Traffic to game
- Thread starter RUBigFrank
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anon_0k9zlfz6lz9oy
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How old are you bac? Ive always had this vision in my head of you being 60-70
It depends on where you are coming from.
Ive been taking Route 18 all year and while it gets backed up haven’t had any major issues. I got off the turnpike around 6:20 yesterday thinking I was making good timing and didn’t make it into the arena until about 7:15...and that’s after I got lucky and snagged a students spot who was leaving.
It took almost an hour to go 3.5 miles and get into the arena. Whatever they did differently yesterday did not work.
I think the big issue is the lot being used for both students and for game parking
I believe the last home game during the week was at 8PM so it might have mitigated some traffic issues, but all the other home games were during break or on a weekend
its pretty imperative that everyone leave at least 45 minutes earlier than they did last time to make the Maryland game...need to have everyone seated and engaged by tip including students.....get them in early
I believe the last home game during the week was at 8PM so it might have mitigated some traffic issues, but all the other home games were during break or on a weekend
its pretty imperative that everyone leave at least 45 minutes earlier than they did last time to make the Maryland game...need to have everyone seated and engaged by tip including students.....get them in early
Where are they supposed to park? Parking on college campuses tends to be scars so I don't know where they should go. A more reasonable solution for week night games are for those attending the game to leave 15 minutes earlier. .
Funny thing, my friends and I meet at Fridays or Applebees on Centennial ave. We take Metlars Lane in and park in the Green lot. Back when we sucked we would leave the bar at 6:45 and make tip off. Now we have to leave by 6:15. Yesterdays traffic was the worst I have seen this year (we follow Metlars and make the left on Davidsono get to the RAC) but we still made it with about 5 minutes to spare.
Last night was the first time I saw cars parking there. Not sure who was going in but it did have cars in it.
This is definitely part of it for those coming from Rt 18/Metlars Lane/Hoes Lane. Not sure why they did not have the cones set up for 2 left turn lanes onto Hospital. However Iink if they had police at the traffic light where 18 exits and Metlars ends they could improve traffic flow. The cops don't need to be in the street, just have them control the traffic light
the bigger problem with the students using the lot is it caused people to illegally park in the prepaid lots as spaces were limited. Then when leaving the game it created a mess as cars were going doffeeent ways. It was dangerous cause you also have people walking through the lots randomly to their cars.
Plain and simple. On week night b-ball games the lots need to be empty 3 hours before tip. You can’t ask for donations and charge a lot for parking and hen create a dangerous mess
Last night was an outlier - we normally give ourselves 45 minutes from the local bars and eateries to get in. This was an outright cluster ****.
Not sure why it is so easy to organize football parking strategy and with perhaps a quarter of that can not do a reasonable job for RAC parking (and **** that trapezoid ****). A lot of the ineptness is very observable and is classic RU mismanagement.
Not sure why it is so easy to organize football parking strategy and with perhaps a quarter of that can not do a reasonable job for RAC parking (and **** that trapezoid ****). A lot of the ineptness is very observable and is classic RU mismanagement.
I suggested on one of the surveys that they create a cut through to get from the back of the lot onto Suttons Lane for student traffic that is exiting. It's about 50 feet from the lot to the road, through grass, they can throw some stone down and put up a gate. Minimal cost. Put someone there to direct traffic and tell students they have to park in the back of the lot on game days. That way all the outflow gets right out, and can use all the other roads to enter.
Prior games they've not allowed you to turn right onto hospital road so they have a way to allow people to exit the lot. This cut through would help and is simple to do.
I usually come west onto Suttons from Ethel road so don't have to sit in traffic. However, making the left from Suttons onto Rockafeller is not always easy since nobody is directing traffic. Makes a mess with cars that are heading east on Sutton and not going into the game.
Prior games they've not allowed you to turn right onto hospital road so they have a way to allow people to exit the lot. This cut through would help and is simple to do.
I usually come west onto Suttons from Ethel road so don't have to sit in traffic. However, making the left from Suttons onto Rockafeller is not always easy since nobody is directing traffic. Makes a mess with cars that are heading east on Sutton and not going into the game.
