Downtown LA traffic to ramp up as LAFC, USC games bring in 77,000 fans
If you thought traffic in Los Angeles was bad on a normal day, just wait until Saturday around downtown.
In a perfect storm of sporting events, about 77,000 fans are set to descend about Exposition park for the Los Angeles Football Club and USC games.
"We trekked all the way from San Francisco, Marin County, California to just come and watch," said USC fan Maryam Fooman. "Because there's nothing like at a USC football game."
Fooman and her family are some of the 55,000 coming to the L.A. Memorial Coliseum to watch the Trojans take on the Cal Berkley Golden Bears.
These fans will be battling traffic because, just a few hours before the Pac-12 matchup, LAFC will play the Philadelphia Union in the Major League Soccer Cup final.
At 1 p.m. on Saturday, 22,000 soccer fans will fill the Banc of California Stadium which is right next door to the Coliseum.
"I have not been in a station where we have had two major events happening simultaneously just a few hundred meters apart," said FOX Sports Vice President Zac Kenworthy. "It's unusual."
Since the games are on the same day, the tens of thousands of fans coming to cheer on LAFC and Philadelphia Union cannot park at Exposition Park.
"If it ends in regulation we'll all be leaving at the same time that their tailgating is kicking off and they're arriving," said Kenworthy.
LAFC is encouraging fans to either ride the Expo Line to the Expo Park/USC station, take a rideshare or use the complimentary parking shuttles at Dodger Stadium.
"These are champagne problems right?" said Kenworthy. "This is going to be trick tomorrow to navigate for fans and everyone but it is pretty cool for the city of L.A."
Officials have told Trojan fans to arrive to the Coliseum during the LAFC game around 1 p.m. or after 5 p.m.
This is also the first time that LAFC has made it the MLS Cup.
