COBB COUNTY, Ga. — The Atlanta Braves are taking action to address concerns about traffic around the site of their new ballpark in Cobb County.
The Braves unveiled “Phase 1” of their traffic and parking plan, featuring transportation experts, Wednesday.
Channel 2’s Ross Cavitt learned that home games will start at 7:30 p.m., which the experts believe will allow a significant amount of rush hour traffic to bleed off before the Braves crush.
"I have to stop every building on both sides of Windy Hill, I have to go in and out,” postal carrier Charles Griffin said.
Griffin calls traffic around the stadium now "a mess", and can't imagine it will be any better next year.
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"Traffic is so bad, you know, it takes me all day to deliver," Griffin said.
The Braves say Griffin's pain will be gone when millions of dollars in road projects around new SunTrust Park are finished, hopefully before the first game, and they are making a big move to stay out of the way of rush hour.
"The first is a pretty major announcement, we're returning to a 7:30 start time," civil engineer Rob Ross said.
The Braves hired traffic experts, who said traffic in the area drops off dramatically between 7 and 7:30 p.m., so pushing back the first pitch will make a big difference.
"It's a 30 percent drop in traffic volumes, so it's a significant drop between rush hour and the time before the first pitch,” Ross said.
Plus, the Braves showed us their parking plan: 9,000 spots all around the ballpark.
"Less seats, but more parking currently," Ross said.
Five-hundred more parking spots will be available around SunTrust Park, which has 8,000 fewer seats than Turner Field.
Plus, the spots are spread out around the ballpark, unlike turner field.%
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In fact, if there was a theme, it was things will be better in Cobb than down at Turner.
"It is not what braves fans have experienced for the past 20 years at turner field, and before that at the Atlanta Fulton County stadium,” Ross said.