Message to all the local yocals who have nothing to do except be at the bar an hour and a half before game: STFU please. Some of us have jobs that aren’t around the corner and it’s all we can do to sneak out close to 5pm, fight NJTPK, GSP, 287, NJTransit, etc with a faint hope of getting there by 7. The issue is the traffic patterns that have been developed, and the aforementioned student parking. Both are very easily fixed by the braintrust at the Athletic Dept in conjunction with local police.
Did you see my posts wondering why people don't come in from Suttons Lane heading NW towards the RAC to avoid the traffic coming in from Metlars from the NW or even from 18N (go around via River Rd - Cedar Lane - Suttons)? Since you come in that way, one of my questions was how do you get into the RAC parking lot (I park in 205 as I have faculty daypasses and hate waiting in line for anything and don't mind the walk) from Suttons - do you go left on Rockafeller and then right into the lot? Do you have to wait long to make that left? I had also wondered if there was an exit from the lot directly onto Suttons - that seems like it would really help as you noted.
Second this. I have season tickets and do a 60 mile (per way) commute to get to games.
It must be nice to be able to enjoy dinner and a beer before the game but I usually try and leave work by 5pm just to make it for tip.
Hopefully last night was an exception but there’s no reason it should take almost an hour to go from exit 9 of the NJTPK to the RAC parking lot. Something was off last night big time.
I think @rcube1994 actually already answered your questions in the post by him that you replied to (Yes to the first, and No to the second)....in this portion of his post:
So to me the above confirms @rcube1994 is traveling west on Suttons (from Ethel; this is a stretch of only a couple hundred feet) and turning left onto Rockafeller to get into the campus. I have done the same many times and my own experience is that the wait to make that left is never that bad (queuing of +/-5 cars at most, sometimes only 1 or even no cars), it kind of ebbs & flows... but it also depends on how one drives. I'll gently nose in regardless of how free the opposing right-turn movement is flowing esp. if they reverse the outbound lane on Rockafeller to create a separate left side receiving lane that isn't truly conflicted with the primary inbound lane. If merging into a single inbound lane, it takes some cooperation from both sides to allow for an alternating flow to ensue, particularly with no one directing traffic.
Some folks naturally wait for a bit of a gap until they feel comfortable initiating their left turn. The occasional EB straight-through movement vehicles are something to keep an eye out for because as the opposing left turning vehicle you'll possibly be cutting in front of someone but who will likely pause/brake having been forced to crawl up to that intersection amidst all the right-turning vehicles anyway.
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Agree. I came in from Hoboken. 45 minutes from NJTP exit 9 exit to RAC. What happened?
I guess we could always go back to the days of being 10-20 with a half full arena.
This sums it up nicely. Usually only a couple of cars waiting to turn left. I have sat there for a few minutes waiting for cars to make the left as you need to be aggressive. You'll usually get someone coming eastbound to let you in if you creep into the intersection, i guess they feel bad that you're blocking traffic (of course no one directing traffic here). I've also almost been crushed by someone coming eastbound a couple times as they are probably pissed about sitting in traffic for a while so they gun it as soon as they get an opening. I assumed they were turning into the game but was wrong.
Once you make the left its at most 5 minutes to your spot, I have green parking so you have to go through a couple of checkpoints to get there.
Last night my GPS showed some traffic on 27 south from 287, and by the train station, so i decided to come down washington and then metlars, i thought i was early enough but that backed up early and didnt move.
I used to work in Metuchen so I know how #s comes in, never had any real traffic coming that way.
Thanks for confirming. So, if it's as easy as you and @RUnTeX say (which is what I thought), why would so many people sit in traffic on 18N/Avenue E heading towards the RAC or Metlars/Suttons (eastbound) heading in from 287? It might take an extra 5 or so minutes to go to around the bottlenecks to get to Suttons heading west, but I would think more would do that to avoid 20+ minute delays...and ruin it for you guys, lol. My way (parking in lot 105 and coming in from Plainfield-Kilmer by the DMV) will always be foolproof though.
