Avoiding the Fair Requires Practice

Although more than a million people attended the Del Mar Fair last year, not all North County residents share in the enthusiasm for this annual salute to agriculture and entertainment.

They are the people who prefer to get around the fair altogether. Those who are fairground “neighbors” have had to be especially skilled at devising strategies for avoiding the traffic and hullabaloo.

Suzanne Spector has lived in Solana Beach since 1963 and attended the fair every year until 1982, when she decided “that was enough.” She recalls the years before there was a freeway that extended to Del Mar and fair-goers had to find alternative routes. She remembers later years when there were no traffic signals on Via de la Valle and Jimmy Durante Boulevard, the main artery to the fairgrounds.

“I think that the traffic signals have made a big improvement in getting back and forth,” Spector said, but added that she has her own way of getting around Via de la Valle and the freeway during peak fair hours, just as she does during the thoroughbred horse racing season.

“You need to know the busy hours and avoid them,” Spector said simply. “As far as the fair is concerned, when it opens at 10 a.m., it’s busy.”

Spector’s personal solution to the traffic: “I do my shopping in other business areas by using alternate routes. What I do is go up Lomas Santa Fe Drive, cut around behind the Four Flags Shopping Center, and there is a back way that takes you across Via de la Valle to the Big Bear Shopping Center. You can avoid the freeway and Via de la Valle altogether if you go that way.”

Jim Gahen, a new resident to Del Mar living on a strip of Via de la Valle near the fairgrounds, has yet to experience fair season and the throngs of people flocking from all over the county. Other happenings at the fairgrounds have prepared him, however, for traffic headaches the fair is likely to create.

“Any event at the fairgrounds makes such a mess of traffic around here that I’ve learned to go past it,” Gahen said. “If you go a mile further north on I-5 and take the Lomas Santa Fe exit and come back down to Stevens, it helps.”

Businesses near the fairgrounds also are philosophical about the traffic problems the fair creates. Shelly Patrick, manager of Pannikin Coffee & Tea in the Flower Hill Shopping Center situated directly off the Via de la Valle exit to the fair, says customers simply stay away because they assume traffic will be a hassle.

“I’ve worked here nine years, and business has always dropped off during fair time, just like it does during the racing season,” Patrick said. “But I drive through the traffic every day, at all hours, to get to work, and there is not that much of a problem.

“It’s mostly just getting off the freeway that takes the time, because once you get to the exit, you turn one direction to get to the mall and another direction to get to the fair,” Patrick said.

California Highway Patrol spokesman John Marinez, who also is a Solana Beach resident, knows firsthand the problems of fair traffic and says that most longtime residents know how to avoid the hot spots.

“A lot of the locals, we’ll walk to the fair or stay home and avoid Via (de la Valle) altogether,” Marinez said. “For new people to the area, they better start planning real soon on heavy traffic once the fair starts,” he said. “You can look for traffic backup on northbound I-5 near Via de la Valle from 3:30 p.m. on. Depending on the entertainment featured that night, traffic can come to a complete stop or move slow throughout that area between 5 and 6 p.m.”

Using surface streets as much as possible is helpful, Marinez said. Completely avoiding Via de la Valle is possible and advised if a person is not planning on attending the fair, he said. Avoiding the freeway is possible, although it does not guarantee smooth motoring in the area near the fairgrounds.

For freeway commuters, Marinez said, “If you are traveling south, get on Del Mar Heights Road, and, if you are traveling north, take Lomas Santa Fe or go further up to the Birmingham exit in Cardiff and backtrack.”