Raise the Hammer

It's a pity this debate has come to a standoff between urban and surburban when there are good sites close to transportation routes at Hamilton's core. I see nothing creative about avoiding those benefits to displace area residents in order to encourange peripheral commercial development in their neighbourhoods. In fact, this notion of filtering sports fans through residential districts to turn them into commerical districts simply highlights the main problem with the west harbour location.

Embracing the urban lifestyle means having more people living in the city centre. The west harbour is an ideal location for residential development. Waterfront parks have already encouraged people to invest in housing in that area, and this should be built upon. It is a wonderful location, close to the harbour, James N., Jackson Sq., municipal services, Copps Colliseum, AGH etc. without forcing people to live with numerous others who use those facilities.


Adding a facility that repeatedly floates tens of thousands of temporary visitors into a residential neighbourhood harkens back to the era of suburban growth, when people lived on the city's perimeter and came downtown to access services, then withdraw again. This is a plan that cannot survive developments in the entertainment industry. Many fans have noted the inconveniences of attendance to congested, hard-to-reach stadia and instead stay home to watch on television or other media. If the entertainment is blacked out from the media, growing numbers of fans turn to similar entertainments available from the multitude of alternative sources.

As a taxpayer who will have to pick up whatever part of the tab the TiCats fail to earn at the gate, I want Bob Young, or whoever runs whatever events there, to make money. Few entertainment or sporting enterprises survive on the strength of the die-hard fans alone. In business, fixed costs mean the difference between commercial success and failure can amount to a few hundred or a thousand discretionary attendees. The sports franchise cannot succeed by trying to force its fans through a series of hurdles to reach its arena.

Nor can the stadium serve the franchise or its host municipality in some dislocated crossroads served only by highways. The car traffic itself becomes a hurdle fans will become increasingly reluctant to struggle to overcome. Tailgage parties are a product of such efforts, and however inventive the participants, hotdogs and beer scarfed on hot or cold asphalt eventually lose their charm, when I could eat what I want in my back yard or a distant park & catch the game on media pay-per-view.

As many fans leave games early in an self-defeating effort to "beat" the traffic as linger afterwards waiting for traffic to clear. Most know traffic is a hurdle they will have to endure when deciding whether to attend in the first place. This has been the lesson of Ivor Wynne. If we want an inadequate stadium in the middle of a residential community minimally served by transportation routes, why build a new stadium at all? And look what Ivor Wynne has done for commercial development along Barton & King Streets East, the closest significant transportation transit routes.

The altnerative is to locate the stadium in a central location close to a multitude of transportation options, not just local and regional roads and highways but also local and regional transit routes. This is why Skydome (now Rogers Centre) was built close to Toronto's Union Station and Gardiner Expressway, and why Maple Leaf Gardens followed to the Air Canada Centre. These constructions may not pay for themselves, directly or indirectly, but they have been be located to generate as much return as possible.

Since the construction of Skydome Toronto's surrounding railway lands and beyond have enjoyed significant commercial AND residential condo development, but all of this, including the location of the sporting facilities themselves, has been driven by proximity to major transpotation routes and facilities so that nearby residents can enjoy their urban lifestyles while minimizing disruption caused by large entertainment venues.

Building on downtown Hamilton's immense potential as a significant centre of creative urban living begins with attracting more people to live there and enjoy its many attractions on an ongoing basis, not on pushing residents aside to attract thousands for two or three hours each week.