The Aud

[westwardloo]

A downtown arena would be a depressing monolith every night it wasn't hosting something. Traffic on game nights would be really annoying since it would be all up in people's business instead of mostly contained at the Aud's current parking lots. I don't know what average use of an arena is but I reckon it's gotta be 3 nights a week without any events for most places. I can't see how having a huge empty block 3 or 4 nights a week would be better than just having a mixed use development on that block.

I think the city missed a chance to expand the Aud more when they decided to do the last one, apparently the Rangers wanted space for 11,500 which would cost $44m at the time. I am not really keen on seeing city money spent to build sports venues but since the Rangers are publicly owned it might make some money back?

It's been a long time since I've been to a ranger's game but I can't see a lot of people taking transit; if a family/group wants to go, parking and gas would have to be more than 26$ if that family were to pay full fare for transit, usually driving to the game is quicker. Anyone with a van or SUV could take a bigger group and split the parking/gas costs with more people.

I believe the newer downtown arenas tend to be "mixed use" in a sense as they incorporated commercial units facing the street i.e restaurants. Which would obviously be busier on game/event night but would also be open on other night to keep the street vibrant when nothing is on at the arena. Traffic, Traffic, Traffic always seems to be an issue with people in this region, yet I haven't noticed much traffic since I moved here. So at most it will take 15-mins to drive home from downtown? most concerts/ games occur in the evening or mid-day on weekends when traffic is relatively light in this region. Another point is that if people are using 4 different parking garages around the downtown when they go to a game so most of the traffic will be spread out. I am sure they will do traffic studies to showcase this. 

Expanding the seating of the current location in a small part of the issue with the current arena. Even if the had, there would still be issues with the lack of fan experience when going to a game, insufficient concourse to accommodate the fans, lack of modern corporate boxes, probably still inadequate to host major performances do to layout issues. So we would have spent $44 million and received nothing but a 2,000 more seats.

I thought transit users already get a discount if they are attending a game? Sounds like an excuse from people that never and will never take transit "No one would take take transit if they can afford to drive." What about families that live on the lrt line? Families who's kids already have a transit pass? Families who's parents want a couple drinks? I think people would be surprised at how many people would take transit to the game if it was downtown.