Staples Center Devises Traffic, Parking Strategy

By DAVID WHARTON

Aug. 12, 1999 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Staples Center executives talk about traffic and parking around their new arena as if they were going to war. “Ground zero” refers to the streets that border the site. “Level 5” is the highest-stage alert, a sold-out Laker game coinciding with an auto show at the Convention Center next door.

“The worst-case scenario,” an executive said. “We really need to be prepared for what’s coming.”

That would be hordes of fans in thousands of cars converging on an already congested downtown. Faced with such assaults on a daily basis beginning in mid-October, the Staples Center has devised a battle plan to be unveiled at a news conference this morning.

The strategy, which includes widening a Harbor Freeway offramp, aims to disperse traffic by making use of myriad city streets. Drivers coming from all points will be urged to get off the freeway a few exits early and choose from alternate routes that weave toward the arena. Along the way, they will be diverted into parking lots scattered across a half-mile radius.

A wise plan, traffic engineers say, but one that counters driving habits.

“People think, ‘I’m getting on the freeway and I’m not pulling off until I see the arena,’ ” said Tony Vitrano, a consultant working with the 2002 Olympic Games in Salt Lake City. “They want to drive right up and park on the property. People have got to get away from thinking that. You’ve got to train them.”

Will Los Angeles fans get the message? Said Pat Gibson, a consultant to the arena: “That’s the $64,000 question.”

Part of the answer lies in the maps and surveys spread across the Staples Center operations office in a high-rise building overlooking the Santa Monica and Harbor freeways. Arena planners have spent more than a year working with Caltrans and the city Department of Transportation to prepare for the onslaught of Laker, Clipper and King fans.

Nearly all weeknight games will be scheduled at 7:30 p.m. when, planners say, downtown traffic has begun to dissipate.

But sold-out games are expected to attract as many as 8,500 cars, about 75% of them coming by freeway, where rush-hour can last until 8 p.m., Caltrans officials said.

A June 1997 environmental impact report prepared for the arena identifies other potential trouble spots on surface streets. Some are as close as the intersection of Pico Boulevard and Figueroa Street--so-called “ground zero.” Others are as distant as Hoover Street, about 10 blocks away.

That concerns residents in surrounding neighborhoods.

“We don’t want to feel like we’re the rifle and the traffic is a bullet going through us,” said Father John Bakas of St. Sophia Cathedral, several miles west of the Staples Center, who has written to city officials about his fears.

Even one of the arena’s staunchest supporters, mayoral advisor Steve Soboroff, concedes, “It would be a mistake for anyone to say the first few days are not going to be a traffic jam.”

However, Soboroff said, “traffic was not a reason to kill this deal. Working on traffic was part of the deal.”

The work begins with crews widening a Harbor Freeway offramp and adding dedicated turn lanes to numerous intersections near the Staples Center. Cars will be allowed to travel in both directions on 11th and 12th streets, which are now one-way. Cherry Street will be extended to connect 11th to Olympic Boulevard.

These changes aim to keep drivers moving in a wide circle, at least a block from the arena at all times, diminishing the chances of a snarl.

“You’re not bringing everyone to the same spot,” Gibson said. “That’s one of the beauties of this location.”

That’s also an argument for the recent trend of bringing stadiums back from the suburbs, back to urban centers in need of revitalization. But the advantage of infrastructure--the existing grid of city streets--disappears if everyone funnels through two or three offramps and heads for the arena’s front door. So planners have launched their education campaign.

Alternative routes are key. San Fernando Valley residents, for instance, can exit the Harbor Freeway at 9th Street and take little-known Francisco Street to Olympic. Westside fans might consider avoiding freeways altogether, taking major surface streets instead.

Such advice will be mailed to season ticket-holders, listed on a Web site at www.staplescenter.com and printed on the backs of parking permits that fans hang from their rearview mirrors. Updated information will be broadcast on an advisory radio station and flashed across freeway message boards.

“L.A. drivers are very good in that sense,” said Tom Choe, a Caltrans administrator. “They are very savvy and quick to try different ways.”

They also must learn a new style of parking, something very different from the acres of pavement that surround the Great Western Forum and Sports Arena. While the Staples Center has several thousand spaces directly across 11th Street, most of its 22 lots form a patchwork quilt, tucked behind office buildings and down side streets, some as far as four blocks--or an eight-minute walk--away.

That might upset fans.

“They could even be assigned a parking spot that is closer” than the farthest reaches of the Forum lot, Lakers Vice President Tim Harris said. “But because they physically have to cross a street, they may say ‘I can’t believe I have to do this.’ ”

However, experts say fans have warmed to similar parking arrangements at other stadiums.

“It gives them more access roads and arteries,” Vitrano said. “When they see how easy it is to walk in and get out once the event is over, they will probably like it.”

Staples Center officials hope that fans will walk to games from their downtown offices or use alternative transportation, be it several Metropolitan Transportation Authority bus lines that operate in the area or the nearby Blue Line commuter train. The city is considering increasing Dash commuter bus service to the arena.

“This is not the Forum and not Dodger Stadium,” said Art Cueto, an MTA project manager. “Staples Center, being in downtown Los Angeles, being well-integrated in the urban transportation network, it offers customers a wide variety of opportunities.”

The trick is to make things go as smoothly as possible in the first few weeks, experts say. If troubles arise, fans might ignore alternative routes and other modes of transportation. They might be frightened away altogether.

Toward this end, the arena is building a command center filled with computers and television screens from which it can beam warnings and advisories to the radio station and freeway message boards. Extra traffic control officers will be on the street.

“We feel fairly comfortable we can balance the surface streets and the freeways,” Choe said. “But it’s going to be a learning experience.”

And no amount of planning can eliminate all traffic and parking problems. “That would be unrealistic,” said Donald Berges, an arena project manager. “This is L.A.”

So planners are still given to sleepless nights. Everyone is interested, if not anxious, to see how the system will work that first evening.

“Really interested,” Berges said. “The joke is, we’ll all be down there in orange vests, directing traffic.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Parking and Traffic at Staples Center

Main traffic changes

Olympic Blvd. offramp of southbound 110 Fwy. will add a second lane.

Olympic Blvd. between Cherry St. / Byram St. and Georgia St. will add one lane.

Georgia St. between Olympic Blvd. and 11th St. widened four feet.

12th St. between Figueroa and Flower streets will become a two-way street, and be widened four feet.

Pico Blvd. will add one lane between Figueroa and Flower streets.

11th St. between Figueroa and Flower streets will become a two-way street.

Figueroa St. between Olympic Blvd. and 11th St. will add half a lane.