Downtown workers might want to escape the office a little early Thursday night, because the evening rush hour promises to be even worse than normal. The Metro Nashville Police Department issued a traffic warning for Thursday, saying that a trifecta of downtown events is likely to tangle streets, especially around LP Field. The Woodland Street Bridge will close at 4:30 p.m. The extra congestion will come coutesy of the 7 p.m. Titans preseason game versus the Saints; the last ever Brooks & Dunn concert, at Bridgestone Arena at 7:30 p.m.; and an Opry Country Classic show at Ryman Auditorium at 7 p.m.
More details from the police department:
By 4:30 p.m., the Woodland Street Bridge will close to regular traffic and be available only to pedestrians and shuttle buses. Police officers will staff a number of intersections in the downtown area to keep traffic moving and assist pedestrians.
Fans traveling downtown for the game and who normally park in state employee lots on game days will not have access to those lots Thursday evening until 5 p.m., when they are vacated by state workers.
Fans parking north of Broadway, and those who use state parking lots, can safely walk across the Woodland Street Bridge from downtown to LP Field.
For fans parking along and south of Broadway, the Shelby Street Pedestrian Bridge will provide safe, enjoyable, and easy access to the stadium.
Additional downtown-area parking information can be found at parkitdowntown.com.
Gates to LP Field will open at 5 p.m. Thursday. Stadium parking lots will open at 3 p.m. to Titans fans with parking passes. Football fans are reminded that only persons with parking passes will be allowed to park on the stadium campus. Fans without parking passes who drive to the LP Field campus will be turned away. Those fans are urged to save time, find parking in the downtown area, and walk to LP Field or ride an InShuttle Transportation shuttle bus.
InShuttle will provide park and ride bus service for this game from the state parking lots at 4th Avenue North & Harrison Street, from 10th Circle North downtown (off Charlotte across from TSU’s downtown campus), and from Greer Stadium beginning at 5:30 p.m.
The Korean War Veterans Memorial Bridge (Gateway Bridge), which connects East Nashville to 4th Avenue North, will be open to eastbound and westbound traffic until moments before the conclusion of each game this season. However, there will be no access to the LP Field campus to eastbound traffic coming across the bridge from the downtown area in the two-hour period before each game (eastbound vehicles coming across the bridge will not be allowed to turn left onto the LP Field campus).
Shortly before the conclusion of the Brooks & Dunn concert, officers will staff intersections around Bridgestone Arena, as well as Broadway immediately in front of the building, to move traffic out of downtown as efficiently as possible while assisting pedestrians cross streets.
Given these three very large events on Thursday, citizens are asked to be patient and understanding as police officers work to direct the thousands of vehicles to the interstate system and other major routes leading away from downtown.
Careful out there Nasties!
