The shuttle service for spectators at the Solheim Cup last week was an unmitigated disaster for the LPGA Tour, marring the biennial competition’s otherwise delightful playing at the Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Manassas, Virginia.
On the first day of the competition, fans waited for upwards of 90 minutes for what should have been a short shuttle ride from the parking lots. Could the Presidents Cup be in store for a similar fate?
Presidents Cup tournament director Ryan Hart has been prepping for this week for three years and he says the parking and transportation plan has been vetted and they are ready to go.
“I felt for them,” he said of the Solheim Cup debacle. “It makes you look at your own systems and do a gut check to make sure you’re as buttoned up as you can be.”
Hart and his team will have their work cut out for them. The match between the U.S. men’s 12 best and the International Team, which is made up of the 12 best from the rest of the world excluding Europe, is being held at Royal Montreal Golf Club in Ile-Bizard, Quebec, one of the three populated islands within the city of Montreal. The Jacques-Bizard Bridge connects it across the Riviere des Prairies with Sainte-Genevieve on the Island of Montreal.
The bridge is the only way on and off the island and with more than 30,000 spectators expected to the attend the competition daily, what could possibly go wrong?
“Priority No. 1 when I got this job was to make sure that we had a plan to get our people from downtown and surrounding hotels to the property as efficiently as possible,” Hart said.
But despite all that lead time, the plan to expand the bridge from three to four lanes, which is expected to ease the commute for Ile-Bizard residents, remains under construction. While Presidents Cup officials were assured the project would be completed ahead of the biennial competition, which begins Thursday, Sept. 26, that is not the case. The construction project has been delayed and won’t be completed till at least the first quarter of 2025. Hart said that hurdle has been addressed as best as possible.
“We do this for a living and started tweaking our plan when we were given notice in the first quarter of this year,” Hart said.
Royal Montreal previously hosted the Presidents Cup in 2007 and the RBC Canadian Open in 2014, so the PGA Tour, which operates the biennial competition flipping between U.S. and international sites, has dealt with this bridge issue before.
“Let me tell you, 15 years ago it was horrible,” said one local resident in an interview with CBC. “This time it’s going to be worse with the bridge.”
“I’m already planning to just stay at home as much as I can and try to work from home that week,” another local commuter said.
And the CBC’s best local resident response: “I hope they helicopter them in.”
Hart noted that an F1 race held on the island in June highlighted some potential “pinch points” and elevated their focus to those areas. Workers have been building the site for the event since last October and have a game plan to address traffic concerns for what Hart called the Tour’s biggest global event. (It has a floorplan three times the size of that at the RBC Canadian Open, the Tour’s largest tournament north of the border.)
The tournament built a bus and shuttle drop-off terminal to manage traffic going over the bridge from a 40-minute radius and disperse people to multiple pickup points for shuttle service. There are four points where people can park and shuttle to the tournament, offering both free and paid options. There are also two other pickup spots without parking near metro stops where spectators can hop a free ride (roughly 25 minutes) to the tournament’s main entrance. All lots will have shuttles running on a 20-minute loop.
The first tee shot on Thursday isn’t until 11:35 a.m. ET (gates open at 9 a.m. ET) and shuttle service begins at 7 a.m., so there should be ample time to be there for balls in the air. There’s also a rideshare lot and new taxi-shuttle-HOV lanes – a fast-pass lane – have been added to the route from downtown Montreal since the competition was last held there, and should alleviate congestion.
Due to the bridge delay, tournament organizers did reduce the on-site parking footprint, which is limited to those big spenders who bought hospitality, as well as staffing, according to Hart. Only those local residents with a hangtag pass will be permitted to cross the bridge from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily.
But for the 18,000 people who live on the island, Ile-Bizard Mayor Doug Hurley said he expects the traffic congestion to be a headache.
“You’re basically going to suffer,” said Ile-Bizard Mayor Doug Hurley.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: After Solheim Cup shuttle debacle, could traffic issues be a major ‘headache’ for fans at 2024 Presidents Cup?