Stadium thread

it drives me crazy to think tha marseille fans will no longer be exposed to the mistral and rare but occasionally furious rains they get there. it just breaks my heart.

 

it sux. of course that's just my opinion, but having the stadium IN town just brings so much life. just look what ATT did for that part of 3rd st. in SF. and the life (ok, the bordel, but the joyeux bordel) surrounding gerland. and the matchday electricity bolts through the metro up to saxe-gambetta and continues somewhat to points beyond in three directions.

of course you can't expect new stadiums to be plopped smackdab in the middle of town: the space is just not available, and even if it is, land price is prohibitive. and even if, in the case of lyon, putting the stadium in the new confluence district had been considered, it would have been a bad idea. that's just too central, and besides the logistics problems, there are even better things to do with that kind of real estate than a stadium.

i think the location of the new earthquakes stadium is ideal: a site close enough to be urban but which can use the impetus a stadium brings.

i'm not as furious about the site for lyon's new stadium as i was, because i will still be able to bicycle there (it might take me 30 min instead of 10, but it's actually an awesome ride) but does greater lyon really need to take all that buzz and put it all the way out in décines? they may create an artificial kind of matchday disneyland but that zone will never be really urban. the venissieux site was a great opportunity that should have been rammed down aulas' neck by force... the problem being there was just as much nimbyism there as in décines.

 

actually i would consider lille's stadium to be the most urban. next would be a tossup between bordeaux and lyon and last, nice.

both pierre mauroy and the new bordeaux stadium are about 4km from the "city center", where you really feel like you're downtown, but in hellemmes or villeneuve d'ascq that surround the stadium you're still in town, it's not suburbia. and there's a metro station that serves the place pretty well.

i took a look at the quartier du lac where the new bordeaux park is going up, and although it's no farther as the crow flies it's not 'in town" at all, it's almost the coutryside, and what development intervenes doesn't seem urban, more like villages. i don't know what public transport is planned to the stadium, but right now there must be none, there's nothing there to go to.

décines, where lyon's new stadium is going up, is 6km outside the périph and is definitely outer suburbia... the site itself is green field, but one that was going to get built up sooner rather than later. a tram already goes there, though that's not enough at the moment since the stadium is much bigger. the metro was recently extended about halfway out there in that precise direction... leading me to believe the eventual plan was to serve the stadium, but no such project is in the works, which is the daftest thing in the world. eventually the forces of nature will force that to happen.

the allianz riviera is 8 km from nice, but because of topography there's nothing at all in the intervening area, and the site itself is a periurban dead zone. mass transit is going to be shoddy, but that's the case for nice in general, the place is 50 years behind the times in that department.