Try not to use common sense.....whoever is in charge of parking flow, honestly needs to be accountable. It seems obvious there are very simple changes which would make the flow efficient. And where are the $&
! cops to direct traffic before the game???? I come in from Ethel Rd, make the right, then left and there’s no one directing traffic on the merge and everyone MERGES INTO ONE LANE!!!!! There’s room for 3 lanes (1 out, 2 in). One lane in should be no parking passers and the other Green and Yellows. It’s totally moronic. Takes one minute to look and assess the situation.This was a mess...at 620
If was a disaster from Douglass to Livingston on route 28...including the Albany street bridge
The problem is that the Yellow lot is the only lot commuter students with a Livingston parking permit can park until 6PM on weekdays (and if they have a Livingston permit, they can't park on another campus until 6PM). So if that lot was to be cleared on gameday, RU would have to figure out another place for them to park (and some students, given their class schedules, research responsibilities, and local jobs, would have difficulty moving their cars during the day). Parking for a commuter student is such a pain at Rutgers NB!
Again last night was an outlier. We have been leaving the same time and in our seats at 6:30.
Someone needs to contact the athletic department. If part of the issue was rte 18 then the opposite approach should have been an easy in.
Someone needs to contact the athletic department. If part of the issue was rte 18 then the opposite approach should have been an easy in.
Rutgers has a graduate program in City Planning and a graduate program in Civil Engineering. Figuring out how to handle student/staff/faculty parking and basketball fan parking, as well as traffic control on gameday would seem to be a great course project or student research assistant project...
Good. When the surveys came out I wrote a very detailed response and also said I’d be very happy to be contacted to discuss to help. Crickets to date, but maybe after the season. I’m honestly one not to complain, but this ineptitude has gone on far too long. Someone needs to be accountable and step up to fix it or be gone. It’s amateur.
It seems to me that on game days they should make all of the students park in a certain part of the yellow lot only. That way they they're not all walking entering/exiting all over the place while fans are trying to enter. If they allow them to park anywhere on game day than at a minimum if they're not in not in that certain part of the Yellow lot 2 hours prior to tipoff then they would get ticketed. If they need to put up barricades for most of the entrances and exits during the day and pay a couple of attendants a few bucks during to usher students to their assigned part of the section then try that. I dunno.
It's awful.... what to do on a work night? Can leave much earlier than I do.
I complained last year. Someone from the AD called me and we discuss it. Said the
police shut down some access of Hospital Rd due to safety concerns.
Improvements must be made!!!!
I complained last year. Someone from the AD called me and we discuss it. Said the
police shut down some access of Hospital Rd due to safety concerns.
Improvements must be made!!!!
If you can DM them back so they can get feedback from all use cases of approach for entry to RAC (roads, PPs, non PPs, students) to work through the solution would make sense. Can’t get worse, if someone is truly going to try to fix this, may as well get a good sample of input.
A couple of thoughts:
- There is only one home game left this season. Don't expect drastic changes for this game. Nonetheless, something needs to be changed for next season.
- I don't think Rutgers was expecting so many sell-outs this year. They should expect lots of sell-outs next year, and plan accordingly.
- Student parking in the yellow and green lots is a big part of the problem. It creates chaos and delays in the lots as fans look for open parking spaces. And it creates delays on the roads as students exit the lots as fans enter. Non-athletic parking should be prohibited in the Green lot and the main part of the Yellow lot within 3 hours of game time (e.g., after 4 pm for a 7 pm game). That means that Rutgers needs to find other places for students to park -- such as opening lots 105 and 103 to student parking on game day. It also probably means cracking down on cars parked illegally, to ensure spots in non-athletic lots are available for students, faculty, and staff.
- Rutgers also needs to have more people scanning parking passes, which will move people into the lots faster. There should be separate lanes and lot entrances on Hospital Rd and Rockafeller Rd for those with pre-paid passes and those paying cash. Those with pre-paid passes should always be allowed to use the cash entrance, if it is faster.
- Rutgers should open the building 90 minutes before game time, instead of 60 minutes. This allows earlier arrival by those who are able to arrive early, taking away some of the crush later. It also means that those who are able to arrive earlier can do so without having to stand outside in the cold waiting for the doors to open.
- If there is rush hour traffic on highways in the area, there is not a whole lot that Rutgers can do about it. Likewise, if you are unable to plan to be in the parking lots 30 minutes before tip-off, you will probably miss tip off, even in the best of circumstances. I know that is hard for people who don't have flexibility in their work schedules. But if you have flexibility, you are talking about approx 12 days that you need to leave early to get to the RAC earlier.
- Ideally another lane should be added to Hospital Rd (and maybe Rockafeller Rd), and the area behind lot 105 should be converted to student parking. But that all costs money.