PITTSBURGH, PA — The upcoming NFL Draft will put Pittsburgh on the global stage for three days, but it will come with a price: likely gridlock for anyone attempting to get around the city.
The draft will occur April 23-25 at Acrisure Stadium and Point State Park and is expected to draw as many as 700,000 people during the weekend.
The sheer number of people attempting to attend the draft likely will severely tax the city's transportation systems, especially since draft-related street closures already have begun.
"This is going to be a big issue, because Downtown Pittsburgh is constrained by the limited capacity of bridges and tunnels,"Sean Qian, director of Carnegie Mellon University's Mobility Data Analytics Center, said in a university release.
Qian warned of unavoidable traffic jams as the NFL essentially takes over the city.
Qian said there "is limited capacity of roads, curb spaces and parking. So that's going to have a tremendous impact on the roadways and on the city in general.
"There are also side effects from this congestion. How do you route emergency vehicles through the city so that they can get where they need to go quickly? That's a big issue, too."
Qian recommended using public transit, biking or walking over the draft weekend instead of using Uber or your own vehicle to get to your destination.