We need to address traffic and parking on game days

The roads that will likely be crowded on game day. Photo courtesy: flickr.com.

Many students can agree that the atmosphere in Bragg Memorial Stadium was truly missed. After nearly a two-year hiatus, having that feeling is no longer a thought from the past. Tallahassee college football is back.

After college football made its highly anticipated return, many visitors and die-hard fans came out to show their support for their teams. However, locals, students and visitors are concerned that both Florida State University and Florida A&M University have games scheduled on the same days multiple occasions this year.

Kaela Moore, a fourth-year public relations student believes that travel routes for students should be recommended to help regulate the traffic that will be caused.

“I feel as though it’s tough on traffic when game days are occupied by both schools,” Moore said. “However, even if they do play at different times traffic will never be resolved because of tailgaters and visitors wanting to roam the city prior, during and after the games. It would be nice if students were given a heads up on certain roadblocks or ideal parking and travel routes before the game.”

FAMU is only blocks away from FSU’s campus, Collegetown, Donald L. Tucker Civic Center, and just steps away from Doak Campbell. Locations like these are the heart of game days and entertainment for students, locals, travelers and alumni. With a student population that exceeds 60,000, roadblocks and long traffic lines will always be in the equation.

“When it’s game time, it doesn’t affect me because I’m always just locked into our game and what we have to do,” Blake Simpson, a fourth-year FAMU football player said. But after I’m out of that game mentality, it affects how long it takes me to get home. It’s frustrating because of the roadblocks and after a long game, I just want to get home.”

Prior to the football game, FAMU sent out an informational email to notify students who live in Polkinghorne Village that they should park in the first two rows behind the residence by 5:30 pm prior to each game day.

Twitter user @ayanna_x0 made a tweet regarding the informational email that was sent out.

“I know FAMU is not trying to make me move my car from where I pay rent at for ‘athletics’ and ‘RV’S’,” she tweeted.

The University put in place a system where students were able to buy parking spots, but many students were not given parking spaces due to them overselling parking spots.

Rattler Nation, an independent blog that covers the latest at FAMU, tweeted about the disorganization that took place on game day.

“Ticket and parking distribution is in utter chaos at the last minute,” they tweeted. “Many paid for the pages months ago and the information coming out of FAMU is last minute and often conflicting.”

Students have been calling out this issue for quite some time and it’s time for the Tallahassee Police Department and both schools to act. We need to do better. Implementing a guide for locals, students, and visitors will reduce the amount of chaos and roadblocks that we encounter.