Tennessee's home opener kicks off Saturday at 3:30, and from this side of the river you can walk to the shuttle
The Vols host Furman in the first home game of the season, in the mid-90s. Most of what you have read about the new traffic plan is not actually new — but the shuttle that starts a short walk over the Gay Street Bridge is the best thing on offer, and it costs ten dollars.
Tennessee plays its first home game of the season on Saturday, hosting Furman at 3:30 in the afternoon. A hundred thousand people are coming to a stadium you can see from the end of several South Knoxville streets, and the useful thing to know from over here is that you do not have to drive into any of it.
- Kickoff
- Sat Sep 5 · 3:30 PM · Tennessee vs. Furman
- Watch
- SEC Network+ / ESPN+
- The shuttle
- Krutch Park, on Clinch Ave · $10 round trip · Transit app
- Shuttle runs
- From 12:30 PM · returns from Walters Life Sciences, 4th quarter to ~1 hr after
- Driving instead
- Civic Coliseum park and ride, $30 per vehicle, garages open noon
- Actually new
- A Kingston Pike Express Lane in Neyland Drive's far-left lane; gates open 30 min earlier
- Heat
- Near 95 at kickoff — the fourth straight day in the mid-90s
- Quiet hours in SoKno
- Before noon, and after about 8 PM
The shuttle you can walk to
KAT runs a game day shuttle out of Krutch Park, on Clinch Avenue downtown. Ten dollars round trip per person, bought through the Transit app, no parking fee attached because you did not park. Buses start three hours before kickoff — so from about 12:30 — and run continuously until game time, dropping at the Walters Life Sciences Building on campus. Coming back, you board at Walters from the start of the fourth quarter until roughly an hour after the final whistle.
From the north end of the neighborhood that is a walk, not a drive: over the Gay Street Bridge and up Gay Street to Clinch Avenue, and the park is right there. If you would rather drive, the Civic Coliseum park and ride is thirty dollars per vehicle including the round trip, and those garages open at noon. One thing to note before you plan around it: the Old City shuttle runs for SEC opponents only — Texas, Auburn, Alabama, Kentucky and LSU — so it is not an option this Saturday.
What is actually new, and what isn't
The university has been talking up a redesigned game day traffic pattern that goes live with this game, and it is worth being precise about how much of it is a change. Neyland Drive running three lanes westbound and one eastbound is not new — anyone who has driven it on a Saturday has seen that before, and the eastbound side is set up that way because those lanes were typically sitting empty. One lane going east is plenty, and it will be fine on Saturday too.
The genuinely new piece is smaller and more specific: the far-left of those westbound lanes now runs as a Kingston Pike Express Lane, meant to move that traffic out without it getting caught behind everything else. If you are headed for the near west side after the game, it might be worth a try. Gates also open half an hour earlier than they used to.
When it lands
Kickoff is 3:30, so the inbound wave builds through late morning and peaks in the early afternoon; the Vol Walk pulls fans toward campus around a quarter past one. The game should end somewhere near 6:45. Mornings are clear, the late evening is clear, and the middle of Saturday belongs to the stadium.
The part nobody is advertising
It is going to be brutally hot. The forecast has Thursday near 97, Friday near 96, and Saturday near 95, with heat index values running higher and the National Weather Service already telling people to take breaks and drink water. A 3:30 kickoff means the first half is played in the worst of the afternoon. Shade, water and a hat are not optional accessories this weekend, and that goes double for anyone standing on a sidewalk waiting for a bus.
