This Saturday, plethora of events bodes ill for motorists

Do yourself a favor by treating the 10-110 freeway interchange in downtown L.A. on Saturday as if it's a fang-mouthed sand monster right out of the third "Star Wars" movie. Go nowhere near it. Why?

On paper, at least, Saturday promises to be an epic Los Angeles traffic day.

First, there are three big sporting events scheduled to begin within a 135-minute span: the USC-Oregon football game at the Coliseum at 5 p.m., the Cubs-Dodgers playoff game at Dodger Stadium at 7 and the Washington State-UCLA football game at the Rose Bowl at 7:15.

Combined, they are expected to attract at least 200,000 people and probably more. (This being L.A., could 200,000 people somehow manage to show up in 200,000 cars?)

But that's not all. At 8 p.m., Neil Diamond is scheduled to take the stage at Staples Center in downtown L.A. On the north side of downtown, the four streets surrounding City Hall will be closed from Friday evening through Sunday morning for the LA Weekly Festival.

And, just one block over on 2nd Street, there's a fundraiser for Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama on Saturday evening at the Edison. Sen. Hillary Clinton is scheduled to attend.

The Swell Season also has a show at the Greek Theatre on Saturday evening. And, earlier in the day, from 6 a.m. to 1 p.m., Wilshire Boulevard between Fairfax and Sycamore will be closed for the Miracle Mile Run. To finish the day, Lankershim Boulevard in North Hollywood closes at 9 p.m. Saturday for the NoHo Scene festival on Sunday.

If it makes you feel any better, the Hollywood Bowl is mercifully not booked on Saturday.

A few pieces of advice:

* Stay home Saturday and watch traffic deteriorate on Internet real-time traffic maps. Boring, but possibly satisfying.

* Put friends and family on super-high triple-red-alert and leave ridiculously early for your event if driving. If I were driving to the Dodger game, for example, I'd leave Friday night.

* If attending any of the events in downtown L.A., take mass transit. Both the Blue Line light rail and the subway have stops near Staples, and the subway also stops a couple of blocks from City Hall.

* The Dodger Stadium shuttle bus from Union Station is running Saturday, according to the Dodgers. It begins at 5:30 p.m. from Union Station and will run for at least an hour after the game back to the train station. Expect lines.

Good luck out there.