01-25-2016, 02:10 PM
It's a 750m walk from the Aud to the Borden LRT station.
There's precedent that people will walk this far. Skydome is 750m away from Union subway station.
As for dealing with the crush of people after a game, there are a few things that can help with that:
1) The 750m walk does a good job of spreading the load out. Some people are faster, and some slower. If it takes 15 minutes for everyone to file out of the stadium, and 5~15 minutes to walk the distance, then people are arriving at the platform from ~5 minutes after the game through to ~30 minutes after the game. At 10 minute frequencies, that spreads the load over 3 trains, each direction. The trains have a crush capacity of 250 people, which is probably optimistic so lets say 200, so that's room for 1,200 people.
2) ION Expansion. 2-car trains doubles the capacity. 5-minute frequency (should be be so lucky one day) doubles that again, to 4,800. I don't see an 8,000 seat arena maxing that out, considering a lot of Kitchenerites would be going east/west instead of the north/south offered by ION.
3) Better bus service. When the 205 iXpress on Ottawa starts up, it will offer a regular route that covers much of Kitchener. No needing to trust a special shuttle that may or may not be what you want. If it proves popular, GRT can arrange unscheduled extra runs that marshal outside the stadium.
4) realtyforward's idea to add "things to do" around the Aud. If there were more places nearby for post-game drinks or meals, each of those will capture and delay a small chunk of the traffic.
There's precedent that people will walk this far. Skydome is 750m away from Union subway station.
As for dealing with the crush of people after a game, there are a few things that can help with that:
1) The 750m walk does a good job of spreading the load out. Some people are faster, and some slower. If it takes 15 minutes for everyone to file out of the stadium, and 5~15 minutes to walk the distance, then people are arriving at the platform from ~5 minutes after the game through to ~30 minutes after the game. At 10 minute frequencies, that spreads the load over 3 trains, each direction. The trains have a crush capacity of 250 people, which is probably optimistic so lets say 200, so that's room for 1,200 people.
2) ION Expansion. 2-car trains doubles the capacity. 5-minute frequency (should be be so lucky one day) doubles that again, to 4,800. I don't see an 8,000 seat arena maxing that out, considering a lot of Kitchenerites would be going east/west instead of the north/south offered by ION.
3) Better bus service. When the 205 iXpress on Ottawa starts up, it will offer a regular route that covers much of Kitchener. No needing to trust a special shuttle that may or may not be what you want. If it proves popular, GRT can arrange unscheduled extra runs that marshal outside the stadium.
4) realtyforward's idea to add "things to do" around the Aud. If there were more places nearby for post-game drinks or meals, each of those will capture and delay a small chunk of the traffic.