so b/c the city would not pay OT for cops to go to the mummers parade, a piece of nostalgia that few people care about anymore, they cant handle a WC?
I don't think that's really true at all. Two heavy rail lines -- one of which goes directly from Center City right to the stadiums -- a bunch of commuter rail lines, trolley service, pretty comprehensive bus service. i mean, if you are going to compare the Philly transit servies to NYC or DC or most any Euro city, yeah it'll pale in comparison. But compared to other US cities? No way. Philly has the 6th busiest subway system in the country -- and that's with only 2 lines (all the others with busier systems have more lines). I dunno, I spend a lot of time in Baltimore and wish they had transit remotely as good as Septa. And a lot of the candidate cities in this USA bid have worse transit options than Philly -- LA, Dallas, Baltimore, Tampa, Nashville, Indianapolis. Boston has solid transit, but Foxborough isn't in the city. If anything, I would think Septa is a huge selling point in favor of Philly as a candidate city
Have you seen the crap New Yorkers have to go through to get in and out of the Meadowlands?! It's horrible.
Septa is actually one of the best transit systems in the country, but that's a "tallest midget" kind of comparison because this redneck dominated country doesn't value good transit. They do a lot considering they get virtually no state funding compared to NY, BOS, CHI, LA, SF, or WSH, and those are the only cities you could argue have better transit. The market frankford el is one of the busiest lines in the country, as are the regional rails. Seriously, in which other cities on the list will visiting fans be able to stay in a downtown hotel, enjoy the city, and then be at the stadium in as little as 20 minutes byb subway?
With the understanding that I don't live in the city, what would need to be done other that update the transit lines? Wouldn't an updated mass transit system encourage usage, and the increase in fares pay for upkeep. I think this type of event is exactly what is needed. I don't know how it would work, but I'm sure the Federation would have some sort of funding options available for projects.
for the people saying how wrong I am, recall that the World Series parade completely shut SEPTA down in the city because they couldn't deal with the numbers. I usually drive to work now, but on days when I do take the el (I'm not in the 'burbs, I live two blocks from an el stop), I get stranded on the platform during the morning rush for at least 35 minutes waiting for a train only to have one or two come by and not stop. Of the last 5 times that I've taken it, 4 of them, I've been at the platform by 8:10 and still not at work by 9. I'm getting on at Girard - it should be a 15 minute commute. In my experience, DC, NY, and Boston's transit systems are way way better than ours, and aren't all three cheaper as well?
Well, yeah, 2 million people attended the parade. Soccer could surpass the NFL in popularity by double, Philly could host the final involving the U.S. and you're still not going to come close to that many people coming into the city at the same time. Any World Cup match at the Linc would be no different than a day when the Eagles are playing the same time as the Flyers/Sixers and a concert was being held at the Spectrum. And that's happened enough times it could be considered routine. Compared to the Meadowlands, which is a huge pain in the ass to get to by public transportation, or Foxboro, which is 30 miles south of Boston, our situation is, at worst, on par with any of the other top candidates.
Ironically, the big problem from that was because they encouraged everyone to use Septa -- from what I heard, people who ended up driving into the city that day reported quicker than normal commutes/drives. People were scared into avoiding driving to such a degree that it created the opposite problem over overtaxing public transit instead. It was a ton of people going to the parade as well, far more than would be attending a World Cup match. Anyhow, don't see that as particularly relevant to a World Cup match. The majority of people who would be attending would be staying somewhere in the city and using the Broad Street line to go to the stadium -- and we already know that line can handle events that fill the Linc (and often other events in the sports complex the same day). Even if they set up some sort of festival near the stadium complex, the Broad Street Line can handle it because it traffic would be spread out during the day. Also, they have the capability to add cars and run more frequently on that line for special events. The regional rails are more susceptible to being overloaded (which is what happened during the Phillies parade), but I doubt you'd have abnormally high numbers of visitors staying in the suburbs going to WC games. As I said before, World Cup matches at the Linc wouldn't be significantly different from the Army/Navy game, which is held virtually every year in Philly -- sold out game at the Linc, lots of out of town visitors, heck even security concerns (the President attending is not uncommon). And Philly can pull that off without problems. Congratulations, add in Chicago and San Fran and you'd have named every metro area in the USA that even has an argument for having as good of transit as Philly. Still makes Philly a far cry from "one of the worst mass transit systems in the country". Again, Philly's transit service -- especially having a direct subway line from the city center to the stadium -- is something that works in their favor in terms of a World Cup bid, not against it. I mean, what kind of mass transit exists to get people to Cowboys Stadium, Raymond James Stadium, the Rose Bowl, LA Coliseum, and Arrowhead Stadium -- all of those are just accessible by bus/shuttle at best without any rail lines (and I'm sure that's true of other potential WC sites, they are just ones I've checked). Hell, the Meadowlands Stadium only now just got rail connection and it's a limited service (only game days) and requires transfering in Secaucus to get to (it's not like you can go from NYC).
I drove up from Delaware that morning. No traffic. Parked at the Linc, free parking. Left after the ceremony at CBP, took maybe 10 minutes to leave the complex. Drive home was a breeze. I laughed at the subway mob at Broad and Pattison on my way out.
Jonathan Tannenwald @thegoalkeeper Former Independence Blue Cross CEO Daniel Hilferty to succeed David Cohen as Philadelphia’s World Cup bid chair