Parking and transportation updates for Savannah’s St. Patrick’s Day

SAVANNAH, Ga. (WTOC) - We’re less than 48 hours from Savannah’s biggest parade of the year and city officials are reminding you of several parking and transportation updates.

If you’re planning to use a rideshare app to get around, it may not come straight to you.

Say you’re north of Broughton Street, maybe you’re on river street or in City Market and you want to use Uber or Lyft to get to your destination on Friday or Saturday. You’ll be prompted to go to one of three specific locations to be picked up to help traffic run more smoothly. One of those locations is in Johnson Square.

Indian Street and Telfair Square are the other locations. These will be drop off locations as well.

As usual, city officials say parking can get hectic. There are several signs in parking spaces along the parade route and throughout downtown that say you can’t park there from 12:01 a.m. on March 17th until the event is over.

You can be towed if you park in these spots. Meters will not run Friday but they will run Saturday. If you don’t want to drive, there will be more CAT buses than usual on the street as they are offering free rides from 4:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.

City Manager Jay Melder says there are three tips he hopes residents and visitors will keep in mind.

“Have a plan, two is to come early and three is to be patient and stay calm. Traffic will be heavy, especially in the morning and it will get heavier as the morning progresses up until the parade starts. We want you to take public transit. We want you to bike. If you do drive, we want you to come early and park in a garage.”

Parking in City of Savannah garages is $25 and there have already been 900 garage spaces presold but there are still spots available.

A few things to keep in mind on parade day - you can start placing personal items like chairs along the parade route as early as 6 p.m. Thursday but they can’t block driveways and lanes. You can’t put items or set up in squares until 6 a.m. on Friday.

Also, if you can, any traffic concerns that are not an emergency, Savannah police ask that you call 311 and not 911.

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