Braves home opener, rain, spring break will jam PM drives Thursday and Friday

ATLANTA — In 2017 Braves traffic sparked lots of fear (particularly from me), but ended up being a far less factor than predicted. Traffic should be the same for the 2018 season, however, the regular season home opener at SunTrust Park comes at an inopportune time.

Braves officials moved typical weekday first pitch times for night games to 7:35 p.m. last season, anticipating the heavy PM drive traffic and trying to allow more people to get to the games on time. The same is in place for this season, but the home opener is a late afternoon game. The first pitch is 4:10 p.m., right as PM drive gets into full swing.

Making matters worse is the forecast for rain on Thursday, with a chance of rain and storms in the afternoon and a high chance in the evening. While this could dampen (pun intended) the size of the crowds heading to SunTrust Park, it's certainly going to make the rush hour in all of Metro Atlanta much worse.

So, if you’re heading to the Braves’ home opener against the Phillies or if your Thursday afternoon commute goes through the Cumberland area (I-75 and I-285 in Cobb and surrounding roads), plan extra time. Oh – and the game likely will end early in the 7 p.m. hour, intersecting again with the tail end of the evening rush hour.

Some parking at the game has changed, including the new convenience of being able to pay on site at some lots. Check the Braves parking homepage for more details. Whatever you do, plan your ride beforehand. Driving "blind" to the Braves game in middle of bad traffic is tough. Then trying to enter navigation on your mobile device turns "tough" into dangerous. And remember…heavy rain could be falling. The easiest way to go to the games is to enter the address of your exact parking lot and navigate there.

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The Braves return to their normal first pitch time Friday at 7:35 p.m. But that PM drive will be epic and will start early. Most Metro Atlanta K-12 schools begin Spring Break the following week, so Friday evening is a huge travel time. Expect delays on I-75 on both sides of town, most zones of I-285, and the Downtown Connector/I-75/85 in both directions, to begin getting very slow in the early afternoon.

The ride with the biggest jams will likely be I-75 in Henry County in both directions. The reversible toll lanes will be pointed southbound until late in the evening, so that will help traffic leaving Atlanta. But those coming from Florida and South Georgia will be stuck with the minimal capacity on I-75/northbound and maybe should consider Hwy. 42 between Locust Grove and Stockbridge.

These heavy holiday rush hours usually start early, but they end early. This means most of the muck should be out of the way (barring any big wrecks) near SunTrust Park, by the time of first pitch on Friday.

Plan your ride: listen for live Triple Team Traffic updates on News 95.5/AM750 WSB and the WSB Radio App. And download the free Triple Team Traffic Alerts App to time your commute and check for big problems. Our audio alerts play hands-free when you leave it open. Thursday and Friday afternoon will be tough times on the Atlanta roads, but our goal is to alert you of the inevitable and try to make the ride less impossible.

Cox Media Group