little stress. It is what it is, right?

Explore Seattle before the Mariners game

Emery suggested taking some extra time to explore before game time.

“Take advantage of coming to Seattle, to downtown Seattle ahead of time, explore the restaurants and so forth, and build yourself some time as you’re doing some touristy activity in downtown,” she said.

Try to time your trip to hit the least busy time. For example, if you are going to the Mariners game Sunday evening, try to make it to T-Mobile around halftime of the Hawks game, which kicks off around 1 p.m.

Use transit to get to the stadium

Emery’s advice is to use transit.

“We are promoting and we’re advising people to take transit,” she said. “Transit makes it accessible for all. We are a very rich resource in transit, especially towards the stadiums.”

But light rail does come with its own challenges. Parking at the park and rides will fill up early. It will be hard to find spots. Maybe this is the first time you try special Sounder service to the games.

If you are driving, Emery said SDOT is up to the challenge. It has great plans in place to handle these large crowds.

“We have a 24/7 operation center,” she said. “We have a mechanism of adjusting signal timing remotely from that center. We work hand in hand for event management with SPD and SFD, and the stadiums.”

And this isn’t their first rodeo together.

“It’s an oiled machine process that we’ve been in partnership doing this thing for such a long time,” Emery said. “It’s just like an every other day kind of thing.”

Buy your parking spot ahead of time

The hardest part of a weekend like this is the timing. One group of fans will be leaving their game while fans of the other are arriving. That tidal shift can be difficult, but it’s not the first time the city has dealt with this either.

If you need parking, I suggest using an app to buy your spot ahead of time so you don’t get gouged, like I did.

Chris Sullivan is a traffic reporter for KIRO Newsradio. Read more of his stories here. Follow KIRO Newsradio traffic on X.

Follow @https://twitter.com/newsguysully