Quote:
Originally Posted by acottawa
Major cities have hundreds or thousands of hotels, yet there are rarely more than a handful to a dozen near the central train station. Gare Central has 9 within 500 metres (per Expedia). Union station in Toronto has a similar number. In both cases that isn’t an exact number because it depends where you exit the station (and also where you get off the train).
Most train stations are only “downtown” because a business district built up around them after they were built. St Pancras is nowhere near any of London’s traditional “downtowns”. Gare Centrale is nowhere near Montreal’s traditional downtown (by the cathedral). Nobody is proposing building a tunnel under London and underground train station to bring the Eurostar to Westminster or the City. The Eurostar brings people to a relatively central location where they can take transit or taxis to their destination. The same is true for Montreal, Rome, Moscow, Paris, New York, etc. I know we have a Toronto obsession in Ottawa and want to replicate the massive convergence or transportation and amenities that exists at Union Station, but that doesn’t work for Ottawa’s geography.
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I'm not sure what exactly your point is - that business districts grew up around train stations, rather than the reverse? Maybe, but it doesn't change the fact that they are there and surrounded by hotels and offices and apartments now, which makes it very convenient for travellers.
I'm not sure how to respond to the statement that major cities only have a handful of hotels near their train stations. That's largely untrue in North America, including in the New York example you cite. There are large hotel clusters within blocks of both Penn and Grand Central. In addition, the central hotels tend to be much larger and have more rooms than the suburban ones.
And that is also the case in Montreal. Regardless of the history, the station currently sits in pretty much the exact centre of the central business district. If, as you say, nine major hotels are within a 5 minute walk of the station, that is nothing to be dismissive of. A quick tabulation shows about 3800 rooms in those nine hotels. And if you extend your radius from 500 to 700m, which is a pretty easy walk for most people, you likely triple the number of hotels that are accessible, as you bring in the convention centre and the hotel cluster around it, a whack of hotels on Sherbrooke St, and the hotels surrounding the Bell Centre. No other location in the city can come close to matching that density of hotel rooms.
Sure some people will take cabs. Some will take the subway. Some will walk. In all three cases, those trips are shorter due to the central location of the train station. It would be the same in Ottawa. I really don't understand what is controversial about that. You are doing backflips to try to prove that downtown isn't the major destination for people staying in hotels?
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