Motorists and Six Flags Magic Mountain visitors sat in immovable traffic that spilled out from Interstate 5 onto Magic Mountain Parkway, leaving behind gridlock on the freeway and nearby surface streets Sunday.
During the afternoon, the northbound side of the I-5 grinded to a slow pace over Calgrove Boulevard to the Magic Mountain Parkway off-ramp, while southbound traffic was backed up as far as Castaic Junction.
No collisions appeared to further slow traffic down, according to Officer Elizabeth Kravig of the California Highway Patrol traffic management center. CHP officers directed traffic at four intersections along Magic Mountain Parkway starting at The Old Road, the northbound and southbound off-ramp intersections and at Tourney Road.
By 5:06 p.m., CHP issued a traffic alert that due to heavy traffic in the area, Magic Mountain Parkway at The Old Road will be closed until further notice, according to the CHP PIO’s Twitter account.
Guests visited Six Flags as the current park season comes to a close in order to keep their season passes going, according to park spokeswoman Sue Carpenter.
“Many of our season pass holders are renewing their passes before they expire at the end of the year,” said Carpenter. “That, combined with the beautiful weather, the holiday weekend, and our year-end season pass offer, the park is very busy today.”
Park goers also stopped by for the New Year’s Parkholder Celebration, which allows members and passholders to take a friend with them for free, as well as receive discounts for food, merchandise and points for membership rewards participants and diamond elite members, on Dec. 30-31.
By 3:18 p.m., the park tweeted that the parking lots were at full capacity. It added that Holiday in the Park, a light show that began in November and ends Dec. 30, will be extended through Jan. 5. The park also confirmed in a Twitter thread that seasonal passes about to expire will be extend through to Jan. 6.
Colleen Kamiyama visited the park with her son and his family to bring a free guest to the park. Waiting outside with her grandson, she said they arrived earlier in the day and did not know how crowded it would get.
“We’ve never seen it like this before,” she said. “Even to get a soda or anything, it took so long.”
