Quote:
Originally Posted by IanWatson
Only a small proportion of locals live in walking distance of Shannon Park though. DC is easily connected to pretty much all of HRM by highways, in addition to being well-connected to the rest of Atlantic Canada. There is a reason they built a major shopping centre there. It also won't be very hard to run good transit there to support stadium events.
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Nobody is going to want to go to sporting events if they have to sit on a bus that takes a half hour or more to get there. Similar things can be said for driving. We have this issue in Kanata here for Senators games and are wisely building a new arena Downtown as a result twenty years later. The automotive ease of access had the exact opposite desired effect that a stadium at Dartmouth Crossing would eventually have. You'll alienate most people who have to travel to it whilst bothering locals in the area who have to deal with even higher amounts of traffic in their area. The hassle and time spent reaching the stadium isn't worth the actual event you'll be attending, even if there's only 8/10 CFL games a year. This would count towards any event, whether sporting or concert, at the stadium.
For stadiums you really, really, really, really want foot traffic, or people who can be there on public transport in under 15 minutes. That's the difference between Canadian Tire Centre in Kanata and Lansdowne in Ottawa. So many locals can get to Lansdowne so easily that it makes it the premiere spot for events like the Brier and for outdoor events like the Women's World Cup. Having a stadium in your downtown creates lots of buzz, lots of word of mouth that a stadium in the outskirts just simply wouldn't generate. I just spent a week in New York and went to both an MLS and an MLB game at Yankee Stadium in The Bronx and even that was a half hour subway ride out of Manhattan (Midtown). That stadium is constrained by a lot of property issues in Manhattan but that is an example of an urban stadium and even
that trip was tiresome.
Shannon Park isn't much of a better option, IMO, but it's much better than building it in extreme suburban Dartmouth Crossing.