Gamedays are an irritating experience to many living around campus.
Don’t get me wrong, LSU football is fun to watch and even better to experience. It positively affects the local economy, but it makes living near campus a nightmare — especially the traffic.
Baton Rouge prioritizes visitors leaving after each game, forcing many local residents to put their lives on hold. Terrible planning and horrendous infrastructure shows the need for a better solution.
The exodus of outcoming traffic created from games causes a shutdown of almost all incoming traffic to campus.
Right before the end of the game, police block off inbound traffic to intersections on Burbank Drive, Lee Drive, Nicholson Road and Highland Road. This forces others to drive away from Baton Rouge just to get to the other side of campus.
For the unlucky individuals living on Lee Drive, between Nicholson Road and Burbank Drive, you cannot return to your residence until traffic clears. The only exception to this is if you’re coming from the game.
I happen to be one of the hundreds of individuals who live on this small stretch of road. Last weekend’s game showed me that officials are doing a terrible job.
I was scheduled to work at 10 p.m., and, expecting bad traffic, left at 9:10. My destination was on the north side of campus, which usually takes me only eight minutes.
And after an exhausting hour and a half trip, I finally made it to work 40 minutes late.
Many people have experienced similar issues but don’t speak up. Why?
The obnoxious and rude nature of some diehard football fans can be to blame.
Obviously some infrastructure in Baton Rouge can’t handle the massive outflow of traffic, so it should be prevented. People should not have to significantly alter their daily lives to accommodate for the incompetence of LSU and Baton Rouge.
Whomever decided on this approach for handling traffic issues should be fired. Not only is the traffic restricting, but because of the lack of order, it probably causes more wrecks and holdups than it prevents.
There is no easy way to solve this problem, but I believe there are three solutions.
LSU could keep the roads functioning normally. Take a note from Disney and use a fleet of buses to ferry people on and off campus, or maybe they should rebuild Tiger Stadium elsewhere.
Disney World has a great transportation system capable of ferrying people from the local parks to different areas of town and parking lots. Through the use of ferries, busses and the monorail, traffic is reduced at the surrounding locations of the parks.
The bus system is something LSU should look into because it already has plenty. We can place the parking lots further out from campus, and the buses can do the rest.
LSU should also reduce the amount of individuals who can park on or near campus. This will reduce tailgating on campus, but anyone can do the same activities elsewhere.
Another solution would be to just deconstruct Tiger Stadium and move it to a rural location somewhere on the outskirts of Baton Rouge. The city can build as many parking and tailgating spots as fans desire.
This is not a cost efficient solution, but the infrastructure near LSU is already at capacity at certain times. What will happen in 10 to 20 years when the population is higher and the fan base increases?
The simplest solution and most cost efficient would be to keep traffic functioning normally outside of the immediate vicinity of Tiger Stadium. Why overcomplicate something?
With the rescheduling of the South Carolina game, I expect Baton Rouge to be even more hectic than usual. How will it handle only having a few days to prepare?
Too many people simply don’t care about the local residents near LSU, but it’s time start. If all LSU and Baton Rouge is good for is football, then maybe I chose the wrong college to attend.
Garrett Marcel is a 21-year-old petroleum engineering senior from Houma, Louisiana. You can reach him on Twitter @Gret419.