Closures, detours in downtown Houston for MAGA rally

HOUSTON (FOX 26) - Pity the poor downtown Houston office workers come Monday. Their predictions?

"Chaos...we should all work from home Monday," said Tracy Bishop. Not a bad idea and exactly what Houston police suggest.

"Oh, absolutely I can," said Jeff Carroll. "Do I want to? No. I work with kids."

The President Donald Trump Make America Great Again rally in support of incumbent U.S. Senator Ted Cruz was initially scheduled to take place at NRG Arena. The sheer demand for tickets to the event made organizers realize that the venue would not be large enough. The White House told the Houston Police Department that the event would be moving to the Toyota Center at 6:30 p.m. on Monday. 

"The Toyota Center has the capacity for about 18,000 and I think we've got about 70,000 people who have signed up, so we anticipate a large crowd inside and a large crowd outside," said HPD Chief Art Acevedo. He also said the estimate does not account for protesters and that police project plenty of them as a factor.

More streets will be shut down as needed and security will be drum tight. Another wild card is the motorcade route closures. Chief Acevedo would not elaborate on when and where for security reasons. Suffice it to say that will make a bad traffic day even worse. If you can't work from home, you might want to see if you can cut out early. Not everyone will be able to do that either. 

"It probably won't be until later, so you are screwed," added Bishop with a laugh. "I know. It doesn't matter what time you leave your going to be screwed anyway."

The City of Houston Mayor's Office released the following statement on Friday regarding street closures, detour routes and METRO transit schedules for the event on Monday: