Five months before the first concert or basketball game at the new Chase Center — a.k.a. the Warriors Arena — in Mission Bay, anxieties abound over what the traffic and parking situation will be like on event nights are running high.
You may recall that a coalition of UCSF board members, scientists, and hospital funders waged a small war on the arena project dating back to 2015, long before construction even began. The concerns were primarily about the traffic situation that will likely be created when games or concerts occur at the stadium. Given that the design only includes 950 parking spaces for an 18,000-seat arena, it's really parking that will be more of an issue until concert-goers get used to the idea that there is nowhere to park, and that they should therefore be taking public transit (or rideshares, though the traffic thing will likely make Muni a wiser choice).
A report commissioned by the arena's foes back in 2015 suggested that even if almost all the cars had pre-reserved parking for event nights, the neighborhood can expect 1,000 extra cars in the neighborhood on those nights.
As KTVU reports, the SFMTA's Sustainable Streets director Tom Maguire says he's "confident" that there is a workable plan in place to get people in and out of the Chase Center on event nights. But the plan assumes that most people will decide to use Muni.
The new Muni platform being constructed outside the arena will have room for four two-car trains at once, and extra T-line trains will be operating on event nights. We all know the speed and efficiency with which Muni typically operates, so obviously we should be confident that this system will run smoothly when thousands of people exit the arena en masse. (Ahem.)
There is also an ongoing discussion with the Warriors to package public transit in with the cost of game tickets.
Anyhow, brace yourselves for many, MANY stories about traffic and parking after the inaugural Metallica/SF Symphony show on September 6.