ShonTron
Moderator
Centrepoint Mall might be a good choice, except it isn't near any highways.
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If it was to be in Toronto, I'd suggest the parking lot at Yorkdale fronting Highway 401. They could replace it with a giant underground parking lot, it has good highway access, subway access, and GO bus access.
The location is great.. A lot better than Mississauga, Hamilton or Waterloo! At least all of us in the North and East of the GTA can actually get to this arena. A Mississauga location is too far for anyone east of the 400.
Try squishing all the people who take the GO Train or the subway to the ACC to Leafs games right now onto Viva buses.
Not to mention, in a location like 427/7, you will get a much larger spike of trips immediately before and after a game simply because there's nothing to do around there. In contrast, the trip levels around a game at the ACC don't spike as much because a lot of people hang around before and after a game by grabbing dinner or a drink in the surrounding area.
Centrepoint Mall might be a good choice, except it isn't near any highways.
Ugh I think it's a terrible location. If it has to be the northern GTA, put it in Brampton. But I'd rather have it at MCC. MCC could use an arena like that. MCC is an excellent location because it's near the 403, the coming BRT, GO Transit and of course MT's hub. It's got a million people in Peel Region to draw from, plus Oakville and Etobicoke. My second choice would be NYCC.
The Vaughan site has two advantages over any of the sites mentioned in this thread:
1. As I mentioned before, it is owned by people who are either part of the ownership group or are friendly to it and participating in the discussions....it is ready to go from a development point of view;
2. Vaughan is located in the central north-south spine of the region....people in the western suburbs (Brampton and Mississauga) and Eastern Suburbs (Durham Region) have equal access to Vaughan....of course all of York Region is right there.
Mississauga might be a fine place for a rink (although not too many people seem to find the Hershey for hockey games) if you live west of the 400 but wow would it be tough if you lived in Whitby or Pickering. The reverse would also be true.
Except that the majority of the 905 population is in the Western GTA, so Vaughan is out of the way for people from the west and Hamilton. Hamiltonians, Mississaugans, etc, would still rather go downtown than to Vaughan. Vaughan isn't exactly accessible by public transit to the western GTA. I think it makes more sense for a new team to be where the potential fans are, and purely on numbers, it's got to be in the west.
I think the whole Buffalo thing is a red herring. I don't see Hamiltonians being more likely to go to a Mississauga NHL game rather than a Toronto NHL game. The time difference in a commute from Hamilton to Toronto vs. Hamilton to Mississauga (especially MCC) is pretty insignificant, especially compared to Buffalo.
But the games in Toronto (the Leafs) are sold out already....so the comparison is would someone in Hamilton go to a Mississauga game rather than a Buffalo game? I think the answer is yes.
Also, it does not matter that people in Mississauga and Hamilton would rather go downtown than Vaughan...the new team is not going to be downtown so there is no point discussing comparing downtown to Vaughan...the team there is there and will stay there and is sold out.
It still really comes down to the fact that the site discussed is in their hands already...it may not be the absolute best site (I think Woodbine probably is that) but it is pretty good and they control it.