Quote:
Originally Posted by someone123
I have never seen a suburban facility where tens of thousands of people were able to leave in a timely fashion. Without exception it's been gridlock, often for an hour or more just to get out of the parking lot. I would not assume that proximity to one or multiple highways will solve this, but having a mix of modes might help a lot.
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In the case of Ottawa a highway situated directly next to Scotiabank Centre does nothing to alleviate the traffic either going to or coming from events. A normal drive without traffic is 25 minutes and on game nights it's usually an hour. That doesn't include walking from wherever you've parked to the actual arena itself.
Mix modes do help to a degree but they're not overly helpful when dealing with suburban setups. OC Transpo provides direct shuttle buses from downtown to the arena but they're often stuck on the same highways as the rest of the people driving are. Even with HOV lanes primarily for buses they still end up on the same roads once they reach Kanata anyway. That, and you're pressed up against four people for 35+ minutes. The ride back isn't much better.
Using simple assumptions of the CFL's audience base (older, vehicle-driving) (
Source) it's not surprising that the more urban venues in the league (Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver) are having difficulty getting fans out to games. It feels like fans simply don't want to make the trek into the cities. Comments in this thread regarding vehicle access and parking on-site supports my assumption to a degree, as does MFL's desire to build a parking garage with the stadium.
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