If everything goes right, Opening Day 1992 at Camden Yards' new stadium will be remembered for flapping pennants, a roaring crowd and the park's first Orioles victory. If things go absolutely haywire, it could be recalled as the day the city was socked by a grand-slam traffic jam.
For decades, stadium planners say, cunning fans have beaten paths of least resistance to Memorial Stadium, learning which routes to drive to avoid snarls or what buses to catch. Most have a favorite lot for parking, or know where to hunt for a free space along nearby residential streets.
"People headed to Memorial Stadium have learned to take the backdoor routes," said David W. Chapin, the Department of Transportation official in charge of traffic planning for the stadium.
But when Camden Yards opens, stadium planners fear, those fans could all show up at the front door at the same time.
To prevent chaos that first fateful day -- and thereafter -- almost a dozen city, state and Stadium Authority officials have been busy since September drafting increasingly detailed plans for controlling traffic flow, coordinating parking and plotting public relations strategy to encourage use of mass transit. Over the past several years, more than $59.3 million has been spent on highway, bridge and rail facilities near the new stadium.
But no one is ready to declare the area a gridlock-free zone.
There will be "a lot of excitement," said Mr. Chapin, smiling faintly.
"That's as far as I'll go."
Dr. Dana Frank, a baseball fan who lives in the Baltimore County neighborhood of Stoneleigh, is a physician and expert on headaches -- and he sees one coming.
"I have gone to games at Yankee Stadium, Fenway Park and Memorial Stadium," he said. "I have never perceived a major traffic problem at Memorial Stadium, especially compared to Yankee Stadium or Fenway Park. Fenway Park can be an absolute nightmare. And to me, it is basically a harbinger of things to come, in terms of a downtown stadium."
Almost 14,000 cars are expected to converge on the new 47,000-seat stadium -- bounded on three sides by Russell, Camden and Howard streets -- for Opening Day and other sellouts, state and city traffic planners say. But only about 5,100 cars will be able to park at the site in the parking lot south of the stadium. Nearly all the residential neighborhoods near the ballpark are expected to be off-limits for fan parking.
So one day in April 1992, there could be more than 8,000 drivers prowling along downtown streets searching for lots and garages with vacant spaces. Almost no one except the players, Orioles management and VIPs will park for free: The average cost for a fan, stadium planners say, will be $4.50.
Transportation planners are not sure exactly what the hunt for parking might trigger. One fear is that drivers from Bel Air will search west of the stadium, Catonsville fans head east, York residents look south and Washingtonians wander north -- converging on a handful of intersections.
Another fear is that everyone will compete for spaces in the parking garages and lots closest to the stadium, filling the spaces quickly and jamming those streets. Or motorists in heavy traffic on Interstate 95 heading north toward the Fort McHenry Tunnel might disregard signs and radio messages advising them to take alternative routes.
If some through traffic on I-95 is not diverted during a sellout, said Deputy Chief Engineer Thomas Hicks of the State High way Administration, traffic could back up from the Interstate 395 XTC off-ramp as far as the Baltimore Beltway, a distance of about four miles.
Prompted in part by these concerns, the city is spending $46.9 million to improve the interstate, road and bridge network around the stadium -- including building a $4.6 million ramp connecting I-395 with the parking lot and spending $17.2 million to widen I-95 between Caton Avenue and Russell Street.
The Stadium Authority has spent $3 million to aid in construction of the new Camden rail station for the Baltimore light rail and Maryland Rail Commuter train lines.
The state Department of Transportation is spending another $9.4 million on the station, platform and rail improvements. (State officials say the rail work would have been done even without the stadium.)
To cope with the inevitable highway congestion, the State Highway Administration plans to open a traffic operations center in the Baltimore & Ohio Warehouse at Camden Yards, where specialists will monitor traffic conditions using radio links with the state police, SHA workers and other sources.
The center will try to steer I-95 drivers to alternate routes during stadium events, using stationary and portable remote-controlled variable message signs and the Beltway's network of nine short-range Traffic Advisory Radio stations, which transmit at 530 AM.
With much of the concrete already poured, the city and state are beginning to think about their grand strategy for reducing stadium traffic: promoting mass transit.
When the stadium first opens, only about 15 percent of fans are expected to arrive by anything other than private auto, said Ronald J. Hartman, administrator of the Mass Transit Administration.
But eventually, he said, the MTA hopes to lure larger crowds onto the new $446.4 million Baltimore light-rail system, buses and MARC trains -- all of which directly serve the stadium area. Eighty percent of the MTA's regular bus lines run near the new stadium site, and MTA shuttle buses also will run between
park-and-ride lots and Camden Yards.
Fans will be exhorted to use the Baltimore Metro with stops at Lexington Market and Charles Center.
Only a section of the light-rail line, linking Timonium with the southern city boundary, will be open for limited service by April 1992. (The trip between Timonium and the stadium is expected to take 26 minutes and cost about $1.25 per passenger, Mr. Hartman said).
Fans living in Anne Arundel County will probably have to wait until later in the 1992 season for service to open between the southern city boundary and Dorsey Road, Mr. Hartman said.
Although the strategy for dealing with the onslaught of traffic is in place, many tactical questions remain.
Baltimore's Department of Transportation, for example, does not expect to get a completed copy of a manual for how to handle stadium traffic from its consultant -- the Baltimore firm of Rummel, Klepper and Kahl -- for about a month. Until then, it won't be clear where streets might be closed or traffic reversed to accommodate games.
Herman Williams Jr., city commissioner of transportation, said he is waiting for the City Council to approve legislation giving him the power to beef up the residential parking permit program to keep fans from invading stadium neighborhoods.
He proposes shortening the current two-hour limit for non-resident parkers, extending the hours of restricted parking to include stadium events and raising fines significantly for violators from the current $27.
Several stadium neighborhoods are also seeking to join the resident permit program. Ridgely's Delight, Otterbein and Federal Hill are among the stadium-area neighborhoods now in the program. Pigtown, Washington Village, Sharp-Leadenhall and South Baltimore are among those that are not.
For fans living outside the stadium area, the parking restrictions will only make things more difficult.
Dr. Frank, who attends about 20 games a year at Memorial Stadium, uses the buses on York Road or drives and parks on the street near Memorial Stadium. Now he is not sure what he will do, although the subject is very much on his mind.
"I have already been contemplating how I'm going to go to games downtown," he said. "I know it sounds crazy."
The most likely strategy so far, he said, is an amphibious assault: He says he may park near the eastern Inner Harbor, take a water taxi and then walk from Harborplace.