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Caltrans workers are likely to be logging lots of overtime in their rush to widen an off-ramp from the Harbor (110) Freeway in time for the opening of Staples Center on Oct. 17.

They’re battling the eight-week deadline so thousands of cars won’t back up onto the freeway as people head for the Bruce Springsteen concert that night the first event planned at the new arena.

After that, home games for the Lakers and Clippers basketball teams and the Kings hockey club are expected to draw as many as 8,500 cars to the already-jammed downtown area.

An estimated 75 percent of those cars are expected to arrive via freeway.

To head off massive traffic jams, the Staples Center has issued a $530,000 contract to the California Department of Transportation to widen the freeway off-ramp at Olympic Boulevard. It was a key element in a multimillion-dollar plan announced last week to address traffic concerns, first reported by the Business Journal last March.

But with only eight weeks to go, Staples Center officials and their contractors have their work cut out for them.

“We’re working very hard,” said Donald Berges, the Staples Center’s project manager for infrastructure. “It’s a push, but we’re going to get it done.”

The traffic and parking plan also includes extensive street widening around the Convention Center/Staples Center complex, the addition of turn lanes, extension of Cherry Street through to Olympic, and converting 11th and 12th streets into two-way streets.

The plan also calls for changeable message signs and direction signs to be installed at various points around the Staples Center to help direct motorists.

Arena officials also are in the midst of finalizing deals with several independent parking lot owners and operators in the area to secure 9,000 parking spaces.

Officials with the city and Caltrans, who several months ago were concerned that traffic improvements might not be finished on time, are now somewhat more optimistic that the work will be completed for the opening.

“Two months time is do-able,” said Tom Choe, chief for traffic management in Caltrans’ District 7 office. “They (Staples Center officials) assured us they can do it, so we’re hoping it will work.”

Work began on the freeway off-ramp on Aug. 2 and is projected to finish by the end of September.

The office of Councilwoman Rita Walters, who initially opposed the Staples Center and had been skeptical of the traffic plan earlier this year, now believes the work will likely be finished.

“People are really working around the clock,” said John Sheppard, land use and planning deputy for Walters. “I expected it to come together. But it has been a crash course for all of us.”

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