A dark sedan facing east in the westbound lane stopped traffic between the Marriott Library and the Rice-Eccles Stadium for about 20 minutes on Tuesday around 7 p.m. The U Police Department said there was no official report of the incident.
With about 30 cars at a standstill ahead and 15 cars behind, Jascha Clark, a senior in psychology, said she knew something was wrong on the narrow stretch of South Campus Drive between the Rice-Eccles Stadium parking lot and the roundabout. The TRAX train had passed slowly and the crossing arms stayed down well after the train was out of sight.
Clark, who was on his way to an evening study group at the library, found the entrance to the library pay lot on South Campus Drive blocked by police cars with flashing lights. Clark’s wife approached an officer after waiting 10 minutes for clearance in the west stadium lot and saw the sedan facing the wrong direction. Clark said the officer told him and his wife that the car was not drivable.
A tow truck arrived and pulled into the east stadium parking lot without the car in tow.
“(The car) ended up driving after (the tow truck) and cut across traffic into the east stadium parking lot,” Clark said.
Alma Allred, director of Commuter Services, said people occasionally drive on the wrong side of the road in that area and on the sidewalks.
“People are trying to get out of paying for parking in the pay lot,” he said. Commuter Services has changed the layout of the pay lot to avoid this problem, but it still happens on rare occasions.
Utah Transit Authority and the U expected more problems to come out of the narrow stretch of South Campus Drive that carries TRAX and two opposing lanes of traffic, Allred said, but so far they haven’t had many problems. The most common complaint received by Commuters Services for that area is congestion.
Allred said the cause of incidents such as cars caught moving against the flow of traffic is not the narrowness of the road or complexity of traffic between the Rice-Eccles Stadium and the Marriott Library, but rather the fault of drivers.
Two cars also collided in the roundabout on Tuesday night. According to the police report, the driver of a gold Saturn was busy adjusting his textbooks in the passenger seat and forgot to yield before he entered the roundabout.