Figured it was a good time to revisit some of this blog's transportation-related writings from the last seven years, including a 2011 post on how the lack of transportation might doom a new Rays stadium, wherever it may end up in West/Central Florida:
Floridians aren't used to driving 60 minutes for a baseball experience, and...MLB and Sternberg underestimated Floridians' desires to drive to baseball games.A couple years later, I wrote "why transit is more important than stadium location" for the Rays:
If you handed someone in Connecticut a free Yankees or Red Sox ticket, there's a good chance they'd travel 90 minutes to the game. If you handed someone in Tampa a free Rays ticket, they probably wouldn't drive 30.
While it's all well-and-good to figure out how many people currently live within a 30-minute drive of Carillon vs. a 30-minute drive of Downtown Tampa (hint: it's the same), the region's transportation picture will be drastically different by 2035. And the presence of light rail and/or rapid-transit buses (could) reshape our impressions of a "reasonable" commute.Then, of course, within the last two years, local voters and politicians have dealt a few considerable blows to the Rays' long-term future by killing potential transit expansions. Read here how it impacts baseball.
Finally, here are a few other posts from over the years related to the market's transportation challenges
- Tampa Bay's Transit & Population Density Problems
- Traffic Sucks! So How Much of the Stadium Saga is Hillsborough's Fault?
- Kriseman Thinks St. Pete Won't Seem So Far Once I-275 in Tampa is Fixed|
- Could Rays Piggyback a Rail Referndum?
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Using Mass Transit is a way of living. To which extend Tampa Bay people would change their day to day behaviours (using massively cars) and use Mass Transit instead?
ReplyDeleteAnd by asking that question, I assume TB have an efficient and extended mass transit system, which represent between $5B to $15B investment.
That's unlikely to happen in Florida, unfortunately.
DeleteOnly transportation Rays need to worry about is air flight..... TO Montreal
ReplyDeleteI guarantee they will build a new stadium for the rays...now, the faster they aggree on this, the faster the ligue talks expansion and I could look forward to opening day in the near future.
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