What went wrong with traffic gridlock after soccer match at USC? Here’s what we know
While soccer fans may have bet on who would win the historic soccer game between two English Premier League rivals in Columbia last Saturday, they certainly didn’t bet on the amount of time it would take to return home afterward.
On Saturday, thousands of soccer fans faced hours of standstill traffic after leaving Williams-Brice Stadium, where soccer powerhouses Manchester United and Liverpool faced off during the Rivals in Red game. It was Columbia’s first time welcoming the Premier League and, arguably, the first time — in at least a very long time — that fans were parked in the fairgrounds or on Bluff Road for nearly two hours, waiting to get home.
“Been going to Gamecock football games most of my life and have never seen traffic flow this bad on egress,” said attendee Jason Rapp on X, formerly Twitter. ”Not our best foot forward tonight. More than an hour and still stuck in the fairgrounds.”
As with Gamecock football games, the South Carolina State Fairgrounds was one of the main lots accommodating parking for the event.
Before and after the game, fans eager to see their team perform were gridlocked in traffic, with some not making it into the stadium until halftime.
The South Carolina Highway Patrol, which managed traffic during the event, said a variety of factors contributed to the massive traffic snarls, including thunderstorms that rolled through the area late Saturday afternoon.
“The weather played a factor, and some people probably waited until the last minute to get there because of the rain,” said Master Trooper William Bennett with the S.C. Highway Patrol. “We don’t control fairground parking so I couldn’t comment on how they were doing that, or how they were letting people in pregame, and how they were letting them out postgame.”
The State attempted to contact the fairgrounds for comment to no avail.
A big culprit to the traffic muck, however, appeared to have stemmed from a railroad crossing arm that malfunctioned right at the conclusion of the game, according to the Columbia Police Department.
“There was a malfunctioning cross arm at the railroad crossing on Huger near Whaley,” said CPD Deputy Chief Melron Kelly. “This happened just as the game ended. We had to reroute traffic throughout several points in the Olympia and Catawba street area.”
The traffic gridlock left some fans upset, more than a few vowing to never visit the area again.
“Been in our car for an hour and a half and haven’t moved an inch,” said Mark P in a post on X after the game. “I’m never coming back to this dumpster.”
Another fan, Chris Angell, posted on X, before the match: “1.5 hours in traffic and still not in the game. NEVER AGAIN!”
Bennett said another factor involved fans not leaving until the end of the game.
“With football games, sometimes people leave a little earlier to maybe go back out and tailgate,” Bennett said. But with Saturday’s game, “I think everybody stayed in the stadium until the end of the game. Then you’ve got 80,000 people coming out of the stadium at one time.”
Bennett added that logistics surrounding the soccer game were no different than a typical University of South Carolina football game on Saturday.
In addition, Bennett said that his agency’s priority on Saturday was pedestrian safety.
“We’ve got to make sure the roads are clear before we can push traffic out so, again, I think (the problem) stemmed from a multitude of things all happening at once.”
This story was originally published August 6, 2024 at 11:16 AM.
