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Not to mention the Staten Island is free! I was on it a couple of years ago and as I was exiting I noticed the floor plan on the wall said "this level 1550 passangers" and there are 3 levels. Perhaps they would sell us one if they need an upgrade? It would be a great tourist draw...........It could dock at Purdy's Wharf.
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Right, well even what I'm suggesting:
1. Would not be free to help pay for itself
2. Would probably have an assortment of ferries that could handle the situation. They could use Purdys, but could use some of the other docks as well. Or enlarge the current ferry facility. But yeah, even in the short term they could just buy just one of those larger boats, set up a ticket window on Purdy's, and they're off to the races. Although I'd prefer a larger investment and looking into if they could re-vamp the current ferry terminal.
3. The example of Staten Island is to just give an idea of what's possible. When dealing with a crowd of 25,000 people, how many of these would the ferry(s) service? The aim is not of course to even be able to service all 25,000 people, but to make routes less congested for those 25,000 people. Even if it's only 1,500 people, remember that of the remaining 23,500, we're not concerned so much about those staying in Dartmouth or those running up to Bedford and Sackville: the Bedford bypass would take care of most of that. Nor are we concerned about those that have trucked it in from say, Moncton -- they'll be headed up the 118, past Dartmouth Crossing. We're only concerned about the portion of that 23,500 that's living either in Halifax or communities further west. And sure, that's a significant number, but 1,500 is a much larger chunk of that number even if we somehow can't get past that 1,500 ceiling, which I think is totally possible.
I think there's more transit options in Shannon Park as-is than even in Downtown, and that it would cost relatively less to make make it a serviceable location. There's the downside RyeJay points out, and rightly so -- in that it creates a sort of 'urban node' outside of either current downtown region and not on the Halifax peninsula -- but I think if we put it this the peninsula, the amount of rework that would have to go into handling local traffic would be at least just as much cost: I think Windsor street would have to be completely revamped, and Massachusetts/Robie, although better equipped, would have to be significantly re-done as well, not to mention Kempt Rd. And there'd be a lot of headaches as the construction went on around those neighborhoods. Wouldn't the road network need to be significantly re-organized? Plus we might be thinking about an LRT to handle all the human traffic much sooner than we might otherwise need to (which is not so bad, but it's costly).
Put it in Shannon Park and I think you'd just be working with Windmill Rd. I know we don't want to plan around short-term headaches like that, but there is a certain convenience to it.
Does it stretch out the urban area and kick density in the shins? Yeah, I suppose... but other cities have made worse decisions regarding their stadiums.
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