Press Conference: Traffic Woes

[voodoochylde]

Right now.

 

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/sports/football/bombers/Bombers-holding-2-pm-press-conference-over-trans-211420121.html

 

[bigblue85]

One of the reasons why concession lines were so bad was because 25% of the staff couldn't make it to the game on time...makes sense lol

[bigblue85]

60% more people used the bus than anticipated...wow that's crazy, I hope I heard that wrong, that number is staggering

.

[Atomic]

Apparently 8000+ transit riders compared to the expected 5200

[Valderan_CA]

60% more people used the bus than anticipated...wow that's crazy, I hope I heard that wrong, that number is staggering

.

Nope you didn't

 

8500 people USED the buses and they expected 5000

 

We already know at least a couple hundred people wanted to use the buses and didn't when they said **** it and went home instead of going to the game.

 

So probably more than 60% underestimated the number of people who wanted to use the bus.

 

So **** stupid... if you wanted to make sure people were going to use transit make DAMN SURE that the bus experience was excellent on first pass...  I would have approached the first game by trying to make sure I had way too many buses for the number of fans I expected.  After you see how many actually show up for the buses adjust in coming games... but definitely don't try and save money by guessing on the first game

 

How many of those people who tried the bus and found it lacking are not going to give it another chance... probably a huge lost opportunity here

[rebusrankin]

What idiot decided that out of a potential 33,500 people only 5000 would use the bus?

[bigblue85]

Garth looks like a beaten man, I kinda feel sorry for him.

[bigblue85]

What idiot decided that out of a potential 33,500 people only 5000 would use the bus?

 

After telling everyone for 2 years that they SHOULD take the bus and that it'll be the quickest and most convenient way in and out.

[voodoochylde]

What idiot decided that out of a potential 33,500 people only 5000 would use the bus?

 

Should be planning for 1/4 to 1/3 of capacity to take transit.  Overplan not underplan.

[Valderan_CA]

What idiot decided that out of a potential 33,500 people only 5000 would use the bus?

 

No kidding right?  Assume 50% bus use on the first game... lose some money by having extra buses and count the number of people who used the buses.  Take the number who used buses in the first game, increase by 10-20% for the second game (JUST TO ENSURE A GOOD EXPERIENCE) and count the number who took buses again.

 

NOW try to be efficient with the number of buses you have out there

[Valderan_CA]

700 bikes at last night's #Bombers game. Bike coral can hold 400.

 

So basically every single non-car driving to the university method of getting to the stadium was underestimated by a huge %

[Dascow]

What idiot decided that out of a potential 33,500 people only 5000 would use the bus?

 

My thoughts exactly.

 

There's only 6000 parking stalls, and yet they still estimated only 5000 would use the bus...

 

I also don't understand why there was no designated bus lane.  Every single person that I talked to, who took the bus, said the same thing.  Take one of the out going lanes and make it a bus lane.  And yet no one had the forethought...

[bigblue85]

700 bikes at last night's #Bombers game. Bike coral can hold 400.

 

So basically every single non-car driving to the university method of getting to the stadium was underestimated by a huge %

 

The Bike Valet can hold 400, in addition to that they have the bike coral's outside of the stadium that you can lock your bikes up on your own, but only a hundred of those. At least that's how I understood it, I could be wrong though.

[voodoochylde]

There was a guy with a pedal power rickshaw shuttling people down University Crescent while I was heading into the game last night .. wonder how much he ended up making .. lol.

[Raydawg]

We got beat from the pemby to the stadium by an 80 year old man on a motorized rascal scooter... dead heat the whole way but he pulled away at the end. Our bus driver was disappointed by this.

[rebusrankin]

Massive clusterfuck.

[17to85]

You know what, good on winnipeggers for biking and using transit! Too often in this country every one just says "**** it I'll drive myself" They'll get a lot of these issues resolved in time I have no doubt about that.

[JuranBoldenRules]

To me that is the most frustrating part.  People bought into and followed the plan.  A few people going to the wrong spot wouldn't cause what happened yesterday.  Start over, new plan.

[voodoochylde]

To me that is the most frustrating part.  People bought into and followed the plan.  A few people going to the wrong spot wouldn't cause what happened yesterday.  Start over, new plan.

 

Not trying to mitigate the failure in any way shape or form but the sheer number of people who were turned around at University Crescent because they shouldn't have been entering there was unreal.  It caused a slow down getting people through the checkpoint near the stadium.  At one point, we were sitting idle for 10 minutes while some guy in a pickup tried to turn from the far southbound curb lane, across traffic to head back northbound down UC .. we were waiting because someone didn't know he shouldn't have been going that way and it caused the checkpoint to become a bottleneck.

 

A large part of this *IS* educating the various stakeholders.  Another huge problem was grossly underestimating the load on Transit resources.

[Valderan_CA]

To me that is the most frustrating part.  People bought into and followed the plan.  A few people going to the wrong spot wouldn't cause what happened yesterday.  Start over, new plan.

 

 

That's what has me annoyed...  You need to ensure that people continue to buy into alternative transit plans for this stadium location to work... it was incredibly shortsighted for them to not try to ensure they had excess capacity for the first pass.

 

I figure they'll get one more shot before people stop believing that transit is going to be a good way to get to games... they had better not screw up next game.

[The Unknown Poster]

While I agree it sucked.  Im not mad about it.  Hindsight is 20/20.  And this was Pre Season.  I anticipate they will straighten things out.

 

This has certainly generated some good discussion:

 

- Bus Lane (I said the same thing last night as a poster on here, can they designate one of the outbound lanes as a Bus Only lane to the Stadium)?  I assume this requires city and police resources.

- Cadets working the major intersections.  Make the inbound traffic move better and longer rather than the lousy light cycles we have now

- More busses, more regular intervals (although from my area in St Norbert, I passed large groups waiting, then passed a fully loaded bus, then a bus mostly empty)

- Allowing people in more than 90 Mins and providing some sort of pre-game entertainment/activities.  They wont tail gate...so be it.  But have concessions and whatnot going on at the Stadium.  make it an event for people.  This is a UofM issue though.  Im sure the Bombers would love people in 2-3 hours early, eating and drinking and buying merch

- More radically, they could create some more surface lots along Chancellor Matheson, simply gravel lots will do for now.

 

I think things will drastically improve just with more busses and fans realising they cant drive on campus without a pass, decreasing gridlock.

 

Im optimistic.  I still believe its a great location and everything will work out in the end.

[17to85]

Nothing teaches them how to make it flow smoother than doing that first event. I've been to events here in Calgary at some places that I thought would be an absolute nightmare to get out of but they've done stuff there enough that they have people directing traffic and it flows very well. People will learn what they can and can't do as individual drivers as well. It's just brand new for everyone involved and everyone will learn and it will all go towards helping. 

[DR. CFL]

It's called being in so far over your head you don't know whether to stand or squat, burp or fart. Another fine example of attempted damage control as to being proactive and prepared. Nice try Garth !

[17to85]

Well trying to predict what over thirty thousand people are going to do when you've never seen it done is a little bit like herding cats. Hell I can speak from experience here in calgary that one little disruption in the routine in traffic and everyone loses their minds and everything slows down to insane levels. No one has a clue exactly what's going on when they get into this situation and that's how poor decisions are made and traffic becomes frustrating almost entirely because people make bad decisions.

[DR. CFL]

Well as someone pointed out. Do the math. You warned people there is little or no parking on site apart from those with paid in advance privileges so prepare for the significant percentage that you have warned. How does that number translate to approximately 5,000? I believe the saying his hope for the best and prepare for the worst.