Some of my family are going to the Taylor Swift concert tonight, so I was talking to my wife about where to park and how to get there while avoiding the absolutely stupid traffic around there.
That led to me complaining how the new arena is going to have even less easy access to it. That led to me looking up some maps and finding this: http://www.edmonton.ca/city_government/projects_redevelopment/arena-transportation.aspx. Best quote from this site:
The high volumes of traffic can be accommodated by using the existing downtown infrastructure of well designed roadways and public transportation.
What the @%&#?! Have these planners ever even tried to drive downtown during @%&#ing rush hour? It's stupid! A couple of weeks ago I was stuck for 35 minutes on one block because of construction closing roads and lanes! And yes, there won't always be construction on the road I'm on, but this is Edmonton, there's either construction or black ice.
Anyway, so, wanna see the maps of where they expect everyone to park?
(http://www.edmonton.ca/city_government/documents/Images/parking_transportation_1_687x424_rdax_600x370_90.jpg)
You'll probably need to zoom in. Right, so the arena is north of 104 Ave between 102 St and 104 St, and they're suggesting people will park and walk from Jasper Ave and 97 St (that's parking lot #9). So much for them putting any kind of plan into the traffic and parking situation. Oh, "all the lots will be empty! there'll be 12,000 spaces!". Except half of them are five or more blocks away, walking through dirty, sketchy downtown streets in the middle of winter with snow whipping around in the canyon winds that can only happen downtown.
The best part of this parking lot map? Parking lot #20. If you've seen the other maps, parking lot #20 is situated right where they plan to make their giant pedestrian outdoor plaza (even going so far as to remove a road). It's a parking lot right now, but if they're going to build a plaza in that parking lot, doesn't that mean it won't exist anymore?
FREAKY I was up early thinking about the same thing WITH an added problem!
+Larger Stadium
+Higher Ticket Prices
+More Capacity
+More People
+More Vehicles
+More Congestion
+Less Parking
It's possible that people would weigh inconvenience of driving downtown, trying to find parking (no options outside the stadium remember!), paying for parking and then paying a higher ticket price with actually wanting to go to the event.
I can easily imagine a future where just the stress of it all makes it not worth the effort to go. And a larger venue with even fewer attendees than Northlands is certainly going to lose money.
I honestly can't say if there's more or less parking. There's certainly less adjacent parking, but I can't find a total-parking-spot count for Rexall Place + Northlands.
Turns out the $450million arena is $604.5million in the end: http://www.edmonton.ca/city_government/projects_redevelopment/the-agreement.aspx
Ahh hahaha, these things never go to budget ... I wish we weren't paying for it.
But yeah, there's overflow parking at Coliseum LRT station, the hotel and a bunch of residential areas people pay (or don't) to park at.
Downtown is like ... where to park that doesn't cost an arm and a leg or doesn't immediately fill up?
I like how they think the LRT part will only cost $7m. And somehow a bridge will cost a lot (4x?) more than that?
That's just to build doors from the LRT station to the arena, the rest was "already being built" so doesn't get included.
I predict that attending games at Edmonton's new arena will suffer the same woes as attending a game at Winnipeg's new stadium: http://globalnews.ca/news/637593/stadium-debut-tarnished-by-traffic-tie-ups/
If anything it'll probably be worse.
So when the new arena opens, what happens to
Northlands Coliseum Skyreach Centre Rexall Place?
How about a huge inner-city neighbourhood mega-school?
http://wtfalberta.blogspot.ca/2014/05/plans-announced-for-inner-city.html
Spoiler
(satirical site) (but idea not as bad as some ideas politicians come up with...)