Hey there – in case everybody else has already tuned out for the night: I don’t drive downtown much myself so if I have to go, I honestly allot an hour, just in case. Easier to get there early and kill time than to get stuck in a traffic mess and be panicking. If you take 99 you’ll have to go quite a ways east through downtown to get that far east, so taking I-5 to the collector-distributor lanes, which have a Madison offramp, puts you closer.
One other bit of advice – check our traffic watch in the morning – unless there is MASSIVE breaking news, we always have something at the top of the home page, and if major incidents affect routes from here, we’ll mention it – we monitor police, fire, SDOT, and the broadcast traffic reporters.
Good luck!
-TR