Enjoy the Orange & White Game on Saturday with 60,000 or more of your closest orange-clad friends - but remember when you're going to or leaving Neyland Stadium that Cumberland Avenue is under reconstruction.
Free parking is available at the University of Tennessee Agriculture Campus, with free shuttles running throughout the day, starting at noon Saturday. Kickoff is set for 4 p.m.
Important things for Orange & White Game revelers to keep in mind:
• If parking at the Agriculture Campus, remember to use Neyland Drive and avoid Cumberland Avenue. Free parking is available everywhere on campus along with free admission to the game.
• Shuttles from parking areas start running at noon from the Agriculture Campus, Stephenson Drive (soccer), and the Kingston Pike building (enter from Tyson Park, off of Concord Street).
• Fan Day Gate 7 opens at 12:30 p.m.; regular gates open at 2:30 p.m.
• All game info (with parking map) may be found on
www.utsports.com/gameday/football and updates on Twitter
@UTGameday.
• Cumberland Avenue restaurants and merchants are open for business, so walk a few blocks from the stadium before or after the game and patronize your favorite eateries and shops.
Utility work is underway for the City of Knoxville's reconstruction project on Cumberland Avenue; two lanes are closed between 22nd Street and West Volunteer Boulevard.
Generally, City traffic planners are recommending that commuters north of Cumberland use 17th Street to Clinch Avenue (or Grand to 17th Street when leaving Fort Sanders), while south-side motorists use Neyland Drive and Joe Johnson Drive.
The Cumberland Avenue Corridor Project is a City of Knoxville initiative to redesign Cumberland Avenue from Alcoa Highway east to 17th street, changing the existing four-lane street to a three-lane cross section with a raised median and left-turn lanes at intersections. Sidewalks will be widened and landscaped, and utilities will be buried, to create a more attractive, safer, pedestrian-friendly corridor.
CumberlandConnect.com, a website created by the City's construction engineering inspections contractor, Vaughn & Melton, highlights the businesses in the Cumberland Avenue Corridor and offer coupons and promotions, as well as project details and traffic updates.
Construction will proceed in two phases, with Phase I (from Alcoa Highway to 22nd Street) to be completed by the end of 2015, and Phase II (from 22nd Street to just east of 17th Street) scheduled for completion in August 2017.