Thursday night football

Attention cave dwellers: In case you haven’t heard, there’s a little game in town tonight called football involving a certain first-time No. 1-ranked team and some club from Los Angeles that goes by the odd acronym of UCLA (that’s You-See-L.A., not U-claw).

“Hmmpf.”

That was Janice Chase-Barber’s response about how the rare Thursday night Duck home game (it’s only the third in the past 13 years) for a national television broadcast on ESPN will affect businesses and other organizations up and down Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and the surrounding area near Autzen Stadium.

“I’m having to use my vacation time to leave early,” said Chase-Barber, an office assistant at Lane County Mental Health, across the street from Autzen. She will leave work at 3:30 p.m. today — instead of the usual 5 p.m. — 21/2 hours before the 6 p.m. kickoff. Things should be heating up by then, plenty of imbibing going on in the nearby parking lots, plenty of traffic on the road.

“And I won’t be able to go the way I want to go, either,” Chase-Barber said. That would be east on MLK Boulevard, toward her home in Springfield. Instead, she’ll head west toward Coburg Road, and catch Interstate 105 to Interstate 5 north, to Randy Papé Beltline.

But don’t get Chase-Barber wrong — she’s a Duck fan. She’ll be wearing her “Duck colors,” along with others in the office today. And her nails were already painted green and yellow on Wednesday, she said with a laugh.

Still, a weekday game at Autzen means a change in the game-day routine for many in Eugene. University of Oregon students who have Thursday night classes, and there are many, must decide just how important going to class is tonight; Lane Transit District must adjust its bus schedule; businesses will close early; and the Eugene Police Department has the challenge of orchestrating game traffic with normal rush-hour traffic.

If this were 1975, and the Ducks were drawing from 10,000 to 25,000 fans per game at Autzen, it would be no big deal. But this is 2010, and the Ducks are undefeated and ranked No. 1 in the nation for the first time ever this week. And it will be the 72nd straight sellout at Autzen, dating to 1999, and sure to be a zoo.

That’s why Eugene police want you to avoid the area if you’re not going to the game. Normally take the Ferry Street Bridge home from work? Think again and use alternate routes such as the Washington/Jefferson Street Bridge, Delta Highway, Cal Young Road, Harlow Road, Goodpasture Island Road and/or Green Acres/Crescent Avenue, police advise.

The usual game-day traffic diversions will begin about 1:30 p.m. today, said Sgt. Derel Schulz of the department’s Traffic Enforcement Unit. Motorists who disregard traffic control devices are subject to a $262 fine.

The area most impacted will probably be the freeways where the normal weekday post-work rush will mix with the usual game-day traffic of those Duck fans who travel from places such as Portland, Salem and Medford, Schulz said.

“On Saturdays, you don’t have that,” Schulz said of game travelers mixing with weekday commuters. “The last thing we want is a bunch of rear-enders.”

Although businesses such as the Cooler tavern on Centennial Loop and Kowloon restaurant on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard can only benefit from Duck games, regardless of what day it is, it’s a different story for others.

“We’re closing at 1 p.m. because it gets too crazy,” said Cindy Trude, manager at the Top Shop, which makes covers and tops for boats and upholstery for cars, on Centennial Loop. However, like a lot of area businesses, the Top Shop will make some money renting out parking spaces for $10 apiece, Trude said.

Rob Bennett, general manager at Lithia Chrysler Jeep Dodge on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, said he’d rather have the game on a Thursday than a Saturday, a prime shopping day for car dealers.

Regular Saturday home games at Autzen “probably costs us more business than it does on a Thursday,” Bennett said.

Asked if he’d then be for an entire season of Thursday night games, Bennett laughed and said: “I don’t know about that — I still enjoy going to the games (on Saturdays).”