NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV) – If you’re driving in downtown or east Nashville this weekend, city officials say you should have a transportation plan in place.
The Tennessee Titans will play their first preseason game against the San Francisco 49ers on Saturday night. It is the first game at Nissan Stadium since construction of the new stadium began on the parking lots.
The massive construction project halved the number of parking spaces around the stadium from 7,000 to just 3,500. All of those spaces are sold out for the entire season, and there will be no bar parking at the stadium for the Titans’ home games in 2024.
READ MORE: Titans Parking and Transportation Guide
The Titans, Metro Nashville Police Department and WeGo Transit encourage fans to park in the more than 20,000 spaces within a one-mile radius of the stadium. Most of these are in downtown parking garages, forcing people to walk across the pedestrian bridge, the Woodland Street Bridge or the sidewalks along the Korean Veterans Boulevard Bridge.
People like John Guider, who lives in East Nashville, are worried that cars will choose to park on their neighborhood streets instead. He said parking is already running out on game days, even though police have put up resident parking signs and barricades.
“They come in and once they park, of course, it’s hard to tell if they’re a local resident or a visitor to Titans Stadium,” Guider said. “They just get away.”
Guider can see the stadium construction cranes from his front yard on Fatherland Street and said they love how easy it is to walk downtown and to the stadium. They don’t like seeing others take advantage of the neighborhood’s location by parking in front of driveways and even on the sidewalk.
Bryce Hubner lives at the end of the block and said his family always makes sure to do their grocery shopping on the weekend before partygoers come to the area.
Hubner said they can’t leave the house when events are taking place at Nissan Stadium because they wouldn’t be able to find anywhere else to park. The traffic and parking situation is similar to what the Nashville SC season ticket holder experiences when he drives to Wedgewood-Houston for a game at GEODIS Park, but he hopes the problems on his street don’t get worse.
“We know (the Titans) are working hard to find solutions, but obviously they are missing all of their parking,” Hubner said. “That said, this area was full of fan parking. We’ll see what the fall brings, but we hope some solutions are found soon.”
WeGo is testing four expanded bus routes around the stadium. Riders can park downtown or in surrounding areas and take the $4 round-trip shuttle to and from the game.
Titans officials stressed that every fan attending a game this year will need to plan in advance how to get to the stadium. Even longtime season ticket holders who didn’t get a parking pass will have to get used to a new routine until stadium construction is completed in 2027.
Guider and his neighbors expressed concern that the situation would not improve once construction was completed because the plans for the east bank would ultimately eliminate even more parking spaces.
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