(Written by jsnell)

I just received this e-mail, forwarded to me by Sandy Barbour, about the issues with the stadium at the USC game.

Dear Cal Football Fans:

During Saturday’s Cal football game against USC, we know that many of you who attended had an unfortunate and unexpected gameday experience due to the long lines and congestion throughout much of Memorial Stadium. I want to apologize and, at the same time, make sure we move quickly to understand exactly what went wrong and let you know about the steps being taken to address it.

We have almost three weeks before our next home game against Washington State on Oct. 24, and with the help of the UC Police Department and other experts, we will be working diligently to improve pedestrian flow and crowd control.

An immediate review after the game found that almost half the crowd entered the stadium through just two gates – Gates 1 and 2 – near the north side of the stadium. The resulting bottleneck caused lines to back up, especially on the concourse level. Similar problems occurred in other areas of the stadium, as well.

We take your safety seriously and many valuable lessons were learned at the game. We did have additional staff placed in the concourse to assist with crowd control, but obviously it wasn’t enough, and we need to do a better job of monitoring and directing traffic.

Entering this fall, we knew that the potential for increased congestion in and around Memorial Stadium existed, and we worked with campus and city safety and security personnel to develop an access plan to help fans navigate around the High Performance Center construction zone. Although we had few issues the first two contests, the USC game clearly showed that we need to evaluate the plan’s effectiveness. The full release can be found by clicking here (Stadium Access Plan).

With construction of the Student-Athlete High Performance Center and the planned renovation of the stadium, we are well on our way to creating a better gameday experience for all. However, I will continue to do everything possible to minimize the impact of construction on some of the best days we have together as a Cal community. We will distribute our revised plan as soon as we fully identify and make the necessary improvements in our operations.

Thank you for your passionate support of our campus and Cal Athletics.

Go Bears,

Sandy Barbour Director of Athletics

My take: everyone entering through the north end of the stadium might be an issue, but as long as the Fun Zone is over there, it’s hard to see the traffic flow working much differently. I don’t think the entry point is the root of the problem. I think the fact that you can’t access most of the center section of the west side of the stadium (due to the construction project) without going through incredibly narrow passageways is the root of the problem. And more to the point, the capacity of the venue is the root of the problem.

If this is a sincere attempt to improve crowd control, great. Fantastic. I hope that’s what it is. But I’m not enthused by the “we’ll get back to you” tone of some of the paragraphs, the blame being placed on what I believe to be a side issue (i.e., the entry point), and the suggestion that “additional staff” would be able to somehow control such a massive crowd.