Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space

"A community’s physical form, rather than its land uses, is its most intrinsic and enduring characteristic." [Katz, EPA] This blog focuses on place and placemaking and all that makes it work--historic preservation, urban design, transportation, asset-based community development, arts & cultural development, commercial district revitalization, tourism & destination development, and quality of life advocacy--along with doses of civic engagement and good governance watchdogging.

Thursday, January 23, 2025

SEPTA to offer free rides after the National Football Conference championship game

Featuring the Washington Commanders and the Philadelphia Eagles.  The only reason I am following this game (besides my interest in teams and the business, management, economics, and societal impacts) is with the first Trump Administration I started reading more sports stories as a way to escape thinking about some of the bad political things happening.  

Going to the University of Michigan, where big team sports are big, and seeing people get in fights when Michigan lost, turned me off big time sports.  As I used to say "whether or not they win or lose, I still have to take my finals.

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In the annals of sports related and mega events transportation demand management as discussed in myriad blog entries, with a summary at the end, SEPTA, the transit agency for Philadelphia, is offering free transit after Sunday's game, but just on the Broad Street Line.

The free rides will be sponsored by the betting website Draft Kings.



Train wrap promoting the Philadelphia Eagles.
Transportation
  • how people travel to events: automobiles vs. transit--if automobiles are the primary way people get to events, then large amounts of parking usually in surface lots needs to be provided, making it difficult to foster ancillary development because of lack of land and poor quality of the visual environment, whereas if transit is the primary mode, then more land around a facility can be developed in ways that leverage the proximity of the arena. 
  • locating stadiums and arenas in high-capacity transit locations: e.g., Madison Square Garden, Barclays Center, and Capital One Arena are served by multiple transit lines, whereas most stadiums and arenas are sited in locations that have single line transit service.
  • transit capacity: subway transit has much greater capacity than light rail, and depending on the schedule, railroad passenger service.  Buses have less capacity too, but depending on the nature of the event, many can be deployed.  Promising high quality service when transit modes lack the throughput and capacity to deliver (e.g., World Cup soccer in Dallas, Super Bowl at Meadowlands Stadium in New Jersey) creates serious problems.
  • transportation demand management requirements as part of the contract/certificate of occupancy/use permit: some teams have TDM plan requirements, in particular the Chicago Cubs, most don't. Some teams provide a great deal of information or support for sustainable mobility, most don't.  Some teams pay for transit services.  At least some of the time (the Washington Wizards and Washington Capitals) sports teams may pay toward service extended beyond normal hours when games go late, most don't (Washington Nationals).  More sports facilities in cities are adding bike valets and/or secure bike parking facilities.
Slide from a study on the Barclays Center arena, Brooklyn, 2013
  • Free transit with ticket:  Events at the Talking Stick Arena (Phoenix), Chase Center (San Francisco), Climate Pledge Arena (Seattle), and sports events at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City include certain types of free transit access for ticket holders. University of Utah and the Climate Pledge Arena have the most extensive agreements.  Through funding from teams and landowners, the transit station serving Pittsburgh baseball and football stadiums is included in the light rail transit system's "free fare zone," called the North Shore Connector. While it wasn't put into practice, in 2014 in negotiations for a new arena, the transit authority in Sacramento proposed providing Sacramento Kings ticket holders with "free transit" in return for certain subsidies. 
  • transportation demand management plans should set targets for each mode, with a focus on trips by sustainable mobility.  This was an element of the contract with the Barclays Center (Brooklyn Nets).
  • transportation demand management plans should require annual surveying on how people get to events to measure the success of shifting trips to sustainable modes: do fans arrive on foot; by bike; car--gas or electric; car pool; taxi/ride hailing; bus; light rail; etc. (This is an element of the contract with the Climate Pledge Arena/Seattle Kraken hockey team.)
Commuting statistics collected by a local business in Portland, Oregon
  • secure bike parking facilities should be required for in-city sports facilities.
  • special marketing initiatives. Some passenger rail lines provide special game day service for sports events and a wide range of marketing programs (Metrolink, Caltrain, New York MTA).  
  • parking taxes to support community improvements: years ago a neighborhood association in the Hill District of Pittsburgh suggested creating a parking tax that would go towards funding local community projects as a mitigation program ("A dollar a car for the Hill," Hill District Consensus Group).   A parking tax should be assessed in any case.  (Similarly, the BART system has an add on fee for airport trips.)

New York City's arenas and to some extent some baseball stadiums, the Capital One Arena in DC, Wrigley Field in Chicago, and Oracle Park in San Francisco are particularly noteworthy examples of sports facilities well connected by transit, where a majority of attendees get to and from the facility on transit.

As mentioned, some sports teams (and other groups) have paid towards transit stations serving their facilities.  Newer agreements include the New England Patriots ("Commuter rail service to Foxboro to start in October," Quincy Patriot-Ledger, and the New York Islanders ("Islanders arena project at Belmont Park now includes new LIRR station," Newsday).

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