‘Takes a village,’ Gearing up for game-day traffic

 

SOUTH BEND, Ind.-- While the Fighting Irish prep for their first home game Saturday, workers continue fixing roads currently closed to traffic.

In particular, the road closure on Douglas Road will have a great impact on traffic during game days.  

“With the construction, that’s going to cause a lot of issues, especially at Douglas Road between Ironwood and State Road 23, because that’s usually a main route that we use to get the traffic out of the stadium,” said Sgt. Aris Lee with the St. Joseph County Police Traffic Division. “With that road closure right now, it’s going to be very, very hectic. Again, we just ask people, just please be patient with us, we’ll try to get that moving.”  

Lee Sicinski with University Events recommends the Waze app for drivers navigating around Notre Dame's campus.  

“The reason that we like this app is because it will anticipate real-time traffic patterns, road closures, and will allow you to go right to the entrance of every parking lot,” he said.  

He says they’ve handled the heavy traffic before, and they’ll do it again.

“It takes a village for Notre Dame football games to take place, and we’re ready for it every year,” Sicinski said. “We’ve had some road construction over the last couple of years, I think this year we’ll be in some better shape than we have been previously.”

He said arriving early is one of the best ways to avoid game-day traffic jams surrounding the university.

“Peak traffic patterns really happen around 3-4 hours prior to kickoff,” he said.  

Also, some changes are coming to the fan experience at the stadium this year.  

Sicinski said this is the first year for mobile ordering on the Fighting Irish Mobile App, plus some concession stands will be converted to grab-and-go stations, all in an effort to reduce the time spent in line for concessions.  

Of course, clear bags are still required inside the stadium.  

But one thing to note—just this weekend—guests can bring up to two 20 oz. water bottles to the game to mitigate the heat risk.