Gridiron gridlock may be name of game.

Byline: Diane Dietz The Register-Guard

Don't count on traveling like a Duck or a Beaver to the football games in Eugene and Corvallis on Saturday because traffic could make you move more like a turtle.

That's because both the University of Oregon and Oregon State University are playing home games and upward of 100,000 fans will be on the road.

That easily doubles the normal traffic on the freeway, which is pretty much at capacity anyway, said Joe Schieman, incident response coordinator for the state Department of Transportation in the Corvallis area.

"I've seen traffic back up a mile just going into a rest area," he said. "That's why they've got those long turnouts on the rest areas."

ODOT incident responders are like clot-busting drugs: They keep the life blood of travel and commerce going, especially through critical periods such as the game-day rush.

They stand ready in trucks to get stranded motorists off the road and moving again or clearing accidents from travel lanes.

They monitor 911 traffic, work in concert with police agencies and act with haste lest gridlock develop.

"We just get right to it and help clear the road as quickly as possible," said Kevin Kinney, the Transportation Department's response coordinator for the Eugene area.

ODOT is serious about maintaining the traffic flow because a freeway shutdown in one direction for one hour means $375,000 in lost revenue, Schieman said.

The agency has suspended its extensive road work in the Eugene area for Saturday, and it will remove cones to return the freeway temporarily from two lanes to three on the northbound side to assist the flow.

Slow traffic develops an inertia, Schieman said. If one driver pauses - for instance, to rubberneck - the touch on the brakes creates a two- or three-minute wait for the 50th car behind him.

A full stop creates havoc for miles and hours. "For every hour it's shut down, it takes four hours to open it back up and get back to the normal flow of traffic," Schieman said.

So that parade of cars festooned with pompoms and flags rolled up in the windows - be they green and yellow or orange and black - brings no joy to the incident responders.

The cars and SUVs come in a steady stream over time, from pre-kickoff tailgating through the start of the game.

But at the end, vehicles explode into the street - all wanting out at once and as fast as possible.

In Eugene, police officers, public works employees and bus drivers all know their roles and execute their game-day game plan like pros.

"They've done this for a long time; they're really good at it, but if there's an accident that's unforeseen, things become gridlocked right away," Kinney said.

The incident responders rush in to help, but it's not fast enough for some postgame travelers.

"You've got to hold them up and they just get road rage from it," Schieman said. "It really gets dangerous because people start driving aggressively.

"It really (would help) if people would just calm down a little bit and realize that we're trying to work it out, we're trying to open it up.'

GAME DAY TRAVEL

Find out about hazards, roadblocks and alternate routes while en route by one of these means:

Call on your cell either 511 or (800) 977-ODOT, depending on what your phone service supports.

Tune your radio to 1660 AM for broadcast incident alerts.

Point your BlackBerry to www.tripcheck.com/mobile.

Where to park? Contact the Lane Transit District at www.ltd.org or call [phone]. The company operates 10 game-day park-and-rides.