Santa Clara

Santa Clarans Complain About Stadium Noise, Traffic

A Tuesday night forum in Santa Clara was the first chance for people who live around Levi's Stadium to voice their concerns about the recent violence and traffic woes stemming from the new venue. It was the first meeting of its kind since the season started.

More than 100 Santa Clara residents attended to ask questions of the police, VTA, and 49ers Vice President of Stadium Operations Jim Mercurio.

Though there was a brutal bathroom brawl at the stadium on Sunday, one of the issues that received the biggest applause from the crowd was the topic of noise. Specifically, the noise from planes flying banners around the stadium on game day.

"In addition to the noise, the foghorn, the helicopters constantly buzzing overhead," said Sameer Sharma, who lives near Levi's Stadium. "You end up shutting all your doors and all your windows, and so you have to put all these restrictions on your lifestyle."

The second biggest topic was traffic.

Others were worried the traffic would prohibit emergency crews from accessing their packed neighborhoods. One woman added that many of the residents are seniors.

"Like some people have said you're being held hostage in your house. I try to accommodate the game schedules by doing my errands before the game," Vicki Broughton said.

The 49ers Jim Mercurio said traffic has improved and the average time to get out of the parking lots has significantly dropped.

"The first game, one of the lots took two hours and 35 minutes (to get out). Today, that same lot is one hour and 20 minutes," he said.

The 49ers and police say they'll try and incorporate some of the concerns into the game day plan.

"We'll try and figure out if we can make the changes. If we can make them work we will and if we can't, we'll figure out why," Mercurio said. "Maybe we'll compromise on some areas where we couldn't. But we'll take it very seriously like we always do."
 

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