Indio, CA
Tens of thousands of people are expected to attend desert trip next month and concerns have already been raised about major traffic jams that could have something to do with the demographics of those who will be attending .
With Coachella you have millennials who take an Uber ride to the venue or carpool with friends. With Stagecoach you get the R-V crowd. But Desert Trip will probably attract a more affluent demographic, which will probably lead to more traffic since the majority of ticket holders will not travel to the Empire Polo Club using the previously mentioned methods.
The Indio Police Department said they will have more work to do with traffic control than with crowd control.
"Every intersection within the impact zone is exactly detailed so everybody on the team can pull out that page and know exactly how the intersection is set up. But we do have the option, we call them audibles…sometimes we call audibles and maybe it’s not working out," said Sgt. Dan Marshall with the Indio Police Department.
For one, Coachella has multiple bands playing all day long. This allows concert goers to trickle in throughout the day. Desert Trip on the other hand will begin at around 6 P.M and finish at about 10 P.M. creating a high concentration of traffic around those times.
"We have relief valves we can get traffic out on certain streets. So we can do that. But we stick to the plan. Once in a while we have to throw a Hail Mary because it just doesn’t seem to be working," Marshall said.
The Indio Police Department’s traffic team, the City of Indio’s traffic engineer and a traffic engineering staff from Golden Voice have spent months on a plan to make the traffic flow as smoothly as possible.
