Even with the huge lot the Aud has, parking is a major, major problem. It would be even worse downtown where there can't be a huge lot for it (or there could be, but people would complain endlessly about "having a parking lot downtown" - horrors!). My inlaws live right around there and every single side street is crammed with people parking for the Rangers games, even the nearby public school has its lot full on game days.
Does a shuttle bus have the capacity to handle surge loading like that when a game lets out, though? I like that idea a lot, but I would think you'd need a bank of busses all queued up at the Aud to just flush out as much as you could all at once. You can trickle people in at the beginning of the game since that is human nature but when the game ends it's a different story entirely. I don't know what the capacity is, but if it's 20 000 people, and if only 10% take Light Rail and need to get to the Charles St. stop, that's still 2000 people you have to move in the course of ~15 minutes, to be reasonable.
I'm reminded of the day I was in Morgantown touring the PRT and was in a car that central control was "manually" driving through the station closest to their stadium... right when a game let out. The station was the definition of "crush loading". The look on peoples' faces when our nearly-empty car passed through the loading area and the doors stayed firmly shut was horrifying. I felt like I was in one of those submersible shark cages at feeding time!
Maybe where it is right now is fine, especially since it's so close to the Conestoga Parkway.
Does a shuttle bus have the capacity to handle surge loading like that when a game lets out, though? I like that idea a lot, but I would think you'd need a bank of busses all queued up at the Aud to just flush out as much as you could all at once. You can trickle people in at the beginning of the game since that is human nature but when the game ends it's a different story entirely. I don't know what the capacity is, but if it's 20 000 people, and if only 10% take Light Rail and need to get to the Charles St. stop, that's still 2000 people you have to move in the course of ~15 minutes, to be reasonable.
I'm reminded of the day I was in Morgantown touring the PRT and was in a car that central control was "manually" driving through the station closest to their stadium... right when a game let out. The station was the definition of "crush loading". The look on peoples' faces when our nearly-empty car passed through the loading area and the doors stayed firmly shut was horrifying. I felt like I was in one of those submersible shark cages at feeding time!
Maybe where it is right now is fine, especially since it's so close to the Conestoga Parkway.