Metro Nashville Police Department said ride-sharing cars, taxis and limousines could be to blame for some of the traffic issues near Nissan Stadium when drivers drop off and pick up fans outside of authorized zones.
On Thursday night, police set up designated areas for drivers to use to help with traffic flow.
"If you’re using an Uber or Lyft service around the stadium, you’d want to get picked up or dropped off at Sylvan Street on southside of the stadium or Woodland between S. 1st and S. 2nd streets on the north side. These are designated and unloading areas," Sgt. John Bourque said.
Bourque said one reason police use these certain areas is because of the increase of ride-sharing drivers within the last year around the stadium.
He said traffic is normally slower whenever Nissan Stadium but by using those designated areas can help keep traffic moving.
Michael Rhinehart has given more than 1,000 Uber rides since May. He said ride-share drivers are made aware of these areas when they sign up for the job. If drivers use these areas it does help.
"I have gotten nothing but positive responses and communications from Metro. They simply just want us to go to the designated areas for safety and efficiency sake because so many people are coming out of there," Rhinehart said.
But not all ride-sharing drivers use these areas.
"The biggest issue for us is the Uber drivers and Lyft drivers will pull up right to the intersection of like 2nd and Shelby and in the middle of traffic discharge all the passengers. Now we have a bunch of pedestrians in the mix of traffic moving and often the drivers think 'oh well, the traffic is not moving, I can stop right now. It'll be fine' but we're stopping and starting the traffic and they don't know when we're doing that," Bourque said.
Many ride share drivers know where these locations are but if police see drivers in an unauthorized area they can be given a $108 ticket.
