Beyoncé and the Beyhive’s descent on downtown Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium through this weekend and Monday rightfully makes big headlines. The singing superstar last toured in Atlanta in 2023.
The gathering of MLB’s biggest stars for multiple days of festivities at Cobb County’s Truist Park centered on Tuesday’s All-Star Game is an even rarer occasion. Atlanta last hosted the All-Star Game and Home Run Derby in 2000 at the former Turner Field.
In addition to those big events are weekend WWE matches at State Farm Arena.
But metro Atlanta has done this before. And if event attendees, organizers and various government officials do their jobs, Atlantans will be “Survivors” of another traffic-geddon.
Gates open at 5 p.m. for the “Cowboy Carter” shows at Mercedes-Benz Stadium for the 8 p.m. concerts. So fans have a few hours to queue up in their rhinestones, boots, denim and hats — and buy even more gear inside.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
All-Star Game festivities began Friday and envelope not only Truist Park and the adjacent Battery Atlanta, but also nearby Cobb Galleria. Tickets to the Galleria’s All-Star Village are separate from game tickets.
The downtown Atlanta and especially the Cobb County venues offer enough satellite activities that fans can come early. Marietta Street offers an array of restaurants near Mercedes-Benz Stadium and State Farm Arena.
The Battery and its rich phalanx of bars and eateries also creates a great pre- and postgame atmosphere for fans. Expect it to be jammed with baseball fans without tickets, who simply want to soak up the atmosphere of this generational event.
All of these entertainment options encourage fans to stagger their arrival times and soften the traffic blow.
Moving tens of thousands of people at once takes time and, as Georgia Tech professor Michael Hunter told me after my wife and I got stuck in a major Truist Park parking deck jam during the 2021 World Series run, roads just are not made to carry that many people.
Atlanta natives, transplants and out-of-towners need to know that every little bit helps with road congestion. If 10%-15% of people decided to stay off the metro Atlanta roads around these events, then the delays would significantly decrease.
Credit: Jozsef Papp / jozsef.papp-chang@ajc.com
Credit: Jozsef Papp / jozsef.papp-chang@ajc.com
Thankfully, Atlanta offers more options than people realize.
MARTA will be key to the Beyoncé and WWE events. The obsoletely-named Dome/G.W.C.C./Philips Arena/CNN Center station sits just one stop west of Five Points on the Blue-Green Line and dumps people off right next to both the arena and the stadium.
There’s no MARTA train to Truist Park and The Battery, but the CobbLinc system has a drop zone right near the Braves stadium complex. CobbLinc also runs several routes that connect with MARTA rail at the Midtown Station and people can chart their journey on CobbLinc.org. This will likely take longer than driving, but could be safer and save commuters a ton of money on parking.
MARTA and CobbLinc are $2.50 per one-way trip. And they eliminate the temptation to drink and drive.
Atlanta and Cobb are no strangers to big events. Cobb hosts 81 Braves regular season home games every year and will have extra staffing on hand to direct traffic and adjust lights. Many of those Braves games sell out, too.
Cobb resident Jeffrey Todd knows this and told my 11Alive Traffic teammate Rachel Cox-Rosen that he has been looking forward to this All-Star weekend. His plan?
“I will be walking to the game. I am not gonna sit. It would take me longer to drive there.”
If Atlanta can adjust to the I-85 bridge collapsing, it certainly can handle Beyoncé-WWE-All-Star-pallooza. Everyone just has to manage their own hand of “Texas Hold ‘Em” and do their part. We’ve got this.
Doug Turnbull covers the traffic/transportation beat for WXIA-TV (11Alive). His reports appear on the 11Alive Morning News from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. and on 11Alive.com. Email Doug at dturnbull@11alive.com.
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