We've heard a lot about the upcoming Super Bowl 50 downtown street closures and resulting disruptions to Muni service, and SFMTA last Friday helpfully released a map detailing their predictions for how downtown will be impacted the three weeks surrounding the big game. The city's map (posted below) depicts what appears to be a laughably small "affected area," and it perhaps this apparent disconnect between official predictions and common sense that spurred one concerned citizen to create his/her own version of the map.
Posted to Reddit with the title "Super Bowl City Reality for 3 weeks (Jan 23-Feb 8)," the home-brew version of the SFMTA map helpfully overlays a pink "complete gridlock" color code on the city's official version. And while this is indeed a striking image, one need not look further than SFMTA's own announcement to realize traffic downtown is going to be a complete nightmare — and not just in the area immediately surrounding the Fan Village.
"The traffic detour routes are explained in the above graph, but there’s one simple message we’d like to spread to minimize traffic headaches: If possible, please avoid driving near the area of the Super Bowl events," reads the announcement. "Although the Super Bowl events will be active from January 30 to February 7, streets in the area will be closed to vehicle traffic for longer to allow for staging and disassembly. Drivers will be guided to detour routes, which may become congested due to the extra car traffic."
It's going to be a fun three weeks!
