The Clark County Amphitheater Neighborhood Guidebook, published in 2003, is almost 2 inches thick. In nauseating detail, it specifies how every issue — noise, traffic, emergency response, alcohol policies, event restrictions — are to be handled.
Concerning traffic, as you would suspect, safety is the paramount concern. Chief among the prohibited traffic conditions are backups on the freeway. When that happens, event staff and WSDOT are responsible for an immediate remedy.
What happened on July 9? For an event of that size, the Traffic Management Plan estimates that eight to 12 traffic control officers (from the State Patrol, during ingress) are needed. One day before the concert, our State Patrol signed a contract to provide only four TCOs.
Those officers were aware that, during ingress, freeway traffic was moving at a crawl, for miles, but explained that their contract prevented them from leaving their spots to handle the problem.
Think about that: When an extreme safety problem on an interstate freeway occurred, the State Patrol did not respond.
