There’s got to be someone. There just has to be someone. There can’t not be someone.
There’s got to be at least one Penn Stater out there smart enough. It’s definitely not me but there has to be someone that can figure it out.
I’m sick and tired of spending over an hour after games to hit the road. You’re sick and tired of spending over an hour after games to leave.
Someone has to figure out Penn State’s postgame parking – or rather leaving – situation. It’s the single worst thing about Penn State gamedays.
Saturday was beautiful. Saturday was damn near perfect. The weather was great. You got to see friends you haven’t seen in months. You got to fill up on delicious tailgate food, snacks and beer.
The football team looked like it was supposed to. The stadium atmosphere was electric. The quarterback appears to be the real deal.
And then the buzzkill slaps you across the face. You’re not going to get out of the parking lots for another hour after the game.
There has to be at least one Penn Stater that is smart enough to figure out a better egress situation when it comes to postgames, especially big ones, at Beaver Stadium.
In particular, the problem lies with night games. These tend to be the games that, one, people stick around for longest and, two, people don’t tailgate after.
Yet, at least in my lot – Lot 45 – you’re almost forced to tailgate after each game. Our friend group stayed until the final whistle and after the alma mater before beginning our roughly 10-minute trek back from the Stadium.
The game ended around 10:50 p.m. and it was roughly 11:15 p.m. by the time we got back to our car. I didn’t see another car move until well after midnight and it was ultimately 12:25 a.m. by the time we hit the road, making the 50-minute drive back to Altoona.
I feel lucky that we stay in Altoona. I’m sure there were people in our lot who were headed back to Harrisburg or beyond. You’re facing a very late night, borderline early morning if traffic on 322 is bad.
And it’s not like this isn’t a known problem. But someone, anyone, has to figure it out. Pat Kraft has emphasized improving the gameday experience and yet this is the single most annoyingly persistent issue that fans are facing.
I get it. There are 110,747 people watching a football game in an area that doesn’t have the best road system, and most of those people park in cow fields anyway.
But it certainly feels like people are leaving the games earlier and earlier just to get a jump on, well, leaving.
It was bad Saturday after WVU. It’s going to be bad for Iowa. It’s going to be bad for every night game until something is done.
Penn State has one of the top logistics programs in the country. You’re telling me someone from the athletic department can’t walk up to Smeal or an engineering building and say “hello, we’d like to commission one of your brightest and best to help us figure it out.”
Getting into the parking lots has gotten better over the years. But I will say, it seems like parking people (who are really probably just there for the free ticket) either take their jobs way too seriously or not seriously at all. For example, half of our tailgate group (six cars) had their passes scanned. Another group, including my car, didn’t have their parking passes scanned.
But once we parked, it was fine.
After the game, it was not fine. There’s no one to help. It shouldn’t take this long to leave a game. I shouldn’t feel like I might as well just stay in the parking lot until the next game.
There just has to be someone out there that can figure it out.
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