Thursday, April 10, 2014

Travelling to Coachella

In case you're going to Coachella, I just got this helpful email about traffic. It was sent by the people behind the Waze app, but it seems useful enough, so check it out if you need some road trip tips for Coachella. Incidentally, I talked to y friend Kelsey who's driving for Lyft and UberX and she says they're bringing in drivers for both services, so there's that, too. Anyway, road closures, instructions and other information after the jump.

So, you are off to Coachella! Awesome! What’s not so rad is sitting in a car that’s not moving. The cities of Indio and La Quinta anticipate major traffic delays during the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. There will be road closures, so please plan ahead and expect delays when traveling throughout Indio and La Quinta near the festival. Not to mention there will be approximately 30,000 guests shuttled into and out of the concert venue from various locations throughout the Coachella Valley to help ease traffic conditions.





The first weekend of the event takes place at the Empire Polo Club (81800 Avenue 51) on April 11, 12 and 13. The second weekend takes place on April 18, 19 and 20.



Luckily Waze has the scoop!

A. Duh… Use Waze!

· Waze(pronounced as ways) is a GPS-based geographical navigation application program for smartphones with GPS support and display screens which provides turn-by-turn information and user-submitted travel times and route details, downloading location-dependent information over the mobile telephone network.

· Waze differs from traditional GPS navigation software as it is a community-driven application which gathers some complementary map data and other traffic information from users. Like other GPS software it learns from users' driving times to provide routing and real-time traffic updates. It is free to download and use. People can report accidents, traffic jams, speed and police traps, and can update roads, landmarks, house numbers, etc. Waze also identifies the cheapest fuel station near a user or along their route. As of now we have over 50 million registered users of the app.

· In addition to turn-by-turn voice navigation, real-time traffic, and other location-specific alerts, Waze simultaneously sends anonymous information, including users' speed and location, back to its database to improve the service as a whole. This crowdsourcing allows the Waze community to report navigation and mapping errors and traffic accidents simply by running the app while driving. Waze uses gaming conventions to engage users and encourage them to provide more information, allowing them to "drive over" icons of cupcakes and other things to earn points. Waze also offers points for traffic or road hazard reports, which can be used to change the user's avatar, and to increase their status in the community.

· I promise it will get you there the quickest route. Unless you have your own helicopter… but hey if Ben Affleck and Christina Applegate love it, so will you!

B. Off the bat expect delays on the following roadways:

· Jefferson Street, southbound, from I-10 to Avenue 52

· Washington Street, southbound, from I-10 to Avenue 52

· Monroe Street, southbound, from I-10 to Avenue 52

· Highway 111 at Jefferson Street

· Highway 111 at Monroe Street

· I-10 exit eastbound at Jefferson

· I-10 exit eastbound at Monroe

C. Wahhhh…. Road Closures:

· Avenue 49 between Hjorth Street and Monroe Street

· Avenue 50 between Madison Street and Jackson Street

· Hjorth Street between Avenue 49 and Avenue 50

· Madison Street between Avenue 49 and Avenue 52

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