There definitely should be a new downtown arena for the City of Edmonton. The arena would be the center piece of a thriving downtown entertainment district and add some much needed energy to the soul of the city. There are many different ways to finance a project like this, including public funding but the city can re-coup lots of money through property taxes made on the development surrounding the arena. I feel if we want to become a world class city, we need to start with a world class downtown core.
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Absolutely, a revitalized downtown core is a worthy goal. But to play devil's advocate for a moment, I think we all agree there needs to be concrete plans, and not just a "If you build it, they will come" type of mentality.
ReplyDeleteIgnoring the issues with funding for the moment though, one concern that I still have is what this will do to traffic. Other cities which have built in downtown cores have a far more advanced public transit system for moving thousands of people around the city in a short amount of time. Here in Edmonton, we tend to just have a lot of gridlock. To be a world-class city, you need world-class transportation.
I know most games tend to happen on weekends and evenings, when the office workers aren't working. Is this enough?
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ReplyDeleteI have to agree on the public transit, how much money will it really cost them or should I say us to have this arena built, if it cost 1 billion for the arena itself, how much then will it cost to upgrade are public transit? I think in the time Kats wants this built, are city will not even be ready for it in the long run. When it does come down to opening, will are public transit be ready for that much people. I got to say they need to expand are LRT system from Millwoods to the North West side at least before they start the arena. If you add the costs now for the arena and better transit, I think it’s going to be around 2 billion dollars just for the arena and adding the LRT from Millwoods to the north side. But, I got to say at this point, the money should go towards expanding the LRT, before the arena, until someone can show me how it will work with the current situation we are in right now, i will not change were i stand right now.
ReplyDeleteI certainly think the LRT needs to be developed in conjunction with the downtown core. I've never been, but apparently when you go to the Molson Center in Montreal you can catch a train right beneath the building with never stepping outside. I'd love that in winter!
ReplyDeleteI suppose the city needs to decide where to allocate their finite resources. We won't ever have a public transit system like London England in my time, but I hope they really take into account what all the new traffic this project can generate will do to downtown roads.
We should change are topic now to Edmonton arena and transit now. are transit system will never come close to London’s or even new York’s, in our life time plus are kids life time. But make it more efficient then it all ready is, and then it will be fine. with the younger edmonontions living in the south side there aint many places to catch a train, instead they might have to take a couple busses to even get to one were on the north side u can get to a train on 1 bus it seems until the rest of the track is finished.
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