By Michael Mroziak
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wbfo/local-wbfo-981198.mp3
Orchard Park, NY – The Buffalo Bills, in cooperation with local police and the company that manages parking at Ralph Wilson Stadium, will test a system on the west end of Ralph Wilson Stadium and new traffic patterns immediately surrounding the stadium this football season.
In the past couple of years, more than a half dozen pedestrians as well as law enforcers were injured in incidents involving vehicles outside the stadium. Bills officials say the new rules are designed to increase safety.
"When you think about that this is a small city on gameday with 70,000 to 100,000 people, and trying to move all that traffic in and move that traffic out is a large task," said Bills CEO Russ Brandon. "When we go about that process, one of the things that the focus was... was the pedestrian-vehicle traffic on Abbott."
The stretch of Abbott immediately outside the stadium will be closed to vehicular traffic. Vehicles coming in from the north and south on Abbott will be led into parking lots, where traffic attendants will guide them into spaces one by one.
Craig Barber, Senior Vice President at Allpro Parking, says larger groups will no longer be allowed to save neighboring parking spaces for friends that have yet to arrive.
"We would encourage them to meet offsite and tandem in, and come together," said Craig Barber, Senior Vice President of Allpro Parking. "So I think all of this really entails a little bit of thinking about what you want to do before you come out, how you're going to travel to the stadium to park in the lot you'd normally want to park in, and what's going to happen in those two lots."
After the games, police will direct traffic in single-direction routes away from the stadium. The Bills will post these routes on their official website, www.buffalobills.com.
You can hear the entire news conference by clicking on the audio link above.