Adding to the congestion, both in South Philly and for traffic trying to move through Center City, will be two charity events on Sunday.
Between 1 p.m. Saturday and near midnight on Sunday night, the sports complex will be the scene for homecoming football (Temple-Bowling Green), an NHL game pairing bitter rivals (Flyers-Penguins), an NFL matchup of teams with playoff ambitions (Eagles-Falcons), and the Phillies' first two NLCS meetings with the San Francisco Giants.
Also on Sunday, a walk to benefit the fight against cancer will begin at 1 p.m., at Marconi Plaza at Broad Street and Oregon Avenue and make its way to the Navy Yard, at the foot of South Broad. Estimated participation is 5,000. Farther north, an AIDS run/walk is expected to draw 20,000 participants with start times of 8 a.m. and 9 a.m., beginning at Eakins Oval in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, proceeding on Kelly and Martin Luther King Drives and returning to the oval.
It is, of course, the Phillies-Giants contests that are both the most significant and most anticipated. As a result, each of the other local teams has taken steps to reduce the anticipated traffic crush surrounding those baseball games - 7:57 p.m. Saturday and 8:19 p.m. Sunday - and urged fans who ordinarily would drive to carpool or use SEPTA's Broad Street subway line.
SEPTA officials said they will be providing additional service on the line, including sports express trains that will depart every 10 minutes during the hours of heaviest demand.
"We are doing everything we can to get the word out," said Mike Stiles, the Phils' senior vice president for administration and operations.
