Ready to rally

20,000 expected to assemble at Pine Trails Park

Whether you will be joining Saturday’s local March for Our Lives rally at Parkland’s Pine Trails Park or simply traveling through the area, there are some parking and safety tips that will be good to know along the route.

On Saturday, organizers of the local March for Our Lives rally in Parkland expect some 20,000 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School teenagers, families and allies of the #NeverAgain movement to assemble at Pine Trails Park.

It’s a crush of visitors so massive that the student-run rally has scrambled to secure offsite parking, since Trails Park, whose lots can’t handle visitors in the thousands, will be closed to car traffic. A ramped-up police presence will mean road closures surrounding the park to free up space for marchers, said Todd DeAngelis, Parkland’s city spokesman.

“Bottom line, it’s a regional-size event in a community park,” DeAngelis said. “Even though it’s an 80-acre park, there’s no easy way to handle all of the traffic we expect to get.”

Since the Feb. 14 massacre of 17 Stoneman Douglas students and faculty, Pine Trails Park has become a symbolic rallying point for students and victims, a home to protests, prayer vigils and memorials. It’s also the venue of choice for those not attending the main March for Our Lives event in Washington, D.C.

The South Florida Sun Sentinel will feature live coverage of these March for Our Lives events this Saturday, with reporters in Washington, D.C., and at local sister marches in Parkland and Boca Raton. Go to the Sun Sentinel’s Facebook page starting at 10 a.m. and follow along

MIKE STOCKER/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER On March 14, students from Westglades Middle School joined nationwide walkouts to protest the killing of 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.