University Drive will be busier than usual Thursday afternoon as game day traffic combines with the rush hour commute.
TCU is scheduled to play West Virginia University at 6:30 Thursday evening, which is expected to bring the usual fans and tailgaters to Amon G. Carter Stadium.
Officer Tamara Pena of the Fort Worth Police Department said there would be around 45,000 people around campus trying to get to the game. However she said there were no plans to treat this game different than any other.
“We control traffic exactly like we do for all TCU home games,” Pena. “There are approx. 95 officers directly involved with traffic control all around the TCU property.”
Nearby schools will also bring traffic, in addition to the normal university congestion from students and faculty at TCU.
Laurie Sager, the secretary at Alice Carlson Applied Learning Center, said they will let out at their normal 3 p.m. dismissal time, but have sent a message home to parents asking them to pick up their students by 3:15.
“We will have extra police to help direct traffic at dismissal,” Sager said. “We did ask for early dismissal from FWISD but they weren’t on board with that option.”
Christine Cole, a secretary at Paschal High School located down Berry Street, said they will also dismiss at normal time, however they have made no changes to after school activities. She said the school will continue to sell parking spaces for the game as they do for any TCU home game based on how many spaces they have available.
“Parking for the TCU game will start at 4 p.m. and the shuttles will start running at 4:15,” Cole said. “After school activities such as sports and extracurricular come first and TCU game day parking comes second.”
Kathy Cavins-Tull, the vice chancellor for student affairs at TCU, sent an email to students earlier this week that said they need to move to clear the parking lots on the west side of campus Wednesday night for game day parking. Commuters will then have to park at Will Rodgers Coliseum and take a shuttle to campus.
“This means that most of the [commuter] parking on the east side of campus will be occupied by student cars on Thursday morning.” Cavins-Tull wrote. “While we are working to provide enough bus support to make this as convenient as possible, we recommend that you add 30 minutes to your normal travel and parking time.”