Formula 1 traffic at COTA: What to expect

AUSTIN, Texas – Formula 1 kicked off Friday at Circuit of the Americas. With people traveling to Austin from all over the world, that also means more traffic.

Officials with COTA say there are changes with transportation this year.

“The fan experience starts how you arrive,” Cady Chow, director of public relations for COTA, said. “I think the best part of some of the improvements that we’ve made over the last ten years definitely include our transportation updates.”

They’ve brought in 600 shuttles and there are different pickup locations in downtown, southwest, and northeast Austin.

COTA Blvd. will be closed to rideshare drivers. Riders will have to go to the Del Valle High School parking lot and take a shuttle.

Several attendees say they parked about a mile away.

“We are not looking forward to the ride out though, because I know we’re going to hit the traffic we missed this morning, but it’s worth it,” Therese Reynolds said.

Officials at the airport say there will be a temporary rerouting of traffic on Spirit of Texas Drive off Highway 71 on Sunday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Monday from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. to give priority to fuel tanks delivering jet fuel.

There will be signs and officers directing drivers to Hotel Drive to get to the terminal, cell phone lot, and rental car area.

Monday is expected to be a record-breaking day.

“We just broke our record of the airport’s busiest day this last Monday of ACL with 35,357 departing passengers. The Monday after the F1 race had broken the record for the single busiest day for departing passengers in airport history two F1 races in a row. We can expect to break this past Monday’s record with F1 travelers this weekend. We expect over 35,000 passengers to fly out on Monday,” Airport officials said.

If you are trying to get to the airport this weekend and Monday, leave plenty of time to get there in case of slow traffic.